4 ms·

This does sound ridiculous. What I saw going through a top engineering school which was also a state school is that they had to accept students from all parts

This does sound ridiculous. What I saw going through a top engineering school which was also a state school is that they had to accept students from all parts of the state. Many of those students were unprepared and flunked out or changed to business majors. What would have been better is if those students could have instead gone to a community college prior to the engineering school to level up. Or, even better, if the government run schools they went to actually prepared them properly for a rigorous program. These were not stupid students - they were just put in a bad situation by the poorly run schools. The 'equity' approach to making things better just holds everyone back.

necovek 5y ago
In my school, pure math instructors were dead set on keeping the instruction to what works for them. I think the problem is the elitist mindset that if they are good at math, they are good at everything else or simply "smart". There is definitely value in delineating different directions and preparing students differently (eg. a CS course for academic purposes should be different from a general purpose one, and different again from an industry focused one). But what was most evident is their lack of empathy or foresight that not everybody gets motivated by the same things or that not everybody learns in the same way (iow, they are pretty dumb as opposed to smart, which is supported by the article). I've had the fortune that I do have a mind that works in the way they expect, so a pretty hard program (with over 50% dropout rate in the first year) was easy for me, but because there was no differentiation, I became a slacker, stopped attending classes and mostly got through on said wits by preparing for exams a week in advance at most. The proposal, as you mention, will only cater to those who are struggling to take in pure, abstract approach to math instruction. And yes, it might not empower those compatible with the abstract mindset, but they are independent problems, and we need solutions for both. I'd prefer it if universities actually ran differently taught courses that score the same, and let students make their own choice but also offer intro tests to see if you are fit for one or the other (or the third one).

necovek 5y ago

In my school, pure math instructors were dead set on keeping the instruction to what works for them. I think the problem is the elitist mindset that if they are good at math, they are good at everything else or simply "smart". There is definitely value in delineating different directions and preparing students differently (eg. a CS course for academic purposes should be different from a general purpose one, and different again from an industry focused one). But what was most evident is their lack of empathy or foresight that not everybody gets motivated by the same things or that not everybody learns in the same way (iow, they are pretty dumb as opposed to smart, which is supported by the article). I've had the fortune that I do have a mind that works in the way they expect, so a pretty hard program (with over 50% dropout rate in the first year) was easy for me, but because there was no differentiation, I became a slacker, stopped attending classes and mostly got through on said wits by preparing for exams a week in advance at most. The proposal, as you mention, will only cater to those who are struggling to take in pure, abstract approach to math instruction. And yes, it might not empower those compatible with the abstract mindset, but they are independent problems, and we need solutions for both. I'd prefer it if universities actually ran differently taught courses that score the same, and let students make their own choice but also offer intro tests to see if you are fit for one or the other (or the third one).