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On October 19 2016 16:22 Seuss wrote:
I'm old fashioned and think understanding the reasons behind things is important. Learning to be methodical and fastidious is also super important in anything STEM, and proofs happen to be exercises in being methodical and fastidious.
They're a royal pain in the butt, and I absolutely hated proofs because writing every goddamn step was such a waste of time, except I probably wouldn't be as good a software engineer as I am now without that experience.
If there's a better way to teach those skills such that proofs can be saved for later, then awesome, do that instead.
Most of the time you not learning the steps, you memorizing what to put where to get the marks.
Being methodical is important and you can do that using application based examples. I'd love if you walked into a module and they gave you a problem you couldn't solve but as an end goal. Then throughout the course you'd get the tools you need piece by piece to tackle that problem. That is being methodical in a way that you actually need and is useful to you later as a person. It's not just learning a proof for the sake of a proof or learning maths for the sake of maths. It's learning a contextual skillset that you can apply to things afterwards.
An example in my mind is that I never really grasped integration well before fluid dynamics. I mean I was good at maths and could solve abstract integration questions in a maths paper but actually understanding what it is or how to apply it just wasn't a thing. Come Fluid dynamics when you actually dealing with problem solving that requires using these concepts in a real way and suddenly stuff starts clicking into place. Why did I have to wait 8 years after starting calc to actually see what it means to use it in a non-abstract mathematics way?
I'm sure you understand what I mean from engineering pov where so much of what you do at Uni is essentially problem solving(At least Chem was like that). It's all about how to break down complex problems into smaller manageable bits. That's such an important and powerful skill to have. Why isn't that kind of thing being properly explored earlier? Shouldn't maths at school be looking at to expand people in that way? In fact a lot of my thermodynamics/fluid dynamics/mass transfer/physics etc. used to start with problem out of our scope and slowly show how to build through it so we always knew where the end point was. Never working just for the sake of answering a random non-applicable question in a test paper. Which was all we did in maths...
edit: I just don't believe pure maths on it's own in isolation is very intelligent way of teaching those set of skills. All it does is dissuade a lot of people to learn more and isn't very useful to people even within STEM in that form. I know none of the maths we actually did in maths had any relevance to what we needed to do in Chem Eng.
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On October 19 2016 16:22 Seuss wrote:
I'm old fashioned and think understanding the reasons behind things is important. Learning to be methodical and fastidious is also super important in anything STEM, and proofs happen to be exercises in being methodical and fastidious.
They're a royal pain in the butt, and I absolutely hated proofs because writing every goddamn step was such a waste of time, except I probably wouldn't be as good a software engineer as I am now without that experience.
If there's a better way to teach those skills such that proofs can be saved for later, then awesome, do that instead.
I think it's important too, and I enjoyed that kind of thing.
I just think way too much of my education was sitting down a day copying a proof line for line from a guy who didn't even look back I to the lecture hall till he finished his four page proof and said "and that folks is a Fourier transform." Meanwhile 99% of the room missed half the proof and is like "what is the point of this arcane bullshit?"
I think proofs are fantastic and important to understanding but I think you should understand why you need the operation and how to do it with concrete examples first.
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My education in proofs was way different from you guys. While proofs were demonstrated, I spent more time on "here's where you start, here's where you need to get, have at it" exercises than I did mindlessly copying proofs. A big part of that may be that I learned proofs as a part of algebra and geometry, long before calculus, where things (while still abstract) are a little less arcane.
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On October 19 2016 23:17 Seuss wrote:
My education in proofs was way different from you guys. While proofs were demonstrated, I spent more time on "here's where you start, here's where you need to get, have at it" exercises than I did mindlessly copying proofs. A big part of that may be that I learned proofs as a part of algebra and geometry, long before calculus, where things (while still abstract) are a little less arcane.
Our dad did an excellent job making proofs exciting and accessible. He was always genuinely interested in them and would do things like pause for a moment and then burst out saying "this is the cool part!" right where logic would do a clever thing. His enthusiam for math in general was infectious, honestly there was not a math teacher I ever liked more than our Dad.
Maybe it's a bit less what you teach and more how you teach it. And teachers in schools both have their hands tied and are forced to go through graduate certification programs that are mostly useless. I remember my education major classmates complaining that, while our college had an excellent program, they would still be forced afterwards to go to a most likely crappier graduate program. It's a problem in the US alongside the lack of tax dollars, low pay, and everything else that is broken.
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On October 20 2016 00:30 phyvo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2016 23:17 Seuss wrote:
My education in proofs was way different from you guys. While proofs were demonstrated, I spent more time on "here's where you start, here's where you need to get, have at it" exercises than I did mindlessly copying proofs. A big part of that may be that I learned proofs as a part of algebra and geometry, long before calculus, where things (while still abstract) are a little less arcane. Our dad did an excellent job making proofs exciting and accessible. He was always genuinely interested in them and would do things like pause for a moment and then burst out saying "this is the cool part!" right where logic would do a clever thing. His enthusiam for math in general was infectious, honestly there was not a math teacher I ever liked more than our Dad.
This is what I've been trying to do for my youngest siblings with Math. I want them to understand the concept and the processes, but also not dread having to do Math. They still haven't hit things like proofs, but I'm excited for it :3
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Man, I forgot how good Fort Minor is, Rising Tied was so good
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
On October 20 2016 04:54 Crusnik wrote:
Man, I forgot how good Fort Minor is, Rising Tied was so good
Who is fort minor? I remember hearing about him before
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On October 20 2016 06:44 Scip wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2016 04:54 Crusnik wrote:
Man, I forgot how good Fort Minor is, Rising Tied was so good Who is fort minor? I remember hearing about him before
dude from linkin park's side project
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On October 20 2016 06:44 Scip wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2016 04:54 Crusnik wrote:
Man, I forgot how good Fort Minor is, Rising Tied was so good Who is fort minor? I remember hearing about him before
LOL. That was a really good one.
+ Show Spoiler +Even funnier if it wasn't intentional but too good to be.
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So, today I took a motorcycle up an elevator.
Got some funny looks.
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This season just keeps on delivering. It's actually crazy how good it is.
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Hmm. Can't watch vid atm.
Summary?
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On October 20 2016 23:12 WaveofShadow wrote:
Hmm. Can't watch vid atm.
Summary?
i saw skyrim, a cartridge, basically the console can dock into a unit or go portable and look like a wii u tablet.
controller consists of these 2 slide in things that you can slide off and recombine or something
![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvN2pUIWIAAcxQ-.jpg:large)
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The bit where he was on the plane with part of the controller in each hand looked amazing, I wonder how natural that feels.
Rest of it seems a bit gimmicky
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On October 20 2016 23:27 killerdog wrote:
Rest of it seems a bit gimmicky
Nintendo for the past few generations, summed up.
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^
Have to admit that Nintendo has a really good marketing team.
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United States15536 Posts
I'd be really into a truly mobile and powerful console. I love Nintendo handhelds and if that's just their main console, I'm pretty into it.
I haven't owned a Nintendo console since the Gamecube but the 3DS is dope as hell.
Edit: Also, getting your eyes dilated makes posting and programming rather difficult.
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EPT
