… I found what I was hoping to be a nifty article about teaching math (okay, I wasn’t hoping *too* hard; I’ve learned the hard way not to). I scanned it - a “strategy” for tackling word problems.
The word problem used as an example made me stop:
“On a certain morning in College Park, Maryland, the high temperature was -8 ° F, and the temperature increased by 17 ° F by the afternoon. What was the temperature in the afternoon that day?”
Aargh. I’ve asked the author why that was selected … bet I don’t get an answer. And people wonder why so many students have a bad attitude towards math…it ain’t ‘cause our standards are too high…
Re: And we wonder why the students struggle...
Yup to both… I’d have switched to Celsius…
The solution, though, as described in the article, was to add to the negative 8.
Of course, maybe I haven’t gotten an answer to my email ‘cause Uni’s these days get the whole week off for Turkey Day. My message will indubitably get swallwoed in the sea of spam and be discarded.
Re: And we wonder why the students struggle...
Moving to NM eliminated all those sorts of problems. It never gets that cold. :-)
—des
Re: And we wonder why the students struggle...
It never gets that cold in COllege Park, either ;-)
Okay, I am a little picky. I have issues with today’s problem about a saguaro cactus that’s “1/3 to 2/3 of a foot tall” and the student is supposed to switch that to inches. The picture next to the problem is of the saguaro I’d expect - looks like 4 to 8 feet tall, not 4 to 8 inches. (The problem is also worded as if 1/3 to 2/3 of a foot is normal.
DOn’t know if it’s in NM or not :-) I’m just hoping it isn’t snowing **too** much between here and Maryland…
Re: And we wonder why the students struggle...
Gee, it’s a beautiful day here in Montreal, sun shining and sparkling off the snow like a picture postcard; -5 Celcius or23 Fahrenheit.
Temperatures in that problem sound perfectly normal for winter to me …
But you are right, it is an incredibly badly-written problem.
“the high temperature was -8 ° F”
Well, if the high temp was -8*F, the high temp that day was -8*F. I love easy questions.
That makes the low -25*F, right? The temp increased 17* and the high was -8*F.
Of course, being from that area I know the temps in question are bogus flights of fancy.
John