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An observation on homework problems
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tooki:

--- Quote from: HighVoltage on March 02, 2019, 02:04:20 pm ---In the last few years I come more and more across students in the field of science and engineering that believe that homework is a ridicules invention of the past generation. These students want to pass tests without ever doing any serious training and just look at problem shortly. And with many new rules, that you can pass with 39% of correct answers, some of these students even pass their test and proof to me that I was wrong.

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I think part of the problem is that until university, a lot of the homework is genuinely useless. We know from studies that the amount of homework assigned to kids doesn't make a big difference in knowledge acquisition, so it's clear that at least in some subjects, the homework is actually a waste of time. I can't blame students for thinking homework is ridiculous when (as I often experienced it myself) it didn't actually help them learn.

And on the other hand, I absolutely agree that practice is essential.


--- Quote from: Kjelt on March 02, 2019, 11:19:53 pm ---

--- Quote from: rhb on March 02, 2019, 08:36:20 pm ---A very common homework problem asks the student something they have been taught, but places it in a different context so they have to look for the relationship. The most common problem simply asks the student to apply the information they have been given to solving a problem.
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Actually IMO many math and physics highschool homework asignments are nowadays just comprehensive reading asignments where the student has to extract the parameters for the formulas from the "story".

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While I find the "stories" to often be contrived, I think this approach does fundamentally make a lot of sense, because one of the huge disconnects between school and the workplace, IMHO, is that people have no idea when and how to apply the math they've learned in school. I mean, look at how many people learned algebra, yet can't even begin to apply it to real-world situations?
rhb:
A major reason why kids in high school struggle with algebra, geometry and trig is that their teachers have no clue how to apply the skills.  The story problems would be much better if the authors and teachers had some real world experience of using them.

With the exception of mechanical and electrical repair, they are essential to all the skilled trades.  The high school math subjects are routinely used in carpentry, plumbing, machining, etc on a daily basis.

Without a concrete explanation of what the tools are used for it is small wonder that the kids are not interested.  I enrolled in Advanced Applied which was a quick summary of linear algebra and integral transforms when I was getting my MS in geology.  I had not a clue how to use the material at the time, so I dropped the course because it was eating up so much time.

My experience over the course of my career was that if I could get the problem into the appropriate mathematical form I could find a solution quite easily.    The really hard part was figuring out what the appropriate form was.  This is especially a problem for me with differential equations.  I pretty much know how to solve the wave equation and that's it.  For everything else I hunt through my books for a problem that matches mine.

Of course, the kids are told that they should go deeply into debt for a completely useless piece of paper.  The shameless exploitation of the students by the faculty and administration is appalling, but best left for another time.
Echo88:
"I'd loved to give examples from geology, but I'd get banned again if I did."
Why?
Mr. Scram:
Is this another thread of old men yelling at clouds? Because it sounds an awful lot like it. The world has changed and information has become much more readily available. You'll still need to practice your skills, but ignoring this fundamental change means you're woefully inefficient compared to those that adapt. Research indicates that younger folks retain less information than they used to but are more efficient at filtering and finding what they need from large volume of information, which is just what this era of copious amounts of available information requires.

Kjelt:

--- Quote from: Mr. Scram on March 03, 2019, 06:37:47 pm ---Is this another thread of old men yelling at clouds?
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No it is not and most threads can not be put in pre-labeled boxes, if you do you are the one doing the filtering with a preconception which says more about you than the thread. Can we continue on content.
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