I think our school system focuses on learning the steps or methods involved in math, rather than any applications. Because we focus on standardized tests, we only need our students to bubble in the right answer. But in real life your boss will never give you a formula and ask you to solve for x, he will tell you to find an answer to his question, often in the form of a word problem.
I think if we could help our students see what math is good for, they'd be a lot more motivated to learn it
well i'm not from usa but i got friends who went there with exchange programs and stuff like that and they did not describe math lessons to well. particularly they said that some stuff like (a+b)^2 formulas were to stretched out they didn't use a^2+2ab+b^2, they calculated stuff for 5 minutes with another way,but in fact it was possible to do in 10 seconds without even writing it down,maybe it was a bad school or teacher thing but it was 12th grade come on
good points. i consider myself good at math and have always made at least a b most semesters. i failed math freshmen because i had a really bad teacher, and i think it would benefit us as a population if we are learning precalc and calc, just dont cram it down our throats haha but another good point on 5, a class with material that would benefit us financially would be amazing and about making the classroom environment more fun, in my math class we sit in groups of 4 and collaborate. this works
@dylanparker72 well, you need to be that brave soul that asks questions. i agree, as a teacher, when everyone just gives a blank stare, you do not know if they are confused, disinterested, thinking of lunch.... or all of the above. communication is vital for a good teacher / student relationship
Math-phobic elementary school teachers turned almost everyone off of math. Everyone I know who don't do well in math say that they are that way because the teachers hated the math in elementary school and so they didn't take the time to help their students fully grasp the basics before moving on.
In my 2nd grade class, when the teacher said "You can't take away big numbers from small ones", I asked about negative numbers. This resulted in a timeout during recess for "talking back" to her.
For myself personally, before I did not get into formal mathematics unto well into my 20s but before then when I was a little boy, I liked puzzles. I remember being fascinated by woodblock and steel puzzles of every type. I remember being shown something that looked impossible at first but with the right methodology or solution became simple and led to a greater understanding. This I believe is what laid the foundation for abstract thinking for me to pursue theoretical physics in my adult life.
I had been good in math for a while, then all of sudden i forgot why i learn it and took a look at it. I realize it I didn't need it. What I learnt is just not.....not ..useful, practical, realistic, can't really do anything with it except for passing an exam, which i don't enjoy.. I really wish i could learn sth as you suggested like finacial math.
Right now I am in a Trigonometry and Precalculus class together, my instructors at the junior college don't assign homework! :o Its rough! I don't know how a student can actually learn without taking their homework with them after class is finished. I always have to find some way to do the bookwork on my own and even then it's rough.
Nice list. At the college level, professors are required to know their subject, but have no requirements to study the craft of teaching. The good teachers figure it out on their own. No excuse, as there is a huge body of research on learning theory and cognition. From that, a student's success comes down mostly to the motivation provided. How long can you hold your hand to a hot frying pan? If you have no idea "why", not very long.
When you said no teacher goes into teaching for the money, i had to laugh
See I live in Grenada (thats in the caribbean) and a lot of people here become teachers either because they couldn't get another job or because they're saving for university
I received my BS in applied math at one of the highest ranked and most popular schools in california. I can tell you one of the biggest problems is that a school is ranked by the professors' research and not their ability to teach. the books we used were written by the same professors who teach the class, and they are never clear and concise. Think 5 + 5 = 10, so clearly the integral of x^2 is x^3/3...i must be stupid cuz it's not clear...
Your reply is true on both accounts. I am a bit insecure at math - but, on the other side, I find that math is the only subject (in the 2+ years I've been in college) where I find that teachers have such a different attitude towards students - with the leaning being towards this. With no offense meant, I've also found math teachers to be very narrow minded in their abilities. Also, I can only account for the teachers I've had or know (applying to 8 of 9 math teachers @ my college). Thoughts?
... quickly - furthermore, I feel that math teachers have a bit of a haughty attitude - putting themselves above others - with an "I'm smarter than you" attitude.
As a current math student at a community college (Gen. Sci major in Education), I agree that teachers can suck - especially in math. I find one of my main problems is that none of the teachers (from math class to math class) are on the same page. So you have some teachers that will teach the bare minimum, some that teach the shortcuts, some that teach the "rule"... I want teachers to teach from the ground up and integrate it into the larger purpose. Make me know why math is important.
I lived in NY until halfway through 9th grade when i moved to Australia to complete high school as of last nov. I dont know if math is needed up to 12th grade in the us, but in australia its only required up to 10th grade. Then you can do one of 4 levels. Despite the fact that the australian university entrance exam makes the final 2 years learning for an exam not for an education, offering these 4 levels of math is quite good. one level being "life" math. the other 3 being mostly calc based
am taking the cal 2, but the professor is quite horrible..he didn't do much explaination, and he just talks to the writing board.. but thanks to your examples on youtube, they are much clearly and detailed~ just watching your video to help to prepare my final tomorrow~
I am taking the cal 2, but the professor is quite horrible..he didn't do much explaination, and he just talks to the writing board.. but thanks to your examples on youtube, they are much clearly and detailed~ just watching your video to help to prepare my final tomorrow~
My math teacher is good, but she only explains things once, and god help you if you didnt catch it! She can be so cruel and sarcastic and make you feel like an idiot for not having noticed something. And you mentioned your videos being dry (no baloon animals/magic tricks), frankly thats how i like them, its easier to concentrate on what you're saying, and you explain everything and take the videos you make, and the people who watch them seriously. Thanks :)
I think it is because you really have to work hard to do well in math, and this can be very intimidating and tiresome, especially with all the negative labelling math is given. How often do you see someone on TV complain about history? Not nearly as much as you do for math or a math-based subject. I am biased because I love math, but the negative contexts in which math is connected can be really imposing on someone who is indifferent or who is taking math just because he/she has to.
I'm a college student in U.S. I had a lot of professors that don't teach at all. All they do is read power point slides..They offer no homework or helps. In my opinion, teacher can make a huge different. If he or she knows how to teach the subject well, the students will be more motivate to learn. In my country Vietnam, teachers want to teach with passion even with low salary. They even offer at home help for students for free.
If you only knew what kind of professor I had for cal 3.I don't know what crack the math department was smoking when they hired her. It is her first time teaching cal 3. She only taught pre-cal before that. She can't use computers but yet she "tries" to teach the matlab. She can not speak English. She tells us not to take notes because every example is different. According to her, 3D calculus is intuitive. We only have 50min to do a test that would normally take more then 2 hours to finish.
I blame most of it on a cultural issue. Most North Americans live a comfortable lifestyle where food is plentiful and shelter is pretty much there for everyone. Public education is free and everyone can have a go at it.
In China, education is not free even at a primary level and most people can barely afford to send one child to school. Because of this parents spend a lot more time helping their kids study and are much more strict on them.
@siukingbon The kids in these families know their parents have had to work hard and suffer to get them into school so they work diligently to get a better education for themselves in the hope that some day they can move their family someplace better. Kids in North America take for granted their education and its importance not realizing that its not about the material that is learned but its about learning the skills of learning. They've suffer too little to really understand its importance.
The main problem could be that teachers dwell too much on one thing. For example: I can watch ur vid and learn the subject in 10 minutes, while it could sometimes take an hour for a proff to teach it. Proffs are boring the students because who really wants to learn about math for 1 hour on the same topic...
I think most people view math as a boring subject. I study engineering, but I wouldn't wanna study just math. Also mix that in with bad teaching and lazy students... thats a recipe for what is wrong with Math Education.
Standardized testing is the #1 issue with math(and school) in american IMO. Instead of teaching to a test like the SAT, the government thinks teachers should be forced to teach to a dumbed down test.
I believe its the students failure to stay motivated and understand the material. YET I think the System should improve what the teachers are attempting to convey in a more clear and defined manner, helping students understand and learn the reasons why mathematics is/can be important to themselves in the future.
@refink33 i agree - i think both teachers and students need to take responsibility. it is easy for one to whine about their terrible teacher when all they do is sit in the back of class texting their friends. a bit of personal responsibility is something the eludes many people though
I am from Canada but I am going to chime in a bit.
My high school had a few excellent math teachers, and a few absolutely terrible math teachers. Teachers who couldn't actually cope with the students, and these were upper level all going to university students and not students destined for McDonalds. Everyone needed a decent mark to get into their university. Yet the teacher who taught calc and algebra was the head of the department, and wouldn't allow anyone else to teach it.
@Ducken I would also like to say. Patrick you are the only reason I passed Calc 1 in engineering at university. Thanks for the videos you save me a course.
The reason that mathematics teaching is problematic is that it is disconnected from where students are. In the US, teachers show students how to solve problems without building from where students are. See the book "The Teaching Gap" explaining some of the differences among teaching methods in the US, Germany, and Japan. Students enjoy mathematics when it is challenging and their reasoning is brought to the forefront. See the "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics."
I'm in my first year at Uni doing Maths in England.
I think Maths education here's similar.
In my opinion, a main reason why many students lack interest in Mathematics is because ultimately they have no idea what it is. Curriculum's in compulsory education seem to focus entirely on procedures, and not on understanding or the underlying concepts. Someone referred to abstract algebra(?) as helping explain why Maths isn't just 'a bag of tricks', an analogy I think many young people view it as.
@Chipofthebass yep i agree 100% - i have been helping a nice lady in her 50's who has returned to school to finish out her degree. she is taking her one math class. in it, she has had to work with sets (intersection, union), TONS of random row reducing problems, finding cofactors of matrices, sequences, and other completely useless stuff for her. what has she gotten out of the class? not much, except that she likes math even less. great job UT-Austin of making a well designed class
Some teachers know what they are doing, but they don't check for understanding or teach it in a way kids won't understand. It doesn't help if the teacher asks "do you guys understand?" of course everyone will say yes to move on.
6. Math is not for everyone. But is History? Is English? In NYC you only need 3 years of math, but you need 4 years of English and history. I see that the 12th year of highschool is a major waste for some students. It should be optional. If you need extra practice take the extra year. If your ready to go to college skip it. Im in 12th grade and have 12, working on a 4 credit calc2 class so it will be 16, college credits. Not all in math, I also took sociology, Psychology and US government.
5. Kids dont understand that they need to practice. They think that if they dont get it right away they will never. Ha, every week I do to calc 2 class I think I will never get it. But I come home watch some of your videos, go over the class work, and do the homework. Im not the best student in that calc 2 class but im working hard.
4. Its not the teachers fault. The biggest problem I see in the class room is disruptive students. The teachers cant do anything because the parents dont care. Sure they can call an AP or dean, but that kid will be back the next day.
3. Parents dont care. All they care is "are you passing" they dont care if it is social promotion or if their child really know the subject. If parents had to pay for public school they would not want their child to "just pass" they would want 100's.
2. Math, like most other subjects is boring. (BTW I rank very high in my class) When I took my math classes the most technology we used was a graphing calc and a over head projector. When I tutor some teachers have a smart board and a projector. They can show many different graphs and shapes and manipulate them to show how the formulas work. I love tutoring those classes because I find that very cool. If we had that, I would have been alot more interested.
When I was In the 10th grade I signed up for precalc at a college. I took a placement exam and there I meet a russian boy that said the exam was easy and he was signing up for calc2. He was the same age as me and recently moved to NY. He told me that the math he was doing before was alot harder then this.
I am a senior high school student in the US(NYC). I have a few ideas and comments.
1. You cant just expect kids to know anything when you teach. I have taken up to calc 2 and have tutored high schools students. In one class that I tutor, these freshmen cant do simple distributive property. They call (X^2) "x two". When I started with them I began from (x*x = x^2) (x*5=5x). These kids have been taking math for 9 years and cant do that.
I wish we learned financial math. Unfortunately, its only available as an elective for high school seniors and juniors. And because of recent budget cuts, I'm not even sure if that's true anymore.
The problem with the education system in general in the United States is that teachers feel as if they have an obligation to fufill the requirement set fourth by government beaurucrats, rather than the standards set by parents.
We need to abolish the department of education, an organization which has contributed to a sharp decline in the quality of education ever since it was instituted.
Everyone please read "Education: Free and Compulsory." by Libertarian, Murray Rothbard. Available free.
i am 1st year student+found your video explaining line integrals for my midterm tomorrow... can't say much bad about my hs math experience, only that having (relatively) enthusiastic teachers helps immensely. they did put us through integrals by 11th grade and we had an honors starter multivariable class senior year which has helped me to be more comfortable with the stuff i've gotten into since starting college. college teachers need to understand their proofs don't help much+are confusing
Hey there, I love your videos so I thought I might as well respond to this one. I'm a sophomore in high school and I currently have an AMAZING algebra 2/trig H teacher. He makes every student understand his material and as for his honors students, he makes them sweat, tear up and break down throughout the course of his class. Mainly because he wants us to own calc ap, since he teaches that too. So, given that I have a great teacher, why would I be on here watching videos? To refresh on material.
@mrsbelikov93 the class is a semester long and I forget basics. But on a general scale I believe that math itself is a totally different subject from all the others. It's like it's own language and for the average person it requires practice. Math is NOT my best subject, I'm a science geek. I don't like there to be only 1 answer to things, I like stuff to be flexible like theories and such. I also like to know WHY I'm adding numbers and plugging stuff into this formula and such.
@mrsbelikov93 I think math is just hard for the majority of us because it's taught differently and the subject itself is different. Math takes effort to learn, and those who are not willing to put in the effort to learn it just give up. I think motivation and endurance through a math class is what determines who's successful and who isn't (excluding math geniuses)
maybe they should start customizing your classes more based on the career your going into in high school so for the ppl who know wat they want to do they're not wasting their time on learning stuff that they dont need..
@patrickJMT not maybe exact career but a general direction they want to go in, like i want to do something with music so my schedule should have a good amount of music classes rather than stuff i won't need for that type of career
I think that the problem is maybe a little bit of all the things you mentioned. im a high school student and honestly math is my least favorite subject. i find it very hard and confusing. My teacher goes too fast and she never really explains things fully in my opinion. Since the subject is too challenging i think it makes me less motivated to learn it cuz i think its boring and a lot of the things we learn i think is unnecessary and torture unless you're going into that job field
I'm taking my calculus course 2 course in CEGEP, at Montreal. I have found out that math classes and lectures have become completely pointless, in my point of view. The reason why that is is because there is a problem with schedules, first of all, when you got a 6 hour break between classes, I am often inclined to just skip class. Another thing is that my teachers are really vague in their explanations and even though funny at times, they also lack objectivity when trying to explain a subject...
@patrickJMT, I am a 12th grader Senior who is currently taking PreCalculus. I agree with you that some teachers are just not fit to teach math. I have looked at math videos on youtube and the yaymath account is very helpful. The teacher in the videos is very upbeat and motivates you to learn math. I'm not saying that every teacher stinks at teaching but I do think that there has to be some portion or part of motivation from the teacher towards the student. Thanks and please share your reply.
@deadlyshooter2031 it is easy to be upbeat when you are making a 10 minute video though and then finished. how upbeat are the students? one can not just sit there and expect a song and a dance from a teacher i think day in, day out
@dannyboy12357 Unintellectual response is unintellectual.
It's pop culture and popular media that diminishes the quality of Math education. Why would say it's boring? Cause you'd rather control a joystick for videogames than using your brain for exercises. I'm no smart guy, and I play my share of games as well. It's why it's "boring" to the likes of you. Don't get me wrong, math is my favorite subject.
Interest and focus is what matters, and people need these.
@mckrongs What the hell are rambling about? I never said that I think math is boring I said most people do in general its a well known fact. In fact I like math so much I chose it as my major in college. I don't play with joysticks. Don't judge people son it makes you look like an ignoramus.
I think you really hit the nail on the head with people being forced to take math classes that aren't required for what they would like to do. I am just finishing differential equations (chemistry major). I have finished the so-called calc-based physics sequence and the only calc we did was deriv. of sin/cos and an occasional integral. We glossed over all the double integrals and DE's in physics and just used the cute formulas from the derivations. I've never used linear alg. for anything.
my grade 10 math teacher... russian guy who barely spoke english, could not understand anything he said... my math grade dropped from 90% to 50% and from then on i hated math... it went from being my favorite subject to the one i hated and wanted to avoid the most
Have you read Made to Stick? It's a book on why some ideas stick and others don't. One of the reoccurring topics is about how educators, especially math teachers, can reach kids who are somewhat apathetic. I think it would answer a lot of your questions as well as give you some ideas on how to do things a little differently. Check it out if you can, its a pretty easy and interesting read, the authors are Dan and Chip Heath. Also, the other book Id recommend is Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.
I think that we dont realize the importance. Its not stressed. I think that people grab whats interesting...so thry run from math. math is painfull for many people I'm sure...and I mean that people learn different things at different paces. I think as far as the education system goes, I think math is FAR TOO RUSHED. This makes scence as most people say they forget it afterwards. Absorbtion is everything. College algebra Pre calc has a 60%fail rate at my school. We need to break it down
I'm taking Calculus 2 in CEGEP in montreal, Canada ( which is equivalent to 12th grade school in the states.) I believe the problem with math teachers is that they dont get to the point in their lectures. They dont show the clear way to solve math problems in a short sequence. You do a great job at that, 10 minutes and BOOM everything is clear. If math teachers could stop with the theory and simply explain how to solve problems, it would help students ALOT
I really thing the problem with math is that people thinking only the smart people can take it. For example, most if not all universities treats math as a very hard subject and make hard test and assignments...etc for people who takes them. But since they mark hard, and only people who needs the cource in their major takes it, the general public (non science/engineering..etc) people doesn't get the chance to enjoy the beauty of math. Thats just my opinion.
Hello, I'm a 12th grade student who has gone to high school in both the USand Germany. I can say that I find the math in the USA to be a lot harder (which is not what people expect). in the 12th grade in germany, we are doing simple probability/tree diagrams/combination and permutation- which was a unit we had in 7th grade in america. however, the problems in germany are much more complicated and wordy, it takes a lot to figure out what the actual task is, in the US, it was more straightforward
@Floydfan101 that is very interesting! i have a friend who is german (but lives in the netherlands)... i am going to ask her about her experience as wel! it sounds like the idea of memorizing facts/procedures vs actually doing some sort of problem solving
I have had my fair share of great an terrible math teachers. I think that one of the problems is that, for the most part, math builds on itself. I bad teacher or poor semester can lead to either a class failure or a poor grade. In college that means that you have to take that class over again. In high school students are often shuttled to the next level where they become overwhelmed and fail. The other issue is how I learned math. As a high school student I found ways...
It's a combination of many factors, mainly unqualified teachers and lazy students. Some students are just unwilling to spend time studying it. But personally I find that it is unqualified teachers. Many of the professors and high school teachers that I have encountered cannot speak English properly and have had trouble explaining math concepts to the students. Other professors just put up problems on the board and think students will "learn" that way, but in the end it just doesn't work out...
Im an international student in a community college- physics major. It's really strange that most of students in math (Calculus) are Asian, or Asian American. Where r other folks? maybe their major doesnt involve calculus, pre-calculus is ok for them, and still they r struggling with it. Well, we cannot follow the math curriculum in Asia, it's painful.But we could learn something in Finland, where many IMO winner come from. Just some thoughts for your interests. Thanks for ur vids :)
I think you hit the nail on the head where you said "maybe not everyone needs "that much" math. I know, for example, for the career field I'm going into, the highest math I'll ever need is Algebra 1....but my school is forcing me to pull a C in Calculus II (up through Taylor Series). However, I have never taken no will ever be required to take any sort of finance classes, even though I'll be graduating with numerous loans to be paid, a car to be paid off, and an apartment to be rented.
They tell you what the material is, but dont really give you methods to effectively solve the problems
Universities (at least here at Binghamton) push the responsibility of calculus on TAs who can't teach and don't want to teach. It makes calculus seem like a trivial subject of second importance, while in fact it is extremely important
Math textbooks are hard to understand
I like math when I can do it correctly. I hate math teaching in the US but at least I can come on youtube and get help...
Hello Patrick! No offence mate you are certainly an amazing guy (who can even teach a caveman advanced math), and very knowlegeable indeed! But I'm afraid to tell you that teaching math in USA sucks! Currently studying at UCLA but they're teaching me systems of differential equations (!!) I just want to say they teach us these things at class 6 in Iran! :D
Hey, I am a Junior in High School, and every year, I have had to tutor kids in my math class because the teacher just couldn't teach. In my opinion, students only really seem lazy when they start to give up because they can't understand the material and no-one is helping them. You'd be surprised at how willing people are to be taught math in a way they understand. Unfortunately, because of Tenure, some teachers do not need to try and just do the bare minimum.
@AAbattery88 Not always the case, but I find the newer teachers better because they are more enthusiastic and understand the kids better, as well as they have less job security so they work hard to teach better
Unqualified teachers. My 4th grade teacher was terrible at math. She wanted us to order random fractions in increasing/decreasing order. (IE, we had 3/5, 4/7, 2/3 etc.). Instead of getting the decimal equivalents of each fraction... she tried this:
She had students try to draw circles and divide them into equal pieces, and shade them accordingly to "represent" each fraction. She then eye balled it and picked the least fraction based on whatever looked smallest.
As far as teacher pay, teachers are getting paid for about 9 months of work per year. The problem is that teaching isn't treated as a real job. They should work year round like the rest of us and get paid for the entire year of teaching - that would raise salaries 30%.
@ZapZapMimi I agree with you , more money to education and not to weapons and war , the war on Irak has stolen money to education and to the health , social
Another problem is not actually with the math course. Each teacher thinks you need to do a lot of work (homework) outside of class to learn the subject. I think math is the only course where the homework practice is actually useful but you're already overloaded with not useful homework from other courses so you don't have as much energy for the math practice as you need.
Some people think that instead of aiming at calculus, it would be more useful provide a math education whose pinnacle was statistics instead of calculus. People in the sciences do need calculus, but the other 90% of people would have more use for statistics in their daily life.
well, im homeschooled because of public math education... my class now consists of watching your videos on whatever the lesson is today and then doing the lesson... so much better. :)
I'm an adult student--biology major. My last math course was College Algebra in 1991, and I made a C at the time. I have a B in precal now, four days before the final.
My professor is fantastic. When asked, he relates what we are studying to my future career. As one of the few non-math majors in the class, it's helpful to understand why I'm learning the material. He's also bent over backwards to help me when I've asked.
@herbpixie sounds like you have one of the great teachers! you should give him a thank you card at the end : ) whenever i got one, it made me feel super good : )
I am and millions of other viewers in the US and the rest of the world, I think the main issue here is about the politics of education , the US is more interested in investing in warfare , I believe that the future of all humanity will depend on how we learn teach mathematical, scientific, social. political, cultural knowledge , it is a political problem from the government involved you said that the US the country that invests most in education I think .
Hey Patrick thanks for your time on these videos.! Right now I am at a college library studying parametric equations and polar coordinates, the quarter is about half over and I am ashamed to say i've missed 3 days already and more than once i was so tired i might as well not have gone to class. this is probably the second or third time this quarter that i have sat down and tried to to any homework I think that my problem with math is 100% laziness.
@CapitanOgre ha! thanks for your honesty. i think that was my problem in high school at least. i am not sure that it is even laziness so much as lack of motivation.
My first complaint is that the material was not hard enough in middle school/ highschool. I never had to try throughout those years and now It's kicking my but in college. I never encountered anything hard enough to force me to study and now I find it hard to get into that habbit.
@tecknojock My second complaint is that it feels like the why and how it relates to other concepts is left out. We are taught how to do something, but not why we do it. I probably would have failed calc last semester if I hadn't been taking physics at the time because physics offered me a way to link calc to a more concrete concept.
NO... a good teacher has students who understand and pass on their own... at least let them earn points back.... P.S. I HATE TRIANGLES because of teacher :P OH and patrickJMT.... you are awesome!!!! even though you dont have covered some of the problems i really needed, i understood other problems better.... I hope i get good at math like you one day!!!!
its mostly the teachers who assume their student know why something=somthing, and skip steps in the solving process of a problem...the lazy students tend to drop the class before, or never drop but dont show up to class. Attendace should at least be credited to the student. Notes are vital!!!!! Also teachers tend to curve grades and then wtF!!! she is a good teacher all of a sudden!!!??
its mostly the teachers who assume their student know why something=somthing, and skip steps in the solving process of a problem...the lazy students tend to drop the class before, or never drop but dont show up to class. Attendace should at least be credited to the student. Notes are vital!!!!! Also teachers tend to curve grades and then wtF!!! she is a good teacher all of a sudden!!!??
Both of these professors I have mentioned receive positive reviews from almost 95% of the class. I think these methods truly work in improving the education of math in the USA... but I do believe that only the best teachers are the ones that not only have a passion for math, but care about the students success.
@gochrisbean very good points! i always enjoyed hearing a bit of motivation about what we were studying and also about the humans producing the math; many of them have great stories... i tried to always give some history/stories when i taught. i did not give out notes, but repeatedly begged people to read the book ahead of time. so many people do not read the book, much less before class starts... i dont know why. no one had to tell me to read the book before class, seemed natural to me...
considerably higher than other classes that are learning the same course. This quarter, I have a professor who makes the lectures more fun and interactive by using a "remote" or what we like to call "clickers" to answer questions relating to the lecture. He labels them as quizzes and helps us to fire up our brain and want to understand the material. He also likes to give a bit of history of some mathematicians we come across when learning new material. It's useful in "spicing up" the topic.
I'm a college student going through calculus courses right now and I have found that professors that provide the class with their own notes of the upcoming lecture for us to print, look over, and bring to class helps a lot. This professor believes that the student learns more if they aren't concentrated on writing the notes down, but listening to the lecturer explain it while having the notes already written (and writing some side comments if need-be). The average in his class, alone, has been
@gochrisbean This. I have a prof doing this and i am definitely learning better. But it should be noted that a prof willing to dedicate time to prepare notes before hand is likely to be a good prof anyway.
6. To improve this we can each assign students with a remote control labeled with A, B, C, D, E with answer choices up on the screen that a teacher can put. This way students can work the problems out on their own and answer it with the remote control without having to say anything in class or get embarrassed that you might get it wrong. Each remote would be labeled and the stats would show privately to the teacher only so the teacher can know who to approach too in to order to help them out.
5. A small group of people per math class and the smaller the better. People will more likely be able to interact with one another rather than a huge class. I experienced this with afterschool review where only 10 people showed up. I felt that I learned better afterschool because we had more time and a small amount of people. People would always speak up but during class they would never do so.
@dh4031 smaller classes means more teachers means more money.
where does the money come from? people already have a shit fit over taxes (i guess they think the money just gets put in a big pile and set of fire or something i guess)
4. To make math more fun, jokes about it would be cool but hard to come up with them. Another way is to insult it sometimes with some unnecessary methods.
3. Parents do have some vital role in this because parents can help motivate and push up to do well. If our parents didn't care at all and didn't get involve, then a lot of people would expect that their parents wouldn't expect them to do much.
2. I agree, unqualified teachers are also the cause of the problem too.BOOKS play a HUGE role as well. My textbook is literally 12 years old and the context is too hard to understand because of it being outdated. My book leaves out a lot of steps. Although everything is the same, there are many lacks of explanations in my textbook that it lacks. I know my schools bought new books for Algebra 1, Geometry, and Pre-Calculus in order to help the students. What they forgot was the Calculus peeps. >.>
No one is really stupid and students are just lazy to learn the material. We do need English but not so much English. Same goes with History. I mean, are we going to save the world with English and History or Math and Science?
1. You're right, students are just intimidated by it. They aren't motivated or convinced that it's quite simple with dedication to it. If people say it's hard and that it's intimidating, then they would automatically give up.
too many theories, too many graphs, too many reading, too many uses of calculators
There should be more practical use of it, I mean like doing exercises rather than explaining in words how to do a question.
I'm from Indonesia, and I think the Western system of learning is holding me back, just for the math part though. Other subjects are better I guess. But the math curriculum is very slow, like in Indonesia, we already studied Integral in grade 12 for all students, not just for AP students.
too many theories, too many graphs, too many reading, too many uses of calculators
There should be more practical use of it, I mean like doing exercises rather than explaining in words how to do a question.
I'm from Indonesia, and I think the Western system of learning is holding me back, just for the math part though. Other subjects are better I guess. But the math curriculum is very slow, like in Indonesia, we already studied Integral in grade 12 for all students, not just for AP students.
@anehaneh1 i agree with you; in usa at least (all i really know) we memorizing of formulas to do specific problems. if you happen to understand a bit of what is going on as well, good for you!! it is terrible... i agree: here is how to do this particular problem so that you do well on this standardized test.
Education in America is lagging. Not only in test scores but also in funding-- I'm sure you know, but the education budget has been diminishing in the last couple decades. Yet the reason doesn't sole lie on underfunding, I don't think. In fact, as a student myself, I think the primary culprit is technology. Cell phones, i-pods, laptops, videogames what have you. This generation of children, myself included, are bombarded with distractions left and right.
@lilsamuraijoe well, students in USA get more money per capita than anywhere in the world (i am almost 100% sure this is correct).
i dont know that it is techonolgy: i loved my tv and my atari when i was a kid (i still do) and i turned out ok. i mean, i dont think everyone was sitting around the fire reading math books 300 years ago...
I think there are a lot of problems in the system as a whole, but I do like your fifth option. Compared to what most people "more is better," you suggest do less math, and the math you do do is financial math. I think that is a great idea for people that are NOT going in the science, physics, math, etc. field. A financial math class in high school possible could've saved a lot of people from making stupid decisions during/leading up to the recession. The thing is they need to know their major
I understand that practice is a factor. However, I believe that U.S. math will be better off when:
1. The history and uses of each concept are focused on more in curriculum and classes. The stories of Archimedes, Euler, Newton, etc should be taught and tested on along with their discoveries.
2. There are less repetitive mundane problems and more diversified word questions to convert to equations like in Blitzer's preCal book (best math book I've ever seen) Sec P.8 "Modeling with Equations"
I have earned a bit of money and personal satisfaction tutoring Algebra and Geometry at 17. Now, I have a 4.0 gpa w/ 44hrs college credit hrs. I am enrolled in McCombs at UT Austin for this fall and I am very grateful to you Patrick for your gracious vids.
When you mentioned that you would not dress up like a clown, I thought of Prof. Edward Burger. I think that he is whimsical. I'd like to peak inside his clothes closet. I bet it's a rainbow color explosion! His phd's from UT Austin you know.
@alexgordonepic yes, burger was a comic during his college years i do believe!! he is clearly a super smart guy. UT actually has one of the best math departments in the world in fact. he is certainly no slouch, and quite funny too. i think he has the right balance of humor and education and it comes through in his teaching as i have watched many of his videos.
The problem starts early. I had to memorize math rules at home when i was six, and i knew how to do long division by the time i was 7. why did i have to do it at home? kids in other countries learn differently, there is no stupid sensitivity to being harsh to kids about DOING the work, my parents taught me the tough way but honestly it ddnt hurt. a child's mind is a sponge. all this alternative teaching needs to stop. there's a reason why the old way works, that's what i believe.
I've been out of school for a bit but I enjoyed math it was one of the few subjects that made sense to me(until statistics). I totally agree that personal finance should be taught in high school. On that same note, I would also like to see computer programming as a requirement as well. Even if its some high level crap like VB you can have a curriculum that will take the math skill the students (should) have learned and apply them in an program. This could drive it home or be a refresher for 'em
Math in schools could be made more 'fun' by introducing it as a less computational subject. For instance, instead of forcing highschool students to factor thousands of times in a row, or perform synthetic division hundreads of times, perhaps we could give the students with explorititive and creative mathematics. For instance, we could introduce students to methods of proof early on, and encourage exporation though interesting problems form various compititions, stressing creativity, rather than
My favorite math teacher was this little old lady with a thick eastern european accent, hard to understand. The thing with her though was that she took the Socratic method to heart. She would literally reason out every step that she felt we should be able to understand. All that scut work from the previous chapters (and courses) were put to use and the underlying structure and reasoning of the processes we were performing was laid bare. God I miss her teaching.
The problem is many teachers think that students already know all the small details and don't explain things throughly enough because it consumes too much lecture time. If calculus wasn't so crammed together in a semester it would make things easier for everyone. We basically covered a 10 section chapter every week.
i think teachers should try to explain to the students that math is not just boring number crunching and tedious equations. Explain to them how math Is more of an exercise in creativity and cleverness. There are many more dimensions to math, pun definitely intended, than is given credit to.
In our high school, to graduate you only needed geometry to graduate and algebra 2 for college "readiness." They did offer classes on pre-calc and calc ab+bc, but they were not required to graduate, but living in california it gets competitive to get into a university so everyone needed calc ab at least. I had some really terrible teachers in high school, but found some AMAZING professors in my university (taught it extremely clear) which laid the fundamentals for me, to now were I am in calc 4
In my experience a teacher in the USA is someone who works for a company with contracts with textbook publishers. Teachers' job are to read textbooks bought from those publishers out loud in a room. If the teacher receives questions, they are to identify key words from those question to find what paragraphs the questions most resemble. Once a paragraph has been identified, the teacher re-reads that paragraph out loud. If you want to fix math education, write a textbook.
@patrickJMT Oh well? I live in Las Vegas, Nevada; this is exactly what goes on in our high schools. (Including the contracts. They can't afford school supplies, but they sure can afford new textbooks every few years)
HS math was cake, I got good grades and didn't try too hard. But I did not really care about math, it was just hw to do. It was not until this semester in E+M physics and engineering statics did i really appreciate calculus. Now I wished I tried harder in calc to really understand it. Doing derivatives and ints was just plug and chug until I saw what they are really capable of. After that epiphany I suddenly saw how important math is. After seeing gauss law & dist load, it just hit me.
(I'm a first year university maths student in the UK)
I don't understand why American kids are taught basic calculus so early, at all... not only is it a pointless skill to learn for the majority of students, but I bet that 99% of these kids don't actually have a clue WHY the basic formulas work - or even WHAT they are doing when they differentiate/integrate!
I get the impression that your education system tries to teach kids "complex" topics pointlessly early, and before they are ready.
also patrick, you are making math way more of an enjoyable subject by posting these videos. education needs to progress technologically, and you are far ahead of the curve.
Sorry one more thing. I think that if people need to make math "fun", then normally they aren't motivated enough to learn the material at hand. I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but all the people in my lectures who ask the professor to make the material "more intersting" are they same people that cut up and disrespect the teacher other times. Again this is just my own personal experience. Sorry for the triple message Patrick.
What ever you want to major in, are the classes you need to take. Granted if you want to take extra classes, by all means do so. With math though, I think if you are going to be going into Engineering, I think Cal I should be mastered prior to college. Maybe it was just my high school that didn't prepare me enough.
Personally, I think a career decision needs to be made about a year or two years sooner than normal. I am currently a sophomore studying Computer Engineering. It would have been very beneficial to fully grasp a deeper understanding of Calculus before entering college. I don't think we need a "basic package" classes in universities.
To me, the problem of math and many other subjects is not that they themselves are particularly unlikable, (although believe me, i do despise my fair share of subjects.... accounting bleh) but that the manner in which they are presented kind of ruins it for the students. Throughout middle and high school, i felt like i was being force fed these subjects without really creating an inner desire to learn about them. Im finishing up my second year of college and i just now realized that i enjoy
(continued) math. It took me all the way until my second calc course to realize it, and it only came my own curiosity about the subject, not because it was a requirement for my major. Sure real life examples help connect the dots, but educators first need to make students feel like their choosing to pursue a subject instead of backing them against a wall and shoving it down their throat.
I am a High School Math teacher recording myself as I teach my students and putting it on YouTube (Channel RobbWorld). You have extremely fabulous points. I really appreciate you putting a video out like this. Thanks for caring about people and making the videos you do.
I loved math, and in fact I wanted to study physics. However, for the High school lousy education in math and the unqualified professors, they killed my dream. So I decided to study biology, which I love as well.
The problem with math education is that you are not taught on how to apply the knowledge you learned. I mean really i would love to know why complex equations like.
√ COS(12)+17√ 289 <=====made up, not even possible.....I think
__________________ 87X-37Y
exist. It would make math so much easier if i could understand the real life concept of it and how I can benefit society by using it
The whole structure of how we teach does not work. We all don't learn the same way or at the same speed. Some subjects I need longer than others and I know that the other students in my Calc 2 class are the same. Bell curves stink. The bell curve sets up competition between the students instead of encouraging the students to study and work together (a physics class) . I am really trying to think about this for both myself and my son.
we don't have a set standard from one grade to next, what i learned in pre-calculus is different from what my friend learnt who had a different teacher. Starting of the year, my AP calculus teacher had a lot of problems figuring out where everyone was which ended up wasting like 2 weeks. We should have a combined final of all classes of the same subject, end of the year and your grade should be affected by that...
high school teachers in the usa dont care about learning, all they do is teach you how to pass a test. its all about passing the test, to make themselves look good or to keep the state off their backs, by handing out high grades and half there students dont even know 2+2. grade inflation
I think our school system focuses on learning the steps or methods involved in math, rather than any applications. Because we focus on standardized tests, we only need our students to bubble in the right answer. But in real life your boss will never give you a formula and ask you to solve for x, he will tell you to find an answer to his question, often in the form of a word problem.
I think if we could help our students see what math is good for, they'd be a lot more motivated to learn it
brettmangel36 3 weeks ago
@brettmangel36 i agree with that 100% big time
patrickJMT 3 weeks ago
well i'm not from usa but i got friends who went there with exchange programs and stuff like that and they did not describe math lessons to well. particularly they said that some stuff like (a+b)^2 formulas were to stretched out they didn't use a^2+2ab+b^2, they calculated stuff for 5 minutes with another way,but in fact it was possible to do in 10 seconds without even writing it down,maybe it was a bad school or teacher thing but it was 12th grade come on
rmifaabsbb 5 months ago
good points. i consider myself good at math and have always made at least a b most semesters. i failed math freshmen because i had a really bad teacher, and i think it would benefit us as a population if we are learning precalc and calc, just dont cram it down our throats haha but another good point on 5, a class with material that would benefit us financially would be amazing and about making the classroom environment more fun, in my math class we sit in groups of 4 and collaborate. this works
joshuamcastle 5 months ago
@dylanparker72 well, you need to be that brave soul that asks questions. i agree, as a teacher, when everyone just gives a blank stare, you do not know if they are confused, disinterested, thinking of lunch.... or all of the above. communication is vital for a good teacher / student relationship
patrickJMT 5 months ago
Math-phobic elementary school teachers turned almost everyone off of math. Everyone I know who don't do well in math say that they are that way because the teachers hated the math in elementary school and so they didn't take the time to help their students fully grasp the basics before moving on.
In my 2nd grade class, when the teacher said "You can't take away big numbers from small ones", I asked about negative numbers. This resulted in a timeout during recess for "talking back" to her.
MyOverflow 7 months ago
I fugoured out fractions at age of 5 by myself.
i guess i am too special
SpicyHam 7 months ago
For myself personally, before I did not get into formal mathematics unto well into my 20s but before then when I was a little boy, I liked puzzles. I remember being fascinated by woodblock and steel puzzles of every type. I remember being shown something that looked impossible at first but with the right methodology or solution became simple and led to a greater understanding. This I believe is what laid the foundation for abstract thinking for me to pursue theoretical physics in my adult life.
AntDog1984 8 months ago
I had been good in math for a while, then all of sudden i forgot why i learn it and took a look at it. I realize it I didn't need it. What I learnt is just not.....not ..useful, practical, realistic, can't really do anything with it except for passing an exam, which i don't enjoy.. I really wish i could learn sth as you suggested like finacial math.
AmandaMrrs 10 months ago
Right now I am in a Trigonometry and Precalculus class together, my instructors at the junior college don't assign homework! :o Its rough! I don't know how a student can actually learn without taking their homework with them after class is finished. I always have to find some way to do the bookwork on my own and even then it's rough.
felixduhcat89 10 months ago
number one in the world, wohooo lol...
Darusdei 11 months ago
Nice list. At the college level, professors are required to know their subject, but have no requirements to study the craft of teaching. The good teachers figure it out on their own. No excuse, as there is a huge body of research on learning theory and cognition. From that, a student's success comes down mostly to the motivation provided. How long can you hold your hand to a hot frying pan? If you have no idea "why", not very long.
MathDoctorBob 1 year ago
When you said no teacher goes into teaching for the money, i had to laugh
See I live in Grenada (thats in the caribbean) and a lot of people here become teachers either because they couldn't get another job or because they're saving for university
TrueasSteele 1 year ago
@TrueasSteele what that saying means is: the money generally sucks.
patrickJMT 1 year ago
Having access to PatrickJMT's YouTube channel during Math class would eliminate any and all problems with math education in the United States :D
Hackiesacker007 1 year ago 3
@Hackiesacker007 ha, not quite : )
patrickJMT 1 year ago
@patrickJMT I know that this is random but do you get payed by Youtube for the videos that you upload?
N9acimasiz 11 months ago 3
@N9acimasiz i am in the partner program so yes, i do get a small (let me repeat: small) check from google each month.
patrickJMT 11 months ago
I received my BS in applied math at one of the highest ranked and most popular schools in california. I can tell you one of the biggest problems is that a school is ranked by the professors' research and not their ability to teach. the books we used were written by the same professors who teach the class, and they are never clear and concise. Think 5 + 5 = 10, so clearly the integral of x^2 is x^3/3...i must be stupid cuz it's not clear...
deylookin4u 1 year ago
Look this up on Youtube. I think you might like it.
TEDxNYED - Dan Meyer - 03/06/10
ChavezMath 1 year ago
Your reply is true on both accounts. I am a bit insecure at math - but, on the other side, I find that math is the only subject (in the 2+ years I've been in college) where I find that teachers have such a different attitude towards students - with the leaning being towards this. With no offense meant, I've also found math teachers to be very narrow minded in their abilities. Also, I can only account for the teachers I've had or know (applying to 8 of 9 math teachers @ my college). Thoughts?
djgenfish 1 year ago
... quickly - furthermore, I feel that math teachers have a bit of a haughty attitude - putting themselves above others - with an "I'm smarter than you" attitude.
djgenfish 1 year ago
@djgenfish well, part of that may just be insecurity on your part. to say all (math) teachers act this way is pretty silly, imo.
patrickJMT 1 year ago
As a current math student at a community college (Gen. Sci major in Education), I agree that teachers can suck - especially in math. I find one of my main problems is that none of the teachers (from math class to math class) are on the same page. So you have some teachers that will teach the bare minimum, some that teach the shortcuts, some that teach the "rule"... I want teachers to teach from the ground up and integrate it into the larger purpose. Make me know why math is important.
djgenfish 1 year ago
I lived in NY until halfway through 9th grade when i moved to Australia to complete high school as of last nov. I dont know if math is needed up to 12th grade in the us, but in australia its only required up to 10th grade. Then you can do one of 4 levels. Despite the fact that the australian university entrance exam makes the final 2 years learning for an exam not for an education, offering these 4 levels of math is quite good. one level being "life" math. the other 3 being mostly calc based
gleibowitz0210 1 year ago
am taking the cal 2, but the professor is quite horrible..he didn't do much explaination, and he just talks to the writing board.. but thanks to your examples on youtube, they are much clearly and detailed~ just watching your video to help to prepare my final tomorrow~
hkalankc 1 year ago
I am taking the cal 2, but the professor is quite horrible..he didn't do much explaination, and he just talks to the writing board.. but thanks to your examples on youtube, they are much clearly and detailed~ just watching your video to help to prepare my final tomorrow~
hkalankc 1 year ago
My math teacher is good, but she only explains things once, and god help you if you didnt catch it! She can be so cruel and sarcastic and make you feel like an idiot for not having noticed something. And you mentioned your videos being dry (no baloon animals/magic tricks), frankly thats how i like them, its easier to concentrate on what you're saying, and you explain everything and take the videos you make, and the people who watch them seriously. Thanks :)
OnMyTireSwing 1 year ago 2
@OnMyTireSwing glad you like my vids! sorry you got a touchy teacher : )
patrickJMT 1 year ago
I think it is because you really have to work hard to do well in math, and this can be very intimidating and tiresome, especially with all the negative labelling math is given. How often do you see someone on TV complain about history? Not nearly as much as you do for math or a math-based subject. I am biased because I love math, but the negative contexts in which math is connected can be really imposing on someone who is indifferent or who is taking math just because he/she has to.
ZeptoMeter 1 year ago
I'm a college student in U.S. I had a lot of professors that don't teach at all. All they do is read power point slides..They offer no homework or helps. In my opinion, teacher can make a huge different. If he or she knows how to teach the subject well, the students will be more motivate to learn. In my country Vietnam, teachers want to teach with passion even with low salary. They even offer at home help for students for free.
bublegumdiva 1 year ago
o ya and also, sometime I feel like professors are out to get us. They makes us feel like we have to beg for that one extra points.
bublegumdiva 1 year ago
If you only knew what kind of professor I had for cal 3.I don't know what crack the math department was smoking when they hired her. It is her first time teaching cal 3. She only taught pre-cal before that. She can't use computers but yet she "tries" to teach the matlab. She can not speak English. She tells us not to take notes because every example is different. According to her, 3D calculus is intuitive. We only have 50min to do a test that would normally take more then 2 hours to finish.
Haroson 1 year ago
@Haroson ha - that is too bad - i had a few of those myself!
patrickJMT 1 year ago
i think its both teachers and students.
sometimes teachers overload us with work thats just silly...
but at the same time students slack off because we find no use in it, and later on dont understand what we're doing
However, as a grade 11 student...my teacher actually has fricked me up
this year. She only remains at the school because of seniority, not because
she does her job properly or anything. everyone switches out of her class,
but unfortunately i got stuck in it :\
jazzykakezz 1 year ago
I blame most of it on a cultural issue. Most North Americans live a comfortable lifestyle where food is plentiful and shelter is pretty much there for everyone. Public education is free and everyone can have a go at it.
In China, education is not free even at a primary level and most people can barely afford to send one child to school. Because of this parents spend a lot more time helping their kids study and are much more strict on them.
siukingbon 1 year ago
@siukingbon The kids in these families know their parents have had to work hard and suffer to get them into school so they work diligently to get a better education for themselves in the hope that some day they can move their family someplace better. Kids in North America take for granted their education and its importance not realizing that its not about the material that is learned but its about learning the skills of learning. They've suffer too little to really understand its importance.
siukingbon 1 year ago
The main problem could be that teachers dwell too much on one thing. For example: I can watch ur vid and learn the subject in 10 minutes, while it could sometimes take an hour for a proff to teach it. Proffs are boring the students because who really wants to learn about math for 1 hour on the same topic...
ldc62 1 year ago
I think most people view math as a boring subject. I study engineering, but I wouldn't wanna study just math. Also mix that in with bad teaching and lazy students... thats a recipe for what is wrong with Math Education.
ldc62 1 year ago
Standardized testing is the #1 issue with math(and school) in american IMO. Instead of teaching to a test like the SAT, the government thinks teachers should be forced to teach to a dumbed down test.
H0SS302 1 year ago
@H0SS302 i agree - test scores are all anyone cares about - not such a great idea
patrickJMT 1 year ago
I believe its the students failure to stay motivated and understand the material. YET I think the System should improve what the teachers are attempting to convey in a more clear and defined manner, helping students understand and learn the reasons why mathematics is/can be important to themselves in the future.
refink33 1 year ago
@refink33 i agree - i think both teachers and students need to take responsibility. it is easy for one to whine about their terrible teacher when all they do is sit in the back of class texting their friends. a bit of personal responsibility is something the eludes many people though
patrickJMT 1 year ago
I am from Canada but I am going to chime in a bit.
My high school had a few excellent math teachers, and a few absolutely terrible math teachers. Teachers who couldn't actually cope with the students, and these were upper level all going to university students and not students destined for McDonalds. Everyone needed a decent mark to get into their university. Yet the teacher who taught calc and algebra was the head of the department, and wouldn't allow anyone else to teach it.
Ducken 1 year ago
@Ducken I would also like to say. Patrick you are the only reason I passed Calc 1 in engineering at university. Thanks for the videos you save me a course.
Ducken 1 year ago
@Ducken glad to help : )
patrickJMT 1 year ago
The reason that mathematics teaching is problematic is that it is disconnected from where students are. In the US, teachers show students how to solve problems without building from where students are. See the book "The Teaching Gap" explaining some of the differences among teaching methods in the US, Germany, and Japan. Students enjoy mathematics when it is challenging and their reasoning is brought to the forefront. See the "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics."
sleeper2345 1 year ago
I'm in my first year at Uni doing Maths in England.
I think Maths education here's similar.
In my opinion, a main reason why many students lack interest in Mathematics is because ultimately they have no idea what it is. Curriculum's in compulsory education seem to focus entirely on procedures, and not on understanding or the underlying concepts. Someone referred to abstract algebra(?) as helping explain why Maths isn't just 'a bag of tricks', an analogy I think many young people view it as.
Chipofthebass 1 year ago
@Chipofthebass yep i agree 100% - i have been helping a nice lady in her 50's who has returned to school to finish out her degree. she is taking her one math class. in it, she has had to work with sets (intersection, union), TONS of random row reducing problems, finding cofactors of matrices, sequences, and other completely useless stuff for her. what has she gotten out of the class? not much, except that she likes math even less. great job UT-Austin of making a well designed class
patrickJMT 1 year ago
Some teachers know what they are doing, but they don't check for understanding or teach it in a way kids won't understand. It doesn't help if the teacher asks "do you guys understand?" of course everyone will say yes to move on.
scarykidbryan 1 year ago
Patrick your videos should be part of a more standardized school system.
arthur92710 1 year ago
@arthur92710 tell your teacher/principal that : )
patrickJMT 1 year ago
6. Math is not for everyone. But is History? Is English? In NYC you only need 3 years of math, but you need 4 years of English and history. I see that the 12th year of highschool is a major waste for some students. It should be optional. If you need extra practice take the extra year. If your ready to go to college skip it. Im in 12th grade and have 12, working on a 4 credit calc2 class so it will be 16, college credits. Not all in math, I also took sociology, Psychology and US government.
arthur92710 1 year ago
5. Kids dont understand that they need to practice. They think that if they dont get it right away they will never. Ha, every week I do to calc 2 class I think I will never get it. But I come home watch some of your videos, go over the class work, and do the homework. Im not the best student in that calc 2 class but im working hard.
arthur92710 1 year ago
4. Its not the teachers fault. The biggest problem I see in the class room is disruptive students. The teachers cant do anything because the parents dont care. Sure they can call an AP or dean, but that kid will be back the next day.
arthur92710 1 year ago
3. Parents dont care. All they care is "are you passing" they dont care if it is social promotion or if their child really know the subject. If parents had to pay for public school they would not want their child to "just pass" they would want 100's.
arthur92710 1 year ago
2. Math, like most other subjects is boring. (BTW I rank very high in my class) When I took my math classes the most technology we used was a graphing calc and a over head projector. When I tutor some teachers have a smart board and a projector. They can show many different graphs and shapes and manipulate them to show how the formulas work. I love tutoring those classes because I find that very cool. If we had that, I would have been alot more interested.
arthur92710 1 year ago
When I was In the 10th grade I signed up for precalc at a college. I took a placement exam and there I meet a russian boy that said the exam was easy and he was signing up for calc2. He was the same age as me and recently moved to NY. He told me that the math he was doing before was alot harder then this.
arthur92710 1 year ago
I am a senior high school student in the US(NYC). I have a few ideas and comments.
1. You cant just expect kids to know anything when you teach. I have taken up to calc 2 and have tutored high schools students. In one class that I tutor, these freshmen cant do simple distributive property. They call (X^2) "x two". When I started with them I began from (x*x = x^2) (x*5=5x). These kids have been taking math for 9 years and cant do that.
arthur92710 1 year ago
I wish we learned financial math. Unfortunately, its only available as an elective for high school seniors and juniors. And because of recent budget cuts, I'm not even sure if that's true anymore.
Hackiesacker007 1 year ago
The problem with the education system in general in the United States is that teachers feel as if they have an obligation to fufill the requirement set fourth by government beaurucrats, rather than the standards set by parents.
We need to abolish the department of education, an organization which has contributed to a sharp decline in the quality of education ever since it was instituted.
Everyone please read "Education: Free and Compulsory." by Libertarian, Murray Rothbard. Available free.
Hackiesacker007 1 year ago
i am 1st year student+found your video explaining line integrals for my midterm tomorrow... can't say much bad about my hs math experience, only that having (relatively) enthusiastic teachers helps immensely. they did put us through integrals by 11th grade and we had an honors starter multivariable class senior year which has helped me to be more comfortable with the stuff i've gotten into since starting college. college teachers need to understand their proofs don't help much+are confusing
parker276 1 year ago
Hey there, I love your videos so I thought I might as well respond to this one. I'm a sophomore in high school and I currently have an AMAZING algebra 2/trig H teacher. He makes every student understand his material and as for his honors students, he makes them sweat, tear up and break down throughout the course of his class. Mainly because he wants us to own calc ap, since he teaches that too. So, given that I have a great teacher, why would I be on here watching videos? To refresh on material.
mrsbelikov93 1 year ago
@mrsbelikov93 the class is a semester long and I forget basics. But on a general scale I believe that math itself is a totally different subject from all the others. It's like it's own language and for the average person it requires practice. Math is NOT my best subject, I'm a science geek. I don't like there to be only 1 answer to things, I like stuff to be flexible like theories and such. I also like to know WHY I'm adding numbers and plugging stuff into this formula and such.
mrsbelikov93 1 year ago
@mrsbelikov93 I think math is just hard for the majority of us because it's taught differently and the subject itself is different. Math takes effort to learn, and those who are not willing to put in the effort to learn it just give up. I think motivation and endurance through a math class is what determines who's successful and who isn't (excluding math geniuses)
mrsbelikov93 1 year ago
maybe they should start customizing your classes more based on the career your going into in high school so for the ppl who know wat they want to do they're not wasting their time on learning stuff that they dont need..
AsheeBizzle93 1 year ago
@AsheeBizzle93 how many people know their career by high school though? i certainly did not...
patrickJMT 1 year ago 2
@patrickJMT not maybe exact career but a general direction they want to go in, like i want to do something with music so my schedule should have a good amount of music classes rather than stuff i won't need for that type of career
AsheeBizzle93 1 year ago
I think that the problem is maybe a little bit of all the things you mentioned. im a high school student and honestly math is my least favorite subject. i find it very hard and confusing. My teacher goes too fast and she never really explains things fully in my opinion. Since the subject is too challenging i think it makes me less motivated to learn it cuz i think its boring and a lot of the things we learn i think is unnecessary and torture unless you're going into that job field
AsheeBizzle93 1 year ago
I'm taking my calculus course 2 course in CEGEP, at Montreal. I have found out that math classes and lectures have become completely pointless, in my point of view. The reason why that is is because there is a problem with schedules, first of all, when you got a 6 hour break between classes, I am often inclined to just skip class. Another thing is that my teachers are really vague in their explanations and even though funny at times, they also lack objectivity when trying to explain a subject...
ultimaweap12 1 year ago
@patrickJMT, I am a 12th grader Senior who is currently taking PreCalculus. I agree with you that some teachers are just not fit to teach math. I have looked at math videos on youtube and the yaymath account is very helpful. The teacher in the videos is very upbeat and motivates you to learn math. I'm not saying that every teacher stinks at teaching but I do think that there has to be some portion or part of motivation from the teacher towards the student. Thanks and please share your reply.
deadlyshooter2031 1 year ago
@deadlyshooter2031 it is easy to be upbeat when you are making a 10 minute video though and then finished. how upbeat are the students? one can not just sit there and expect a song and a dance from a teacher i think day in, day out
patrickJMT 1 year ago
maybe you are whats wrong with math, you're boring and strive for mediocrity
dannyboy12357 1 year ago
@dannyboy12357 Unintellectual response is unintellectual.
It's pop culture and popular media that diminishes the quality of Math education. Why would say it's boring? Cause you'd rather control a joystick for videogames than using your brain for exercises. I'm no smart guy, and I play my share of games as well. It's why it's "boring" to the likes of you. Don't get me wrong, math is my favorite subject.
Interest and focus is what matters, and people need these.
mckrongs 1 year ago
@mckrongs What the hell are rambling about? I never said that I think math is boring I said most people do in general its a well known fact. In fact I like math so much I chose it as my major in college. I don't play with joysticks. Don't judge people son it makes you look like an ignoramus.
dannyboy12357 1 year ago
I think you really hit the nail on the head with people being forced to take math classes that aren't required for what they would like to do. I am just finishing differential equations (chemistry major). I have finished the so-called calc-based physics sequence and the only calc we did was deriv. of sin/cos and an occasional integral. We glossed over all the double integrals and DE's in physics and just used the cute formulas from the derivations. I've never used linear alg. for anything.
sinnder 1 year ago
my grade 10 math teacher... russian guy who barely spoke english, could not understand anything he said... my math grade dropped from 90% to 50% and from then on i hated math... it went from being my favorite subject to the one i hated and wanted to avoid the most
dorood 1 year ago
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unrealriot 1 year ago
Have you read Made to Stick? It's a book on why some ideas stick and others don't. One of the reoccurring topics is about how educators, especially math teachers, can reach kids who are somewhat apathetic. I think it would answer a lot of your questions as well as give you some ideas on how to do things a little differently. Check it out if you can, its a pretty easy and interesting read, the authors are Dan and Chip Heath. Also, the other book Id recommend is Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.
irbajhcaz 1 year ago
I think that we dont realize the importance. Its not stressed. I think that people grab whats interesting...so thry run from math. math is painfull for many people I'm sure...and I mean that people learn different things at different paces. I think as far as the education system goes, I think math is FAR TOO RUSHED. This makes scence as most people say they forget it afterwards. Absorbtion is everything. College algebra Pre calc has a 60%fail rate at my school. We need to break it down
pizzasuits 1 year ago
@pizzasuits USA expierience
pizzasuits 1 year ago
Hey Patrick
I'm taking Calculus 2 in CEGEP in montreal, Canada ( which is equivalent to 12th grade school in the states.) I believe the problem with math teachers is that they dont get to the point in their lectures. They dont show the clear way to solve math problems in a short sequence. You do a great job at that, 10 minutes and BOOM everything is clear. If math teachers could stop with the theory and simply explain how to solve problems, it would help students ALOT
ICameISawILeftITried 1 year ago
I really thing the problem with math is that people thinking only the smart people can take it. For example, most if not all universities treats math as a very hard subject and make hard test and assignments...etc for people who takes them. But since they mark hard, and only people who needs the cource in their major takes it, the general public (non science/engineering..etc) people doesn't get the chance to enjoy the beauty of math. Thats just my opinion.
ExcellentScore 1 year ago
Hello, I'm a 12th grade student who has gone to high school in both the USand Germany. I can say that I find the math in the USA to be a lot harder (which is not what people expect). in the 12th grade in germany, we are doing simple probability/tree diagrams/combination and permutation- which was a unit we had in 7th grade in america. however, the problems in germany are much more complicated and wordy, it takes a lot to figure out what the actual task is, in the US, it was more straightforward
Floydfan101 1 year ago 2
@Floydfan101 that is very interesting! i have a friend who is german (but lives in the netherlands)... i am going to ask her about her experience as wel! it sounds like the idea of memorizing facts/procedures vs actually doing some sort of problem solving
patrickJMT 1 year ago
18 y/o College Student
I have had my fair share of great an terrible math teachers. I think that one of the problems is that, for the most part, math builds on itself. I bad teacher or poor semester can lead to either a class failure or a poor grade. In college that means that you have to take that class over again. In high school students are often shuttled to the next level where they become overwhelmed and fail. The other issue is how I learned math. As a high school student I found ways...
F0A0Y0N0U0S 1 year ago
It's a combination of many factors, mainly unqualified teachers and lazy students. Some students are just unwilling to spend time studying it. But personally I find that it is unqualified teachers. Many of the professors and high school teachers that I have encountered cannot speak English properly and have had trouble explaining math concepts to the students. Other professors just put up problems on the board and think students will "learn" that way, but in the end it just doesn't work out...
SuperhumanChichi 1 year ago
Hi Patrick,
Im an international student in a community college- physics major. It's really strange that most of students in math (Calculus) are Asian, or Asian American. Where r other folks? maybe their major doesnt involve calculus, pre-calculus is ok for them, and still they r struggling with it. Well, we cannot follow the math curriculum in Asia, it's painful.But we could learn something in Finland, where many IMO winner come from. Just some thoughts for your interests. Thanks for ur vids :)
zealot5111991 1 year ago
I think you hit the nail on the head where you said "maybe not everyone needs "that much" math. I know, for example, for the career field I'm going into, the highest math I'll ever need is Algebra 1....but my school is forcing me to pull a C in Calculus II (up through Taylor Series). However, I have never taken no will ever be required to take any sort of finance classes, even though I'll be graduating with numerous loans to be paid, a car to be paid off, and an apartment to be rented.
jyokid 1 year ago
The best solution would be to stream your videos in class, haha
FightlikeABrave91 1 year ago
They tell you what the material is, but dont really give you methods to effectively solve the problems
Universities (at least here at Binghamton) push the responsibility of calculus on TAs who can't teach and don't want to teach. It makes calculus seem like a trivial subject of second importance, while in fact it is extremely important
Math textbooks are hard to understand
I like math when I can do it correctly. I hate math teaching in the US but at least I can come on youtube and get help...
FightlikeABrave91 1 year ago
Hello Patrick! No offence mate you are certainly an amazing guy (who can even teach a caveman advanced math), and very knowlegeable indeed! But I'm afraid to tell you that teaching math in USA sucks! Currently studying at UCLA but they're teaching me systems of differential equations (!!) I just want to say they teach us these things at class 6 in Iran! :D
SaadattheHammerhand 1 year ago
Hey, I am a Junior in High School, and every year, I have had to tutor kids in my math class because the teacher just couldn't teach. In my opinion, students only really seem lazy when they start to give up because they can't understand the material and no-one is helping them. You'd be surprised at how willing people are to be taught math in a way they understand. Unfortunately, because of Tenure, some teachers do not need to try and just do the bare minimum.
AAbattery88 1 year ago
@AAbattery88 Not always the case, but I find the newer teachers better because they are more enthusiastic and understand the kids better, as well as they have less job security so they work hard to teach better
AAbattery88 1 year ago
Unqualified teachers. My 4th grade teacher was terrible at math. She wanted us to order random fractions in increasing/decreasing order. (IE, we had 3/5, 4/7, 2/3 etc.). Instead of getting the decimal equivalents of each fraction... she tried this:
She had students try to draw circles and divide them into equal pieces, and shade them accordingly to "represent" each fraction. She then eye balled it and picked the least fraction based on whatever looked smallest.
bubbrubb916 1 year ago
As far as teacher pay, teachers are getting paid for about 9 months of work per year. The problem is that teaching isn't treated as a real job. They should work year round like the rest of us and get paid for the entire year of teaching - that would raise salaries 30%.
ZapZapMimi 1 year ago
@ZapZapMimi I agree with you , more money to education and not to weapons and war , the war on Irak has stolen money to education and to the health , social
odinheim 1 year ago
Another problem is not actually with the math course. Each teacher thinks you need to do a lot of work (homework) outside of class to learn the subject. I think math is the only course where the homework practice is actually useful but you're already overloaded with not useful homework from other courses so you don't have as much energy for the math practice as you need.
ZapZapMimi 1 year ago
Some people think that instead of aiming at calculus, it would be more useful provide a math education whose pinnacle was statistics instead of calculus. People in the sciences do need calculus, but the other 90% of people would have more use for statistics in their daily life.
ZapZapMimi 1 year ago
well, im homeschooled because of public math education... my class now consists of watching your videos on whatever the lesson is today and then doing the lesson... so much better. :)
nowinterweather 1 year ago
Hi Patrick,
I'm an adult student--biology major. My last math course was College Algebra in 1991, and I made a C at the time. I have a B in precal now, four days before the final.
My professor is fantastic. When asked, he relates what we are studying to my future career. As one of the few non-math majors in the class, it's helpful to understand why I'm learning the material. He's also bent over backwards to help me when I've asked.
You've helped me, too. Thank you.
herbpixie 1 year ago
@herbpixie sounds like you have one of the great teachers! you should give him a thank you card at the end : ) whenever i got one, it made me feel super good : )
patrickJMT 1 year ago
@patrickJMT Hello Patrick
I am and millions of other viewers in the US and the rest of the world, I think the main issue here is about the politics of education , the US is more interested in investing in warfare , I believe that the future of all humanity will depend on how we learn teach mathematical, scientific, social. political, cultural knowledge , it is a political problem from the government involved you said that the US the country that invests most in education I think .
odinheim 1 year ago
Hey Patrick thanks for your time on these videos.! Right now I am at a college library studying parametric equations and polar coordinates, the quarter is about half over and I am ashamed to say i've missed 3 days already and more than once i was so tired i might as well not have gone to class. this is probably the second or third time this quarter that i have sat down and tried to to any homework I think that my problem with math is 100% laziness.
CapitanOgre 1 year ago
@CapitanOgre ha! thanks for your honesty. i think that was my problem in high school at least. i am not sure that it is even laziness so much as lack of motivation.
patrickJMT 1 year ago
My first complaint is that the material was not hard enough in middle school/ highschool. I never had to try throughout those years and now It's kicking my but in college. I never encountered anything hard enough to force me to study and now I find it hard to get into that habbit.
tecknojock 1 year ago
@tecknojock My second complaint is that it feels like the why and how it relates to other concepts is left out. We are taught how to do something, but not why we do it. I probably would have failed calc last semester if I hadn't been taking physics at the time because physics offered me a way to link calc to a more concrete concept.
tecknojock 1 year ago
NO... a good teacher has students who understand and pass on their own... at least let them earn points back.... P.S. I HATE TRIANGLES because of teacher :P OH and patrickJMT.... you are awesome!!!! even though you dont have covered some of the problems i really needed, i understood other problems better.... I hope i get good at math like you one day!!!!
TheusedU 1 year ago
@TheusedU thanks for kind words, glad u like my vids : )
if you see me on the streets of austin (go austin!!!) you have to totally give me a sweet shout out and high five
patrickJMT 1 year ago
its mostly the teachers who assume their student know why something=somthing, and skip steps in the solving process of a problem...the lazy students tend to drop the class before, or never drop but dont show up to class. Attendace should at least be credited to the student. Notes are vital!!!!! Also teachers tend to curve grades and then wtF!!! she is a good teacher all of a sudden!!!??
TheusedU 1 year ago
its mostly the teachers who assume their student know why something=somthing, and skip steps in the solving process of a problem...the lazy students tend to drop the class before, or never drop but dont show up to class. Attendace should at least be credited to the student. Notes are vital!!!!! Also teachers tend to curve grades and then wtF!!! she is a good teacher all of a sudden!!!??
TheusedU 1 year ago
Today I came to realize that quite a bit of the problem is the mechanical way it's all taught.
Learning anything mechanically is quicker in the short run, but leaves for disastrous mistakes when the question at hand is slightly altered.
I've generally seen this lead to low self-confidence in students, and further desire to want to get it all out of the way.
Learning conceptually leads to a strong grasp of material, but takes a long time, and thus students and teachers tend to don't employ it.
stupidpablo1 1 year ago
Both of these professors I have mentioned receive positive reviews from almost 95% of the class. I think these methods truly work in improving the education of math in the USA... but I do believe that only the best teachers are the ones that not only have a passion for math, but care about the students success.
gochrisbean 1 year ago
@gochrisbean very good points! i always enjoyed hearing a bit of motivation about what we were studying and also about the humans producing the math; many of them have great stories... i tried to always give some history/stories when i taught. i did not give out notes, but repeatedly begged people to read the book ahead of time. so many people do not read the book, much less before class starts... i dont know why. no one had to tell me to read the book before class, seemed natural to me...
patrickJMT 1 year ago
considerably higher than other classes that are learning the same course. This quarter, I have a professor who makes the lectures more fun and interactive by using a "remote" or what we like to call "clickers" to answer questions relating to the lecture. He labels them as quizzes and helps us to fire up our brain and want to understand the material. He also likes to give a bit of history of some mathematicians we come across when learning new material. It's useful in "spicing up" the topic.
gochrisbean 1 year ago
I'm a college student going through calculus courses right now and I have found that professors that provide the class with their own notes of the upcoming lecture for us to print, look over, and bring to class helps a lot. This professor believes that the student learns more if they aren't concentrated on writing the notes down, but listening to the lecturer explain it while having the notes already written (and writing some side comments if need-be). The average in his class, alone, has been
gochrisbean 1 year ago
@gochrisbean This. I have a prof doing this and i am definitely learning better. But it should be noted that a prof willing to dedicate time to prepare notes before hand is likely to be a good prof anyway.
allsheeps 1 year ago
6. To improve this we can each assign students with a remote control labeled with A, B, C, D, E with answer choices up on the screen that a teacher can put. This way students can work the problems out on their own and answer it with the remote control without having to say anything in class or get embarrassed that you might get it wrong. Each remote would be labeled and the stats would show privately to the teacher only so the teacher can know who to approach too in to order to help them out.
dh4031 1 year ago
@dh4031 i think people are actually already experimenting with this sort of thing... so good idea!
patrickJMT 1 year ago
5. A small group of people per math class and the smaller the better. People will more likely be able to interact with one another rather than a huge class. I experienced this with afterschool review where only 10 people showed up. I felt that I learned better afterschool because we had more time and a small amount of people. People would always speak up but during class they would never do so.
dh4031 1 year ago
@dh4031 smaller classes means more teachers means more money.
where does the money come from? people already have a shit fit over taxes (i guess they think the money just gets put in a big pile and set of fire or something i guess)
patrickJMT 1 year ago
4. To make math more fun, jokes about it would be cool but hard to come up with them. Another way is to insult it sometimes with some unnecessary methods.
dh4031 1 year ago
3. Parents do have some vital role in this because parents can help motivate and push up to do well. If our parents didn't care at all and didn't get involve, then a lot of people would expect that their parents wouldn't expect them to do much.
dh4031 1 year ago
2. I agree, unqualified teachers are also the cause of the problem too.BOOKS play a HUGE role as well. My textbook is literally 12 years old and the context is too hard to understand because of it being outdated. My book leaves out a lot of steps. Although everything is the same, there are many lacks of explanations in my textbook that it lacks. I know my schools bought new books for Algebra 1, Geometry, and Pre-Calculus in order to help the students. What they forgot was the Calculus peeps. >.>
dh4031 1 year ago
No one is really stupid and students are just lazy to learn the material. We do need English but not so much English. Same goes with History. I mean, are we going to save the world with English and History or Math and Science?
1. You're right, students are just intimidated by it. They aren't motivated or convinced that it's quite simple with dedication to it. If people say it's hard and that it's intimidating, then they would automatically give up.
dh4031 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
too many theories, too many graphs, too many reading, too many uses of calculators
There should be more practical use of it, I mean like doing exercises rather than explaining in words how to do a question.
I'm from Indonesia, and I think the Western system of learning is holding me back, just for the math part though. Other subjects are better I guess. But the math curriculum is very slow, like in Indonesia, we already studied Integral in grade 12 for all students, not just for AP students.
anehaneh1 1 year ago
too many theories, too many graphs, too many reading, too many uses of calculators
There should be more practical use of it, I mean like doing exercises rather than explaining in words how to do a question.
I'm from Indonesia, and I think the Western system of learning is holding me back, just for the math part though. Other subjects are better I guess. But the math curriculum is very slow, like in Indonesia, we already studied Integral in grade 12 for all students, not just for AP students.
anehaneh1 1 year ago
@anehaneh1 i agree with you; in usa at least (all i really know) we memorizing of formulas to do specific problems. if you happen to understand a bit of what is going on as well, good for you!! it is terrible... i agree: here is how to do this particular problem so that you do well on this standardized test.
patrickJMT 1 year ago
Education in America is lagging. Not only in test scores but also in funding-- I'm sure you know, but the education budget has been diminishing in the last couple decades. Yet the reason doesn't sole lie on underfunding, I don't think. In fact, as a student myself, I think the primary culprit is technology. Cell phones, i-pods, laptops, videogames what have you. This generation of children, myself included, are bombarded with distractions left and right.
I hate this character limit
lilsamuraijoe 1 year ago
@lilsamuraijoe well, students in USA get more money per capita than anywhere in the world (i am almost 100% sure this is correct).
i dont know that it is techonolgy: i loved my tv and my atari when i was a kid (i still do) and i turned out ok. i mean, i dont think everyone was sitting around the fire reading math books 300 years ago...
patrickJMT 1 year ago
I think there are a lot of problems in the system as a whole, but I do like your fifth option. Compared to what most people "more is better," you suggest do less math, and the math you do do is financial math. I think that is a great idea for people that are NOT going in the science, physics, math, etc. field. A financial math class in high school possible could've saved a lot of people from making stupid decisions during/leading up to the recession. The thing is they need to know their major
Sumitalianguy6 1 year ago
@Sumitalianguy6 this is 100% my reasoning, so great minds think alike : )
patrickJMT 1 year ago
I understand that practice is a factor. However, I believe that U.S. math will be better off when:
1. The history and uses of each concept are focused on more in curriculum and classes. The stories of Archimedes, Euler, Newton, etc should be taught and tested on along with their discoveries.
2. There are less repetitive mundane problems and more diversified word questions to convert to equations like in Blitzer's preCal book (best math book I've ever seen) Sec P.8 "Modeling with Equations"
alexgordonepic 1 year ago
I have earned a bit of money and personal satisfaction tutoring Algebra and Geometry at 17. Now, I have a 4.0 gpa w/ 44hrs college credit hrs. I am enrolled in McCombs at UT Austin for this fall and I am very grateful to you Patrick for your gracious vids.
When you mentioned that you would not dress up like a clown, I thought of Prof. Edward Burger. I think that he is whimsical. I'd like to peak inside his clothes closet. I bet it's a rainbow color explosion! His phd's from UT Austin you know.
alexgordonepic 1 year ago
@alexgordonepic yes, burger was a comic during his college years i do believe!! he is clearly a super smart guy. UT actually has one of the best math departments in the world in fact. he is certainly no slouch, and quite funny too. i think he has the right balance of humor and education and it comes through in his teaching as i have watched many of his videos.
patrickJMT 1 year ago
The problem starts early. I had to memorize math rules at home when i was six, and i knew how to do long division by the time i was 7. why did i have to do it at home? kids in other countries learn differently, there is no stupid sensitivity to being harsh to kids about DOING the work, my parents taught me the tough way but honestly it ddnt hurt. a child's mind is a sponge. all this alternative teaching needs to stop. there's a reason why the old way works, that's what i believe.
smashrobot3ZO 1 year ago
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alexgordonepic 1 year ago
I've been out of school for a bit but I enjoyed math it was one of the few subjects that made sense to me(until statistics). I totally agree that personal finance should be taught in high school. On that same note, I would also like to see computer programming as a requirement as well. Even if its some high level crap like VB you can have a curriculum that will take the math skill the students (should) have learned and apply them in an program. This could drive it home or be a refresher for 'em
wipmonkey 1 year ago
Math in schools could be made more 'fun' by introducing it as a less computational subject. For instance, instead of forcing highschool students to factor thousands of times in a row, or perform synthetic division hundreads of times, perhaps we could give the students with explorititive and creative mathematics. For instance, we could introduce students to methods of proof early on, and encourage exporation though interesting problems form various compititions, stressing creativity, rather than
11Agamemnon235 1 year ago
My favorite math teacher was this little old lady with a thick eastern european accent, hard to understand. The thing with her though was that she took the Socratic method to heart. She would literally reason out every step that she felt we should be able to understand. All that scut work from the previous chapters (and courses) were put to use and the underlying structure and reasoning of the processes we were performing was laid bare. God I miss her teaching.
mrgne1 1 year ago
The problem is many teachers think that students already know all the small details and don't explain things throughly enough because it consumes too much lecture time. If calculus wasn't so crammed together in a semester it would make things easier for everyone. We basically covered a 10 section chapter every week.
pyrokn03 1 year ago
I hate the fact that our teacher doesnt explain anything, so i will be watch your vids i guess xD
Griffynful 1 year ago
i think teachers should try to explain to the students that math is not just boring number crunching and tedious equations. Explain to them how math Is more of an exercise in creativity and cleverness. There are many more dimensions to math, pun definitely intended, than is given credit to.
dannyboy12357 1 year ago
In our high school, to graduate you only needed geometry to graduate and algebra 2 for college "readiness." They did offer classes on pre-calc and calc ab+bc, but they were not required to graduate, but living in california it gets competitive to get into a university so everyone needed calc ab at least. I had some really terrible teachers in high school, but found some AMAZING professors in my university (taught it extremely clear) which laid the fundamentals for me, to now were I am in calc 4
xghoulxx 1 year ago
In my experience a teacher in the USA is someone who works for a company with contracts with textbook publishers. Teachers' job are to read textbooks bought from those publishers out loud in a room. If the teacher receives questions, they are to identify key words from those question to find what paragraphs the questions most resemble. Once a paragraph has been identified, the teacher re-reads that paragraph out loud. If you want to fix math education, write a textbook.
MrPopenator 1 year ago 3
@MrPopenator hm, dont agree with that one at all
patrickJMT 1 year ago 3
@patrickJMT Oh well? I live in Las Vegas, Nevada; this is exactly what goes on in our high schools. (Including the contracts. They can't afford school supplies, but they sure can afford new textbooks every few years)
MrPopenator 1 year ago 2
HS math was cake, I got good grades and didn't try too hard. But I did not really care about math, it was just hw to do. It was not until this semester in E+M physics and engineering statics did i really appreciate calculus. Now I wished I tried harder in calc to really understand it. Doing derivatives and ints was just plug and chug until I saw what they are really capable of. After that epiphany I suddenly saw how important math is. After seeing gauss law & dist load, it just hit me.
allsheeps 1 year ago
(I'm a first year university maths student in the UK)
I don't understand why American kids are taught basic calculus so early, at all... not only is it a pointless skill to learn for the majority of students, but I bet that 99% of these kids don't actually have a clue WHY the basic formulas work - or even WHAT they are doing when they differentiate/integrate!
I get the impression that your education system tries to teach kids "complex" topics pointlessly early, and before they are ready.
tomthecool 1 year ago
The problem is not in us, but in the teachers
Give us an example or two examples of the subject and this is not enough
khalid97899789 1 year ago
also patrick, you are making math way more of an enjoyable subject by posting these videos. education needs to progress technologically, and you are far ahead of the curve.
uponthedownside 1 year ago
Sorry one more thing. I think that if people need to make math "fun", then normally they aren't motivated enough to learn the material at hand. I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but all the people in my lectures who ask the professor to make the material "more intersting" are they same people that cut up and disrespect the teacher other times. Again this is just my own personal experience. Sorry for the triple message Patrick.
cajuninms 1 year ago
What ever you want to major in, are the classes you need to take. Granted if you want to take extra classes, by all means do so. With math though, I think if you are going to be going into Engineering, I think Cal I should be mastered prior to college. Maybe it was just my high school that didn't prepare me enough.
cajuninms 1 year ago
Personally, I think a career decision needs to be made about a year or two years sooner than normal. I am currently a sophomore studying Computer Engineering. It would have been very beneficial to fully grasp a deeper understanding of Calculus before entering college. I don't think we need a "basic package" classes in universities.
cajuninms 1 year ago
To me, the problem of math and many other subjects is not that they themselves are particularly unlikable, (although believe me, i do despise my fair share of subjects.... accounting bleh) but that the manner in which they are presented kind of ruins it for the students. Throughout middle and high school, i felt like i was being force fed these subjects without really creating an inner desire to learn about them. Im finishing up my second year of college and i just now realized that i enjoy
uponthedownside 1 year ago
(continued) math. It took me all the way until my second calc course to realize it, and it only came my own curiosity about the subject, not because it was a requirement for my major. Sure real life examples help connect the dots, but educators first need to make students feel like their choosing to pursue a subject instead of backing them against a wall and shoving it down their throat.
uponthedownside 1 year ago
I am a High School Math teacher recording myself as I teach my students and putting it on YouTube (Channel RobbWorld). You have extremely fabulous points. I really appreciate you putting a video out like this. Thanks for caring about people and making the videos you do.
RobbWorld 1 year ago
I loved math, and in fact I wanted to study physics. However, for the High school lousy education in math and the unqualified professors, they killed my dream. So I decided to study biology, which I love as well.
SciNonymous10 1 year ago
The problem with math education is that you are not taught on how to apply the knowledge you learned. I mean really i would love to know why complex equations like.
√ COS(12)+17√ 289 <=====made up, not even possible.....I think
__________________ 87X-37Y
exist. It would make math so much easier if i could understand the real life concept of it and how I can benefit society by using it
Br3akinghabits 1 year ago
The whole structure of how we teach does not work. We all don't learn the same way or at the same speed. Some subjects I need longer than others and I know that the other students in my Calc 2 class are the same. Bell curves stink. The bell curve sets up competition between the students instead of encouraging the students to study and work together (a physics class) . I am really trying to think about this for both myself and my son.
search4robfen 1 year ago
we don't have a set standard from one grade to next, what i learned in pre-calculus is different from what my friend learnt who had a different teacher. Starting of the year, my AP calculus teacher had a lot of problems figuring out where everyone was which ended up wasting like 2 weeks. We should have a combined final of all classes of the same subject, end of the year and your grade should be affected by that...
Sorry for the block of text.
karshy72 1 year ago
high school teachers in the usa dont care about learning, all they do is teach you how to pass a test. its all about passing the test, to make themselves look good or to keep the state off their backs, by handing out high grades and half there students dont even know 2+2. grade inflation