Subject: Innovation: A Golden Teaching Moment

Posted by Bob Gorman on 12/1/2010

Message:

I also do not have the answer. However something interesting happened this year with my students which may point in the direction of a solution.


Every week I hold a problem class on maths and physics exercises for my first year college students, and particularly when solving physics problems we often end up with a huge expression full of numbers which needs calculating. I'm congenitally lazy, and so refuse to use a calculator, instead working out an estimated solution in my head which I then used to check the calculator answers of my students.


After a while a student told me in class that he was amazed that I could consistently get answers which weren't much worse than those of a calculator, and the whole class asked me to show them how I estimate numbers in my head
What an absolutely golden moment, which all teachers live for!
IMO, by all means stop everything and teach them mental estimation!
If more people could estimate numbers quickly in their heads, politicians and other sales peoples' blatant lies would be exposed & hence rendered useless.



What became apparent in the ensuing conversation (and what was new to me) was that much of what I do relies heavily on making use of little algebraic tricks like factorisation, cancelling and so forth.
Yes by all means teach them your little algebraic tricks, and call them 'tricks'! Kids love to 'know' some little secret their peers don't.


Could it be that this might pave the way to a discussion of algebra?
The absolute shock of a teacher teaching what the students want to learn, rather than what others want them to learn may well last a lifetime.

Bob

Follow Ups:

Innovation: A Golden Teaching Moment - Tim Joy 12/1/2010 
Innovation: A Golden Teaching Moment - Richard Turnock 12/1/2010 
Innovation: A Golden Teaching Moment - Pedro D. Almaguer Prado 12/1/2010
Innovation: A Golden Teaching Moment - George Richardson 12/1/2010 
Innovation: A Golden Teaching Moment - Alex Leus 12/10/2010
Innovation: A Golden Teaching Moment - Sharon Villines 12/1/2010