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Re: Meaningless problems in algebra texts



"One of the activities out of MOP that I find interesting, but I am not sure
if it worked well in my hands, was translating graphs to physical
situations. Students were given all kinds of crazy graphs and then were
required to us[e] simple objects to reproduce the motion."


An even better exercise done at a NCNAAPT workshop sponsored by Vernier (if I remember correctly), was to, given a graph on a sheet of paper the student (us) duplicate it by moving (walking running) and check the result recorded by an ultrasonic motion detector and an A => D (LabPro) and computer. I'm also a great believer of teaching kinesthetically.

I just returned from the Fall NCNAAPT mtng., wherein Paul Doherty and Don Rathjen of the Exploratorium used a one inch bar 1.4 m long (weighs 14.7#), and for us metrics, a one cm wooden cube glued to the cap of a full one l water bottle. When either is placed on a palm, one feels an additional atmospheric p.



http://www.exo.net/~pauld/lectures/ncaapt2004.htm <http://www.exo.net/%7Epauld/lectures/ncaapt2004.htm>



Re many posts, I now understand more fully the terms used on this list. In the eighth grad I flunked algebra. I changed schools for the ninth and got A's in math starting w/ algebra from then on.

Gate Keeper (Nancy Seese) is tearing her hair out because Kinders are expected to do simple arithmetic and write simple sentences by by the time they move to the first. Yesterday a panic letter was sent to the district teachers warning that several of the schools are two years away from a govt. take over. At least one of the schools has a majority of English learners.

bc



John Clement wrote:

John doesn't really argue against my advocacy of "magic X",
because I am not advocating sticking symbols into equations.



Actually I was thinking of the texts which say "X marks the spot" and then
proceed to use X almost

cut

Often the student needs to generate in
intermediate step such as a graph. Then there is the necessity of using
metacognition in the process.

One of the few texts that actually has students translate between all
representations is Minds on Physics from the U.Mass Amherst research group.
It actually has students write equations and also solve problems using
calculus ideas (area & slope) without the calculus formalism. Much of the
text looks simple, but some of it is challenging to college students.

One of the activities out of MOP that I find interesting, but I am not sure
if it worked well in my hands, was translating graphs to physical
situations. Students were given all kinds of crazy graphs and then were
required to us simple objects to reproduce the motion.

My objection to most math teaching is that it concentrates almost
exclusively on equations. While graphing calculators can be helpful, having
the students graph and measure on paper or with real objects is just as
vital.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX