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> The real tragedy is that pure mathematics is hidden from students Physicists make a similar complaint. "Why would anyone want to study physics, when kids ar
by mncharity 9y ago
> The real tragedy is that pure mathematics is hidden from students
Physicists make a similar complaint. "Why would anyone want to study physics, when kids are not shown any interesting physics?"
Chemistry education research characterizes pre-college chemistry education content as incoherent, leaving both students and teachers confused and deeply steeped in misconceptions.
Biology education... starts by deemphasizing it's core organizational principle, and goes downhill from there.
> The real tragedy
Here's another. "It has been more than a decade since science education research surprised us with how badly science education was failing students. But even now, how often are students told? Instead, K-13, students have been left to think their confusion and cluelessness, are strictly their own fault, their own failing. Left to think science is boring. They are not told that these are known defects of the wretched content we're giving them. Fixing the content is hard. But telling them isn't. At what point does our failing to notify them become an ethical failure?"
> pure maths was way more fun, interesting, and applicable to my life [as a software engineer]
It can be fun to create ELI5-ish stories about math in everyday life. Math as recognizing patterns. So for instance, moving one way on a "circular" path, you come back around to the same position. As with boardgames, clocks, parking, etc. Missed doing something at lunch today... perhaps try lunch tomorrow. Missed a parking space and can't back up... perhaps drive around the block. Category theory for kids.
- dredmorbius 9y agoCould you give counterexamples of good instruction or grounding in these fields: physics, chemistry, biology? Or maybe a clearer description of what constitutes the good and bad approaches? What are the core organising principles, in your view, of biology (and physics and chemistry, if you can state them)? It's an area of general interest to me.
- empath75 9y agoThe core organizing principle of biology is evolution and natural selection.
- dredmorbius 9y agoAny roles for metabolism and/or genetics in there?
- empath75 9y agoSure, but everything is a consequence of natural selection. If you don't teach that, you aren't teaching biology.
- dredmorbius 9y agoI'd argue that the set is intrinsically related. Variation. Metabolic efficiency (to expressed effect). Selection. Inheritance (via genetics). Take away any one part, you lose the whole. No variation -- nothing on which to select. No metabolic efficiency (and behavioural effect) -- no criterion for selection or efficiency. No selection -- no bound on behaviour or constraint on metabolic input or expressed behaviour. No inheritence -- any variation or selection lacks survivability to the next generation.
- Infernal 9y agoI'm flabbergasted. I just learned more about biology than I have in something like 20 years of state schooling. Genuinely, thank you so much for your comment.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dredmorbius 9y agoWell gosh. Thanks :)
- xiaoma 9y agoWhy only natural selection instead of both natural selection and sexual selection?
- yequalsx 9y agoIt's long but well worth watching if you have any interest in science education. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI
- dredmorbius 9y agoI'd very much appreciate if you could give some sense of what specific highlights or benefits I might expect to gain from an 80 minute time investment? There's an 18 minute cut from the original lecture, I'm thinking of starting with that. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=rvw68sLlfF8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=rvw68sLlfF8 Possibly related: the Scholastic Method -- origin of the lecture method of education. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism#Scholastic_method https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism#Scholastic_met... Dates from a time when books were expensive but time was relatively cheap. I also find the concept of lectio, meditatio, quaestio (vetted!), and disputationes to be interesting, perhaps an ideal model for the article / discussion online format. The better for having everyone actually listen to, and think over TFA.
- yequalsx 9y agoI teach mathematics at a community college. The lecture resonated with me and I found it captivating. Here is a synopsis based off of memory: Masur discovered that there is something called the Force Concepts Quiz. He learned that students of physics across the nation did very poorly on the test. The test asks basic questions. For instance, a large truck and a small car collide head on. Which vehicle has more force imparted on it? This type of question requires no computations. It's easy if you really understand the concepts and hard otherwise. He teaches at Harvard and thought his students would do well. They didn't. They did terribly. What he found is that regardless of the quality of the teacher (note he is a very good lecturer), type of class, or size of class students universally did bad. It didn't matter the quality of the institution either. Conclusion, we are teaching physics wrong. He found that students who could do well on the Force Concepts Quiz could do tedious calculations and mastered that part of the course. Students who could master the calculus computations may or may not be able to pass the Force Concepts Quiz. Hence he decided to concentrate more on concepts and less on calculations. He does not lecture in the classroom. In my own experience I've found similar things hold in mathematics. For instance, I ask College Algebra II students to give me an example of an equation that has no solution. Most can't do it even though 1=2 is a simple example of such an equation.
- empath75 9y agoThe numberphile channel on YouTube is almost nothing but pure math and number theory and is pretty popular.