Applied Maths
Applied Maths workshop at Auckland University 23 February 2018
Two professors, Prof Thomas Edwards and Kenneth Chelst from America present the workshop.Both got impressive CVs, work in the industry in Motor factories and Walt Disney doing applied Maths.
It was not long before someone asked the Americans why they have not changed to the metric system.The reply was it give Americans and Brits a chance to do complicated maths.Another answer was consumer resistance. Miles per gallon and ounces and pounds sounds better in the English language.
The idea of using calculators in class came up - appropriate or not. He said if you use pen and paper or a calculator to work out 5% of 100 you should be kicked. It is lazy thinking and should be done mentally. For complicated maths you need a calculator.
The workshop focus on using real world examples to solve Maths problems. Most books and examples teachers and books are using are total unrealistic and useless and that is why students lose interest, it make no sense to them. Who wants to work out the height of a building in cm? There are 28 students in the class, 60% is girls. How many boys are in the class Students will only say count them. You done that in the first place by knowing how many students are in the class.
We spend 6 hours working through the examples of the book. It focus on percentages and give you a reallife example and problems. Then the problem got a variable in. Drawing a table you work out an algebra expression from it and end up finding a solution using an algebraic equation.Sometimes the answers don't add up and you have to ask why? For instance, one month the sales drop 10% and the next months it clim by 10 %. . Then you work it out and you land with 99% and not 100%...the answer is to use base value... also one month will be February with 28 days and the next month has 31 days. Is it good to use monthly data to work out sales figures. Is weekly not better? Most of the exercises got a money generating or saving element in it
Some interesting ideas is that he lost the kids when he was teaching. He changed to 6 min activities and it worked much better. They use Habit of Mind a lot in America where we use SOLO. The activities linked to the child's world---ice cream, fast food, lawn mover business to get interest and engagement [spheros, drones, Barby dolls]
They don't start with starters-they start the lesson in America with number talk. it is a 5 minute slam session on number examples and discussions.
Two professors, Prof Thomas Edwards and Kenneth Chelst from America present the workshop.Both got impressive CVs, work in the industry in Motor factories and Walt Disney doing applied Maths.
It was not long before someone asked the Americans why they have not changed to the metric system.The reply was it give Americans and Brits a chance to do complicated maths.Another answer was consumer resistance. Miles per gallon and ounces and pounds sounds better in the English language.
The idea of using calculators in class came up - appropriate or not. He said if you use pen and paper or a calculator to work out 5% of 100 you should be kicked. It is lazy thinking and should be done mentally. For complicated maths you need a calculator.
The workshop focus on using real world examples to solve Maths problems. Most books and examples teachers and books are using are total unrealistic and useless and that is why students lose interest, it make no sense to them. Who wants to work out the height of a building in cm? There are 28 students in the class, 60% is girls. How many boys are in the class Students will only say count them. You done that in the first place by knowing how many students are in the class.
We spend 6 hours working through the examples of the book. It focus on percentages and give you a reallife example and problems. Then the problem got a variable in. Drawing a table you work out an algebra expression from it and end up finding a solution using an algebraic equation.Sometimes the answers don't add up and you have to ask why? For instance, one month the sales drop 10% and the next months it clim by 10 %. . Then you work it out and you land with 99% and not 100%...the answer is to use base value... also one month will be February with 28 days and the next month has 31 days. Is it good to use monthly data to work out sales figures. Is weekly not better? Most of the exercises got a money generating or saving element in it
Some interesting ideas is that he lost the kids when he was teaching. He changed to 6 min activities and it worked much better. They use Habit of Mind a lot in America where we use SOLO. The activities linked to the child's world---ice cream, fast food, lawn mover business to get interest and engagement [spheros, drones, Barby dolls]
They don't start with starters-they start the lesson in America with number talk. it is a 5 minute slam session on number examples and discussions.
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