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> it's drivel, no better than "find the perimeter given a=5, b=6." Not only no better, but actually worse - if you add a word problem around the problem that d

> it's drivel, no better than "find the perimeter given a=5, b=6." Not only no better, but actually worse - if you add a word problem around the problem that doesn't fundamentally add anything or make the problem easier to understand [0] all you've added is another layer of text to parse through. [0] Sometimes it can be helpful. Adding a relevant layer of physicality to help reason about the problem can be nice, especially in calculus.

netizen-936824 5y ago
Adding the extra physical descriptions to calculus actually helped me better understand what the equations meant and represented. Definitely beneficial in some scenarios to some people
- Shared404 5y ago
  Same here - that experience is why I aded that exception. Until Calculus/Physics though, I don't think there's much added benefit - except maybe an occasional "here's how algebra helps while grocery shopping".
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    One other thing I find super helpful is understanding exponential growth and decay. That gets used in quite a few places besides just the sciences
  - jacobr1 5y ago
    When I tutored elementary kids, physical examples really helped with fractions.
    - Shared404 5y ago
      That makes sense. Seems reasonable that as you introduce new concepts having a physical equivalent would make it easier.
Jarwain 5y ago
I think that act of translation is pretty helpful; it's not often irl math is presented nicely, but rather as a scenario that one has to solve. Translating a scenario into a math problem is practice for that, I think. To try and inspire people, though, maybe word problems could be written to be more relevant
- after_care 5y ago
  I always found the context in which I’m solving a word problem to be the most critical piece to accurately solving it —- and the reason they aren’t that great. Oh, I’m taking a test it over polynomial expressions —- I already know how I’m going to solve whatever word problems I run across.
fatnoah 5y ago
> [0] Sometimes it can be helpful. Adding a relevant layer of physicality to help reason about the problem can be nice, especially in calculus. I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I had tremendous difficulty with Calculus in High School. Everything was introduced via mathematical derivation an proof. I'd gone over halfway through the year with Cs and Ds and, even though it was almost 30 years ago, I remember the moment it clicked. I was sitting the library working on some problem about pools draining and "OMG, it's just about how fast things are changing" popped into my head. That made derivatives, area under a curve, and all of those things make sense to me. Ironically, I ended up being the only person in my class to get a 5 on the AP test and then ended up as a EE major, which was very calculus heavy.
huetius 5y ago
This rings true to me. I was only able to get an intuition for calculus when I was able to conceive of it in geometric terms. I later learned that this was how Newton originally derived it. This helped me to “trust” it in more advanced contexts where geometric intuition becomes exceedingly difficult.

netizen-936824 5y ago

Adding the extra physical descriptions to calculus actually helped me better understand what the equations meant and represented. Definitely beneficial in some scenarios to some people

Shared404 5y ago
Same here - that experience is why I aded that exception. Until Calculus/Physics though, I don't think there's much added benefit - except maybe an occasional "here's how algebra helps while grocery shopping".
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  One other thing I find super helpful is understanding exponential growth and decay. That gets used in quite a few places besides just the sciences
- jacobr1 5y ago
  When I tutored elementary kids, physical examples really helped with fractions.
  - Shared404 5y ago
    That makes sense. Seems reasonable that as you introduce new concepts having a physical equivalent would make it easier.

Jarwain 5y ago

I think that act of translation is pretty helpful; it's not often irl math is presented nicely, but rather as a scenario that one has to solve. Translating a scenario into a math problem is practice for that, I think. To try and inspire people, though, maybe word problems could be written to be more relevant

after_care 5y ago
I always found the context in which I’m solving a word problem to be the most critical piece to accurately solving it —- and the reason they aren’t that great. Oh, I’m taking a test it over polynomial expressions —- I already know how I’m going to solve whatever word problems I run across.

fatnoah 5y ago

> [0] Sometimes it can be helpful. Adding a relevant layer of physicality to help reason about the problem can be nice, especially in calculus. I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I had tremendous difficulty with Calculus in High School. Everything was introduced via mathematical derivation an proof. I'd gone over halfway through the year with Cs and Ds and, even though it was almost 30 years ago, I remember the moment it clicked. I was sitting the library working on some problem about pools draining and "OMG, it's just about how fast things are changing" popped into my head. That made derivatives, area under a curve, and all of those things make sense to me. Ironically, I ended up being the only person in my class to get a 5 on the AP test and then ended up as a EE major, which was very calculus heavy.

huetius 5y ago

This rings true to me. I was only able to get an intuition for calculus when I was able to conceive of it in geometric terms. I later learned that this was how Newton originally derived it. This helped me to “trust” it in more advanced contexts where geometric intuition becomes exceedingly difficult.