Arthur Benjamin’s formula for changing math education opened my eyes to a new way of thinking. As a high school math teacher for twelve years now, the math curriculum hasn’t changed much. Every student starts off taking Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II with Calculus being the highest level before high school graduation. Benjamin disagrees with this process/pyramid. He believes that Statistics & Probability is what students need before Calculus because it is most helpful in our daily lives. Statistics allows us the opportunity to seek risks, rewards, and understand data of predicting the future. If more lessons are being taught on statistics, Benjamin thinks it will help the future generations to make wiser choices. He specifically referred to our economic crisis we are in. He says that if we were more educated on these methods things may be different.
I am torn with what Benjamin has to say. Everyday in trigonometry class, I have students ask, “when are we going to use this in life.” Statistics would be more relevant to students’ lives who may not be going to college or those who are majoring in finance or science. Those students who plan on majoring in engineering or math will definitely need the calculus background from high school.
Amie
I agree that that statistics and probability is a useful tool in everyday life. The challenge as a teacher is incorporating the these lessons in traditional math classes. I believe in teaching a student to guess first then work to the answer through methods. When approaching a problem it is always better to have an idea what are your probable outcomes before you begin. I am the partial credit master but only for logical thought. For instance, a student may spend half a page on sin 34degrees = ____ and the answer they choose is 1.6 will receive "0" due to the impossibility. Where a student who does no work and writes .53 as the answer is wrong but close will receive almost all credit. My hope is that they know sin 30 = is 1/2 and that 34 is a bit further up the Y axis than 30 and therefore the answer is a little more.
ReplyDeleteThe application of formal probability or just an educated guess is always a great way to ensure not giving an answer worth nothing.
I am also the partial credit queen. I agree with your methods on grading. Students have got try to make sense of the problems, not just memorize a table or punch numbers into the calculator and dont know where it comes from.
DeleteAs far as the importance of calculus versus statistics, I feel that both are equally important to teach. Math in general has so many branches, one cant group all types of math classes together. It is always best to study the many branches of mathematics to appreciate the logic in it. Statistics and Probability would probably be the most fun to learn but definitely not the only math that students of all ages should experience.
Amie Adams