rounding and approximation

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rounding and approximation

by Math Teach to yikes

Nov 28, 2015

Yikes, your answer was spot on (I too was a math major).

Which leads me to ask:

Why is it that a High School Chemistry teacher can comfortably teach General chemistry to students, a High School Bio teacher can teach AP Bio to students, but when it comes to helping a kid out in AP Calculus, many math teachers run away?

Let's face it: As math majors, we took two semesters of Calculus in our Freshman year in college, and Calculus III and Diffy-Qs (typically) in our second year. This is clearly analogous to what Bio and Chemistry teachers do during their earlycollege training.

So, Calculus is FIRST YEAR college material. So why the aversion ????

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Many math teachers On 11/28/15, Math Teach to yikes wrote: > Yikes, your answer was spot on (I too was a math major).

Although I am a pretty self-confident guy, I appreciate the affirmation. > Which leads me to ask: > > Why is it that a High School Chemistry teacher can > comfortably teach General chemistry to students, a High > School Bio ...See MoreOn 11/28/15, Math Teach to yikes wrote: > Yikes, your answer was spot on (I too was a math major).

Although I am a pretty self-confident guy, I appreciate the affirmation. > Which leads me to ask: > > Why is it that a High School Chemistry teacher can > comfortably teach General chemistry to students, a High > School Bio teacher can teach AP Bio to students, but when it > comes to helping a kid out in AP Calculus, many math > teachers run away? > > Let's face it: As math majors, we took two semesters of > Calculus in our Freshman year in college, and Calculus III > and Diffy-Qs (typically) in our second year. This is clearly > analogous to what Bio and Chemistry teachers do during their > earlycollege training. > > So, Calculus is FIRST YEAR college material. So why the > aversion ????

weren't math majors? Heck by the time I was in college, having taken BC calculus in HS, I was taking Calc 3 and Linear Algebra in my first freshman semester. But then I come across math teachers who are seemingly clueless about math. Or even worse, administrators who are clueless about math who were math when they taught.

Like the former math teacher AP who didn't understand what a ring was when I told him that I used ring and field theory concepts to explain to my kids order of operations. It wasn't that he didn't see how those concepts could be used to teach O of O, he didn't know what a ring or a field were, or even seem to recognize the terms.

Personally I love calculus and love to help kids with it even now that I'm retired (from teaching 7th and 8th grade - so I wasn't exactly refreshing my calculus memory there). I used to go to a coffee shop after school every day and would sometimes help students who attended the local community college with their math when they asked. I even had a former student (I had her in 8th grade) come back and ask for help years later when she was in college taking calculus. And now I go to our local senior center and there are some college students who work there part-- time and I suspect I will be helping some of them, as well. I look at it as if I have retired from teaching but not educating.

Are you familiar at all with the work of Dr. Wu, at Berkeley? He is a math professor with a great deal of interest in math teacher preparation, and while his emphasis is on the early years (where I think we would both agree we are woefully weak) he has a very clear, correct- mathematics orientation and I got a lot of benefit reading through some of his stuff - even the elementary stuff, as he is so clear and focused.

If you're interested in checking him out, this is the address. math.berkeley.edu/~wu/

Nov 28, 2015

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