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People learn better when it is fun, playful, and seems to relate to or be useful for things they care about. Doing so is part of teaching it “head on” and teach
by _yb2s 2y ago
People learn better when it is fun, playful, and seems to relate to or be useful for things they care about. Doing so is part of teaching it “head on” and teaching it well.
I’ve actually been teaching my 2nd grade son Math recently though Minecraft- things like using euclidean coordinates, triangulating positions, etc. we’re both having fun and he’s learning valuable ideas.
You seem to have a dry, joyless, and uninspired view of math and how it should be taught. Traditional math education has done an impressive job of turning something incredibly fun and useful into something that seems stodgy, dry, and pointless.
I’ve always had a fun playful view of math that I learned from my own parents and mentors, and I think that is what has led me to continue studying and using math to solve real world scientific problems as an adult.
- 71bw 2y agoThe "quit having fun" meme immediately springs to mind[1]. I, personally, know damn well that if this was around when I was at this level of mathematics I'd probably enjoy the field a bit more instead of growing a life-long hate and fear of math [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/quit-having-fun https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/quit-having-fun
- dh2022 2y agoRe: "I’ve actually been teaching my 2nd grade son Math" - it seems to me you proved the parent poster's point: this type of scientific communication is better suited for middle-school audience than university audience. A blog post seems more appropriate than posting it on arxiv.com with full academic credentials...
- _yb2s 2y agoMath education techniques are a legitimate field of research worthy of publication. Science education is an academic field that publishes just like any other. Arxiv is a preprint server and not a journal - they don’t discriminate based on “impact” or interest to a certain audience. If you want that, read a journal that meets your desired criteria. It is perfectly reasonable to publish methods for educating children, or even results intended for an audience of children in Arxiv. A key purpose of a preprint server is to circumvent gatekeeping.
- itishappy 2y agoWhy? Because it's a "cheaper" medium? What's inappropriate about exposing middle-schoolers to approachable academic literature?
- _yb2s 2y agoAbsolutely- there is no reason children can’t and shouldn’t learn science by participating as it is done by real scientists- reading and even writing and publishing their own papers. I am an academic PI and am involved within teaching science by directly involving undergrads and even school aged children in real research, and having them write and publish their own papers as primary author. The idea of gatekeeping science as not for children is awful in my opinion. Moreover, just because Minecraft is a video game doesn’t mean it has no place in real scientific research- it is a virtual world with a modular plugin system that can allow a researcher to create and interact with simulations of almost any type of system imaginable. People have executed realistic physics experiments, designed working cpus, etc in it. I think there is a lot of potential for really significant research within it.