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Posted on Wednesday, 31 August 2011

Seriously … why don’t math classes use computers? Excel, simple Python scripts, Mathematica / Sage, everything beyond the TI-83. Kids could be creating totally sweet visuals instead of cribbing formulae. And thinking instead of copying.

I can say from my experience teaching that giving kids some real data and having them muck around with it for an hour, was better than an hour of my lectures. (And guess what, they understood lecture better after they’d looked at real data.)

Why, why, why, why, why is maths education so senselessly, wretchedly bad?

42 notes

  1. ostension reblogged this from isomorphismes and added:
    wonder the same thing. It’s embarrassing...something as instrumental as
  2. racusophy reblogged this from isomorphismes
  3. questionall reblogged this from isomorphismes
  4. davidsca reblogged this from isomorphismes and added:
    Some of my deepest mathematical realizations have come from analyzing data, and selecting the right tool from my...
  5. thisismic reblogged this from weekendwildfire
  6. lembarrasduchoix reblogged this from isomorphismes and added:
    THIS. IS. SO. BRILLIANT. I fucking love you, Wolfram. I started using WolframAlpha for all my calc homework this year...
  7. weekendwildfire reblogged this from isomorphismes and added:
    went to two schools specialized in science and mathematics. I remember being in middle school and high school
  8. quantummodulus reblogged this from isomorphismes and added:
    YES. We need to start making major paradigm changes now, and stop making...seem like a...
  9. paradiseofrave reblogged this from isomorphismes
  10. lembarrasduchoix said: Whole-heartedly agree. I think I only excel in maths because I’m such a visual person. It’s no wonder those who are not do not succeed.
  11. whtvrhaterz reblogged this from cab1729
  12. divide-by-0 reblogged this from isomorphismes
  13. moreartlessmatter reblogged this from visionsofsplendor
  14. visionsofsplendor reblogged this from isomorphismes and added:
    teacher actually did things like this all...time. We had our class in the computer science...
  15. moreartlessmatter said: My grade 12 math teacher actually did things like this all the time. We had our class in the computer science lab so he used the computers as much as possible to show us simulations. He was one of the best teacher I’ve ever had.
  16. cab1729 reblogged this from isomorphismes
  17. isomorphismes posted this