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Uhm, no - asking students to prove theorems and lemmas and answer all the "whys", instead of just applying a set of problem solving rules was one of the main re
by golergka 8y ago
Uhm, no - asking students to prove theorems and lemmas and answer all the "whys", instead of just applying a set of problem solving rules was one of the main reasons why the high school I went to was so good at math education. Our physics teacher constantly told us not to memorize the formulas, but to understand the logic behind them so we could just figure them out if we needed them. It's a better way to learn math and physics indeed, but a good teacher can do it too.
- criddell 8y agoI think the order related subjects are taught isn't always the best. Once I learned calculus, a lot of things I memorized in physics stopped being something I had to remember. Velocity is just dt/dt. Acceleration is just dv/dt. Give me a graph of velocities and I can find the distance traveled by integrating. This became especially apparent during my first year of university where I took a macro economics course. Because I had already had a bit of calculus, so many of the mathematical problems in that course were almost trivial. Friends that didn't have any calculus found the course a lot more difficult because they had to memorize so many equations. I have kids now and I watch them memorizing things and I can't help but think that's a waste of time. Remembering what the terms in the quadratic equation isn't nearly as important as remembering what the uses of the quadratic equation are. When do you deploy it? What does it give you? That's how I wish it was taught.
- ummonk 8y agoEveryone should be well-versed in linear algebra and calculus before learning quantitative physics, economics, etc. It just makes the subjects so much easier.