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Because they're not being taught to think! Math has been taught - for decades - as "plug in these numbers to get the answer" or "this is the formula you use to get this answer." No thinking, no deductive reasoning involved, certainly no explanation of why they are learning this formula, and most of these kids have probably never seen a problem where there was no answer because that choice was never offered.
Unfortunately, I had a lot of math teachers like that. They also tended to have only one set method that was allowed to solve a problem, and they would give 0 credit for any correct answer using a different method, perhaps one you learned the previous year by a teacher who actually understood math. Also, they would demand that you show all work, and even in middle of high school would give 0 credit for a complex problem where you showed all of the steps, but did not explicitly show something trivial such a 1+1=2. In many cases, I think these teachers were more interested in teaching discipline rather than math.
For those of you arguing about "brain development": I remember in 3rd grade learning about problems that had too much info and problems, such as the one mentioned by the OP, with too little info. I also don't remember any of my peers having problems with it. Perhaps the problem these days are the teachers, not the students.
Unfortunately, I had a lot of math teachers like that. They also tended to have only one set method that was allowed to solve a problem, and they would give 0 credit for any correct answer using a different method, perhaps one you learned the previous year by a teacher who actually understood math. Also, they would demand that you show all work, and even in middle of high school would give 0 credit for a complex problem where you showed all of the steps, but did not explicitly show something trivial such a 1+1=2. In many cases, I think these teachers were more interested in teaching discipline rather than math.
For undergraduate, I went to a school where the math department was ranked in the top 20. My first semester I took Vector Calculus. I remember on the 1st quiz getting the right answer, but only getting "2 points" out of "20 points" because I solved the problem using the "Physics way", not "the way taught in the book".
For undergraduate, I went to a school where the math department was ranked in the top 20. My first semester I took Vector Calculus. I remember on the 1st quiz getting the right answer, but only getting "2 points" out of "20 points" because I solved the problem using the "Physics way", not "the way taught in the book".
Not math but chemistry, but I remember the same thing where the chem prof counted it wrong because I solved it the physics way.
For undergraduate, I went to a school where the math department was ranked in the top 20. My first semester I took Vector Calculus. I remember on the 1st quiz getting the right answer, but only getting "2 points" out of "20 points" because I solved the problem using the "Physics way", not "the way taught in the book".
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Originally Posted by tnff
Not math but chemistry, but I remember the same thing where the chem prof counted it wrong because I solved it the physics way.
That's ridiculous.
Another pet peeve of mine in physics and math classes was that it seems that every teacher would have a slightly different method of dealing with significant figures and rounding. If you would ask at the beginning of the year, they would just yell at you and refuse to answer a "stupid" question. But if you didn't use their exact method, they would give 0 credit. Ridiculous.
About physics vs chem: I forget if it was the NY State Regents or if it was the AP Exam, but for one of those exams, the physical constant reference that you would get with the exam listed the specific heat of water as 4.19 kJ/kg-K for the physics exam, but 4.18 kJ/kg-K for the chemistry exam. Those were also the values we were expected to use in class; I never dared use the "wrong" one. In both classes, I asked why it's sometimes 4.18 and sometimes 4.19, and in both cases, the teacher yelled at me and refused to answer the question.
In reality, I think it's 4.185 and change, and physics and chem have different ways of rounding when the next number is a 5, and they give 0 credit if you do it wrong, even though they won't tell you.
For those of you who will say to do as the textbook says: in both cases, my teachers used a method other than what was in the textbook, and they refused to accept the method in the textbook as being correct.
The gist is that 8th graders were presented with a math problem that said: There are 125 sheep and 5 dogs in a flock. how old is the shepherd?
While a quarter of the kids said something along the lines of, "this is not a problem that can be solved with the information given," the much larger percentage gave answers ranging from 25 to 120. (Most of them either subtracted the two numbers or divided them.)
How is this happening? These are 13/14 year olds, since they're in 8th grade. Are today's students really just not comprehending that math is a way to find the solution to a problem, and not just a way to randomly interact with numbers?
No one would consider the dogs as members of a flock of sheep. A group of dogs is a pack.
Do people not realize words are defined to facilitate communication and not just a way to randomly interact with sets of letters?
I subbed in a 6th grade class today, and this a math question on a worksheet we did together: 1 in 10 students in Mr. Stone's classroom have cats. There are 20 students in the class. How many students have cats?
None of the students I called on had the correct answer, not one, because they are not being taught how to deduce!
Are they really that bad?If 1 in 10, what is in 20? Can they just take an intelligent guess?
I read from the PISA report, our wealthy kids cannot compete with poor Asian kids in math. The poor kids in US are even worse. PISA 2015 will be released in 2 months. I don't think it will be any better.
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For those of you who will say to do as the textbook says: in both cases, my teachers used a method other than what was in the textbook, and they refused to accept the method in the textbook as being correct.
I'm sitting here laughing because I remember one where the textbook didn't even use it's own method for sig figs in arriving at the answers in the book.
Because they're not being taught to think! Math has been taught - for decades - as "plug in these numbers to get the answer" or "this is the formula you use to get this answer." No thinking, no deductive reasoning involved, certainly no explanation of why they are learning this formula, and most of these kids have probably never seen a problem where there was no answer because that choice was never offered. Add into the mix kids (like me) who just don't get math, it is literally a foreign language with no translation provided, and that is what you get.
I subbed in a 6th grade class today, and this a math question on a worksheet we did together: 1 in 10 students in Mr. Stone's classroom have cats. There are 20 students in the class. How many students have cats?
None of the students I called on had the correct answer, not one, because they are not being taught how to deduce!
Thought common core was going to solve that.
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If 1 in 10, what is in 20? Can they just take an intelligent guess?
