54
votes
Accepted
Student: Why not use a calculator?
To the student who wants to know why he or she should learn addition/multiplication/other mathy thing when they can use a calculator or computer:
It is a matter of independence. You will not always ...
- 891
42
votes
Accepted
Teaching by Slides, Yes or No?
First, a little background. I switched to slides a few years ago when teaching a 3rd year course at my university. Because of how teaching works at my university, this course is one of the first ...
- 3,558
38
votes
Accepted
How to solve the problem of Wolfram Alpha?
First of all, I believe this question is quite similar to the question "How to give homework for integration technique?". I avoid the temptation of repeating my answer for that question. Instead, I ...
- 4,306
30
votes
Why do we teach the Rational Root Theorem? (high school algebra 2)
I would say the standard implementations of the Rational Root Theorem (make a huge list for the sake of making the huge list) indeed feel like a complete waste of time. However, the theorem can ...
- 19.1k
28
votes
Student: Why not use a calculator?
I think the issue fundamentally is about a student's comfort with symbols and notation. A student who relies on a calculator thinks of it as a magical oracle that returns an answer to the question ...
- 2,906
27
votes
How to solve the problem of Wolfram Alpha?
Imagine you had to look up every word you wanted to use, because you had a poor vocabulary. This would get old, very quickly.
The trouble is, many people don't have a genuine need to internalize ...
- 5,887
24
votes
Fourier Animation
Wikipedia always has some great animations, often by User:LucasVB or User:Cmglee.
A few Fourier transform–related ones:
Approximating a square wave with a Fourier transform
(more of these for other ...
- 341
23
votes
How shall we teach math online?
Instructor at University of Washington here - we were one of the early closures, so I feel like we're starting to get the hang of it. Here's what I'm using:
Zoom: Zoom is similar to Skype, with ...
- 1,774
19
votes
Student: Why not use a calculator?
The reason we teach strategies for multi-digit operations is (in a large part) because students are learning to manipulate the symbol system we use to represent numbers, and they need to see that ...
- 7,375
17
votes
Student: Why not use a calculator?
People who ask why calculators don't resolve the (very low-level) issues well enough are quite accurate in their skepticism, I think, which makes it hard to present an "absolutist" defense of ...
- 13.4k
17
votes
How shall we teach math online?
Already put two comments but ideas keep coming to me so I'll just package them here. Keep in mind I'm not an educator, I'm just trying to think of practical solutions to the problem as a whole.
...
- 271
16
votes
Accepted
Software to create video tutorial of mathematics topics
I've created roughly 40 videos for an online course and a flipped course in biology, so I've got some experience making videos. I researched the maker of your videos, and he deliberately does NOT ...
- 1,494
15
votes
Accepted
What is a free and simple 3D plot software for students?
In terms of free software, a large portion of the available choices are based on a Gnuplot backend; I however would probably not recommend directly using Gnuplot. Instead, your choices are mostly ...
- 2,671
15
votes
What is a free and simple 3D plot software for students?
For undergraduate level, Gnu Octave is probably what you want. It is open source, cross-platform, and syntax-compatible with MATLAB. It's very useful for 2D and 3D plotting and for numeric linear ...
- 471
15
votes
Making standards for "showing work" explicitly clear to students
One technique which is fairly obvious, but (at least for some of us) surprisingly difficult to implement consistently, is to just model for them in class what you expect them to write on their own. ...
- 6,210
15
votes
A study comparing effects of calculator usage on later math skills?
Brief Remarks: It is difficult to find longitudinal studies on calculator use as specified by the OP. One of the reasons for this is that tracking students from, e.g., high school till college is ...
- 18.1k
15
votes
Accepted
How and when should I introduce my students to WolframAlpha?
Never.
I think that in 2014 we can teach students to use opensource projects: Sage does a very good job: Sage Notebook is couple times better than Wolfram Alpha since you can use it with no ...
- 382
15
votes
Helping a reluctant 12 year old
The best thing you can do for your daughter is to talk to her and especially have her talk back to you. You noted that she doesn't like doing exercises. If you want her to like math, and she doesn't ...
- 7,375
15
votes
How shall we teach math online?
The case for WeBWorK
tl;dr - use WebWork as an easy way of giving students as much practice solving problems as they can handle. Learn by doing lots of problems with a tight feedback loop. It ...
- 171
14
votes
Experiences with online courses, specially MOOC?
A year after this question was asked, the bloom is definitely off the MOOC rose. The primary finding is that the majority of people who finish one already possess a prior bachelor's degree; offering ...
- 20.6k
14
votes
Teaching by Slides, Yes or No?
I know a lot of people use slides to teach, but I cannot imagine doing so myself. Here's why:
Slides are boring. It's vital to good teaching to keep the students interested in what's happening, and ...
- 7,930
13
votes
What is a free and simple 3D plot software for students?
You might want to look into Geogebra. The current beta version (Geogebra 5 Beta) has a 3D mode and allows you to create 3D plots of a function of the form f(x,y) and a graphical interface for ...
- 16.2k
13
votes
Student: Why not use a calculator?
All of math is a logical progression. One should master a type of calculation before turning it over to a calculator or computer.
Can I multiply 4386x934754 by hand? Of course I can. And it was ...
12
votes
Accepted
Teaching logic with a proof assistant
I'm very happy to see this discussion here, because all of you are saying exactly the things that led to the project I and my collaborator (Ken Monks, Univ. Scranton) are working on, Lurch. It's free,...
- 236
12
votes
Accepted
Can GAP/Magma be helpful for a first abstract algebra course?
I TA'd a first course in abstract algebra during my senior year of undergrad. The professor wanted a computational flavor to the course, so we introduced Magma right off the bat. We wanted to allow ...
- 1,665
12
votes
How to solve the problem of Wolfram Alpha?
It doesn't exactly solve the problem, but one way to make positive use of Wolfram would be to use some Wolfram Demonstration Projects.
There are some that attempt to gamify calculus calculation ...
- 5,540
12
votes
How shall we teach math online?
I gave a presentation to my department about this today. Like you, as I see in a comment, I am also at a CUNY math department. I haven't done all-online classes before, but I've used Blackboard ...
- 20.6k
12
votes
Why do we teach the Rational Root Theorem? (high school algebra 2)
I think an important learning outcome of this part of high school Algebra 2 (theory of polynomials) is developing mathematical capacity to juggle several disparate abstract tools all at once, similar ...
- 7,575
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