Posted on 10/07/2023 3:40:59 AM PDT by george76
After a year of remote algebra, Diego Fonseca struggled with advanced algebra. Despite a week at George Mason University's Math Boot Camp, the would-be computer science major failed the math placement test to qualify for calculus four times. He didn't know the basics.
Across the country, more students are placing into pre-college math, reports AP's Collin Binkley. "At many universities, engineering and biology majors are struggling to grasp fractions and exponents."
At George Mason in Northern Virginia, fewer would-be STEM majors are getting into calculus and more are failing, he writes.
“We’re talking about college-level pre-calculus and calculus classes, and students cannot even add one-half and one-third,” said Maria Emelianenko, chair of George Mason’s math department.
At Temple, the number of students placed into intermediate algebra, the equivalent of ninth-grade math, has nearly doubled, writes Binkley. It's the lowest option for STEM majors.
In a softball quiz at the start of last year's fall semester, students were asked to subtract eight from negative six, recalls Jessica Babcock. “I graded a whole bunch of papers in a row. No two papers had the same answer, and none of them were correct.”
“It’s not just that they’re unprepared, they’re almost damaged,” said Brian Rider, Temple’s math chair. “I hate to use that term, but they’re so behind.”
Professors tried "expanded office hours, a new tutoring center, pared-down lessons focused on the essentials," writes Binkley. "But students didn’t come for help, and they kept getting D’s and F’s."
This year, Babcock hopes redesigning the algebra class to focus on "active learning" will help. "Class will be more of a group discussion, with lots of problems worked in-class."
George Mason also is offering active learning, and the option to take a slower-paced math class that takes two terms instead of one.
Fonseca failed the placement test four times, again placing in pre-calculus. He'd need at least one extra semester to catch up on math. He decided to start at community college instead. Using what he'd learned in boot camp, he placed into calculus.
Take away the calculators. They are programmed from a very young age to reach for the device reflexively. Later in life it’s the phone, cash register, whatever.
Take away the publik skrewls.
Kids aren’t students.
They’re just the grist for Deep State’s diploma mills.
Learning creative math never leads you to the right solution.
My feeble mind this am says 5/6 but not sure with the new math if that is right.
Living alone has benefits.
Yeah. “Lowest common denominator “comes to mind a lot, these days.
That’s what the solution sounds like to me.
LOL!
ALL MINE!!!
Yeah, I got 5/6, too.
Could be the feminization of society in general or possibly a bit of people who shouldn’t be in college are in college. The STEM types were visible in highschool and even elementary and they didn’t struggle with things that attracted them.
These kids have no clue.
I cook. I sew. I do some home repair. I budget. I shop.
I use all kinds of math, though not calculus (thank God), on a daily basis.
Oh you got it right but with the way they teach it now you would need two pages of work to solve it.
its not 1/3 + 1/2 = 2/5.. new math and all. /s added because sociopaths dont recognize sarcasm.
I bet they can quickly spout out a list of 50+ “genders” though.
STEM these days is not what it used to be. It is kind of like pretending that playing with Legos will make you an engineer.
One of my kids is an astronautical engineer. We homeschooled him so when he was a senior in high school he took a few community college classes to get acclimated to institutional education.
He bombed the math entrance exam. He’d kind of forgotten the basic math because he’d been doing advanced math.
A friend has a masters in some sort of very obscure mathematics. When she began homeschooling her kids she realized she couldn’t do math with numbers. All her knowledge was formulas and symbols.
That works for multiplication
Math is one of those subjects that takes a varied amount of time depending on the student. Students need to learn at their own pace.
When slower students are pushed too fast, they give up. And when faster students have to slow down for the entire class, they get bored and stop learning.
Khan Academy lets students learn at their own pace.
As an aside, just because a student is slower doesn't mean that he or she is less mathematically inclined. Some students look at the deeper meaning of each topic covered and that makes them slower. Other students are only faster because they merely memorize what they are taught without understanding the "why" of an operation.
If figure it this way (if my memory from middle school serves me well):
1/3 equals 2/6
1/2 equals 3/6
2/6 plus 3/6
equals 5/6
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