9 Strategies for Motivating (HIGH SCHOOL) Students in Mathematics

[Garth Wilson]

Quote:Perhaps your idea of "math" is as a collection of applied (typically brain-dead, mechanical) calculations.

Not at all. In fact, that's part of what's wrong with math education. It almost invariably teaches students to throw the numbers into the chute and turn the crank, and they don't have to understand what makes it work or what the real applications are as long as they can remember the crank long enough to pass the test.

There was an editorial about this in one of the electronics industry magazines years ago. It said the industry is telling academia, "You're not giving us the kind of engineers we need. We need ones who can do this, this, and this..." and academia responds, "Look, you know your field, and we know education. Leave the education to us, 'kay?", so the problem persists. It was a constant frustration for me in the years when I was hiring technicians and engineers. Some of them could throw around the matrices and Greek letters better than I, but there was a severe disconnect between that and understanding circuits. Arithmetic and calculations are meaningless without understanding.