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I'm going to stop you there. Not everyone can learn though wrote memorization. People learn in different ways. Second, do you remember every proof and formula (

I'm going to stop you there. Not everyone can learn though wrote memorization. People learn in different ways. Second, do you remember every proof and formula (excluding ones used reguarly)? We are taught to understand and apply these things, not to spend 90 percent of our time learning them for one or two classes.

wtallis 16y ago
"Not everyone can learn though rote memorization. People learn in different ways." That doesn't mean that current mathematics teaching methods take that in to account. Try looking in a current middle-school or high-school math textbook. I think you'll be surprised, and disappointed. When I was learning high-school level math, I found that the quality and usefulness of a math textbook was inversely proportional to the probability of the public schools using it (and, perhaps not too coincidentally, the colorfulness of the textbook). In recent years, my local schools tried to get away from a rote curriculum by replacing it with a curriculum that basically eschewed teaching, instead relying on "guided discovery" or something like that. It didn't help the standardized test scores or the students' mastery of what they were supposed to learn.
- compuguy 16y ago
  Actually I wasn't thinking in that extreme of fashion. It helps to allow the user of formula sheets. That would be a good first step in the right direction.
drivebyacct2 16y ago
I'm not encouraging what I listed above. Quite the contrary, I find it to be awful. I don't learn through memorization. I learn programming well, chemistry well, math well. I can't remember or "learn" history for the life of me. At best, I might retain major concepts if I can relate them to me very personally, but even then it's usually very vague. My comment was meant as critical not as praise for the current system. I think it's horribly ineffective as you note
- compuguy 16y ago
  Sorry for the misunderstanding...

wtallis 16y ago

"Not everyone can learn though rote memorization. People learn in different ways." That doesn't mean that current mathematics teaching methods take that in to account. Try looking in a current middle-school or high-school math textbook. I think you'll be surprised, and disappointed. When I was learning high-school level math, I found that the quality and usefulness of a math textbook was inversely proportional to the probability of the public schools using it (and, perhaps not too coincidentally, the colorfulness of the textbook). In recent years, my local schools tried to get away from a rote curriculum by replacing it with a curriculum that basically eschewed teaching, instead relying on "guided discovery" or something like that. It didn't help the standardized test scores or the students' mastery of what they were supposed to learn.

compuguy 16y ago
Actually I wasn't thinking in that extreme of fashion. It helps to allow the user of formula sheets. That would be a good first step in the right direction.

drivebyacct2 16y ago

I'm not encouraging what I listed above. Quite the contrary, I find it to be awful. I don't learn through memorization. I learn programming well, chemistry well, math well. I can't remember or "learn" history for the life of me. At best, I might retain major concepts if I can relate them to me very personally, but even then it's usually very vague. My comment was meant as critical not as praise for the current system. I think it's horribly ineffective as you note

compuguy 16y ago
Sorry for the misunderstanding...