Standardisation of Maths Teaching: 5*3 != 3*5 ?

[Gerald H]

Multiplication is commutative?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopi...ernet.html

[Geoff Quickfall]

As a marker of exams and lab instructor at university I was always amazed at how badly an exam question may be written; how vague the English language can be and how an intelligent student can be mislead by said question.

Many times I stood at the front of the class, pointed to a question and substituted a word in the question for a synonym.

Ex). Idea versus concept.

The math question has two answers and should be written as such: list the two possible additive ways to produce the correct result. That is, unless it was stressed in class that there are always two methods to arrive at the same result using the additive method (see Curta).

As an undergrad I remember being told in a botany class the ten reasons a rose is a rose. The prof explained in detail in a specific order; descending importance (unbeknownst to me). Come midterm time the following question was asked and assigned 5 marks: list 5 reasons a rose is a rose. I responded with the bottom (least important) 5 reasons and was assigned a 2/5.

A Teaching assistant explained the politics and game involved in university over beer and Star Trek (TOS). Improved my GPA immensely.

Geoff

[Harald]

One thing to keep in mind is that most teachers are not interesed in teaching students to think for them selves and to gain an understanding of the subject, they mearly try and give them recipies to find solutions to know problems.
As soon as a student thinks outside the box and shows some inteligence he becomes a nuisance.

I am confronted with people who can not find solutions to new problems quite regulary in my job as an engineer, and I am sure it is due to the way they were tought at school / university.

[Han]

The media would have us believe that the issue here is in the "standards" when the reality is that (at least in the US) a $25K job will not attract the most competent teachers.

[Csaba Tizedes]

(10-28-2015 05:09 PM)Geoff Quickfall Wrote:  at university I was always amazed at how badly an exam question may be written

My story:
I was a mechanical engineer student and we was on a Control Theory practice (measurement). The topic was "fitting functions - regression".

The teacher asks us what kind of function we can fit onto two points? All people says "linear". The teacher: "...and onto three points?" Silence, nobody says... Then I said: "Miss, a GOOD engineer can fit ANY kind of function onto THREE points..."


Csaba

[Vtile]

(10-29-2015 12:15 PM)Csaba Tizedes Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 05:09 PM)Geoff Quickfall Wrote:  at university I was always amazed at how badly an exam question may be written

My story:
I was a mechanical engineer student and we was on a Control Theory practice (measurement). The topic was "fitting functions - regression".

The teacher asks us what kind of function we can fit onto two points? All people says "linear". The teacher: "...and onto three points?" Silence, nobody says... Then I said: "Miss, a GOOD engineer can fit ANY kind of function onto THREE points..."


Csaba

Isn't that the case with the two points also..
I must agree that there is just too much teachers who "preach for the bread" not for the passion of teaching and giving students the broader view of the subject in hand at the form of "side stories" even if the resources wouldn't allow the deeper teaching of the subject. I also have this head between my ears which always screams "But why?" and 95% of times I do not get the answer, which place the information given to map "Unsorted" and they tend to bury there for good as other "unsorted" stuff is piled top of it coupled with heavily visual memory over the conceptual makes many subjects involving maths not really a favorite of mine.

Also the exam questions, *meh*.

I think this is a universal problem or challenge as it is said these days.