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story problems
Jun. 26th, 2017 11:23 pmEverybody seems to either hate math, or be math nerds. Perhaps strangely, the math haters are are different levels. Like "oh, I hate math, I could barely get through algebra!" And "wait, how do you calculate miles per gallon?" (Answer: divide miles by gallons.)
I'm the former. I know the basic stuff, and I'm fine with it, but it took three semesters to get through a two-semester algebra course in high school. I think I got D's in my two passing semesters. It was all so abstract, it didn't make any sense to me. I'm not sure why I continued with math, but after the algebra in my freshman and junior years, I took geometry. That was a breeze! I got C's and B's. It was all visual. It was fairly obvious to me how things were supposed to work. Even if you would never use the concepts in real life or work life, you could just see it.
One of the aspects of math that people like to complain about is the story problem. There's a train traveling at 60 miles per hour... This gives people math anxiety, but I don't really get why the fixate on the story problem. It's no different than the math problem without the story, you just have to figure out which numbers to use. They didn't just hand you an equation to solve, they need to you set it up first, and then solve it.
So sure, that's another dimension to the problem. But isn't it much easier to solve when you know what the numbers mean? Isn't it more meaningful? Doesn't it help you understand why you're doing it, and help you remember how to do it? Doesn't the context make it easier?
I wish there had been real-world examples of some of those complicated algebraic equations.
I'm the former. I know the basic stuff, and I'm fine with it, but it took three semesters to get through a two-semester algebra course in high school. I think I got D's in my two passing semesters. It was all so abstract, it didn't make any sense to me. I'm not sure why I continued with math, but after the algebra in my freshman and junior years, I took geometry. That was a breeze! I got C's and B's. It was all visual. It was fairly obvious to me how things were supposed to work. Even if you would never use the concepts in real life or work life, you could just see it.
One of the aspects of math that people like to complain about is the story problem. There's a train traveling at 60 miles per hour... This gives people math anxiety, but I don't really get why the fixate on the story problem. It's no different than the math problem without the story, you just have to figure out which numbers to use. They didn't just hand you an equation to solve, they need to you set it up first, and then solve it.
So sure, that's another dimension to the problem. But isn't it much easier to solve when you know what the numbers mean? Isn't it more meaningful? Doesn't it help you understand why you're doing it, and help you remember how to do it? Doesn't the context make it easier?
I wish there had been real-world examples of some of those complicated algebraic equations.
