LOLSparty: Algebra no longer required at MSU
In a move that should shock none of us, MSU has done away with requiring algebra to graduate. They claim that algebra is just too hard for their students, so they are implementing new "quantitative literacy" classes. And it's not like MSU's algebra course is rocket science. From one class's syllabus:
The topics of MTH 103 include linear & quadratic equations & inequalities, complex numbers, equations with radicals, absolute value, graphing linear and quadratic equations, transformations of graphs, polynomials, functions, polynomial and rational functions, exponentials, logarithms, and, most importantly, applications of these topics to solving problems outside of mathematics.
I do realize that math isn't for everyone (UM's calculus courses were the WORST), but come on. If you have a college degree, you're expected to able to perform simple algebra calculations. Luckily, one of MSU's leaders agrees with me:
But students aren’t likely to succeed in the new classes or in post-college life without some algebra fundamentals, said William Schmidt, director of the MSU College of Education's Center for the Study of Curriculum. “Students who come to college with real weaknesses on the formal math side may not benefit fully from the quantitative lessons,” he said. While every job doesn’t require a well-honed knowledge of advanced math, Schmidt said, learning the fundamentals is essential to problem-solving. “The logic of thinking algebraically builds ways of thinking about problems, allowing us to engage in the practical aspects of mathematics,” he said. “It’s pretty tough (to do so) without it.”
So maybe there is a small chance that eventually those quantitative literacy classes will end up resembling actual algebra. But until then, we just have to be content with "Go to school at MSU, learn to count to te-en!" being all too real.
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reading beyond the Buzzfeed headline, they are doing away with it because it's a class that's below what is typically taken in HS. Anyone going to a AAU membership university shouldn't be taking it.
GEt off your high horses, Michigan had the equivalent class, something like MATH 105 or something. Class fed into CALC 115.
Clap, clap
If you can't get into college, go to State
Clap, clap
If you can't get into college and you know you really suck,
If you can't get into college, go to State
Clap, clap
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A + B= Staee
Common core...now THAT is some serious bull shit. Most students hate math as it is, but the common core backers want to make it even more difficult to learn. Idiots.
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different "Common Core Compliant" K-8 math cirriculua in four years (each replacing its predecessor) it was my experience that most of these programs are less about teaching math to students than buying the latest shiniest apples from the best salesman.
Despte vast amounts of money spent over the last decade math performance on standardized tests, depending on grade level, either either stays flat or shows a statisitcally meaningless decline. What is more troubling is that the school system in question regularly ranks in the top five in the state, including student performace in math and literacy.
This does not bode well.
Yeah, I can't really get too worked up about this, because my undergrad stopped requiring algebra while I was going there. I took "Intro to Mathematical Concepts," which was much easier.
College (and former high school) math teacher here. I have found that people are surprisingly willing to talk about how horrible they are at math. "I was horrible at algebra! I never could figure that out! Hahahaha!" No one ever says, "I never could get the hang of that reading thing. Hahahaha." Many people just don't see any need for math. "I never use it."
Every pro football player lifts weights. Almost all college football players lift weights. But I have never seen a football game with a barbell on the field. Or a bowflex machine or whatever. I guess football players must be absolute dummies wasting their time using equipment they will never use on the field.
It's true that almost no one will ever need to simplify a radical in daily life. But that isn't really the point. The real point is that math is weightlifting for the brain. It's the best weightlifting there is for the left side of your brain. It's to make you "smarter". More specifically, to make you better at analytical thinking, which we all use all the time. "When am I ever going to use this?" The answer is never--or all day, every day, for the rest of your life--whichever way you want to look at it.
One last thing: when did we decide that education should be about doing the bare minimum? I know how to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, and use a smart phone, so that's all I "need"? Really? Is that really what we want for ourselves and for society?
I'll stop now. I probably shouldn't have started in the first place, but...
I would add programming/coding and robotics as great mental exercises in that all should try ( plus they can get jobs).
I'd prefer people NOT take coding/programming. Keep my job market from getting saturated, ya know?
Coding/Progamming has no redeeming value, makes you a total nerd, has absolutely no enjoyment involved with it, makes your brain go soft, and you'll be on food stamps!
LIFE is about doing the "bare minimum" Just because a message board guy poses as something, does that make it true?
All chest puffing aside, college students do the absolute BARE to get by so they can get to the next party. Sitting in a lecture hall with 300 other hungover, barely awake half-assed students at Michigan, or any other over-priced collection of frustrated professors and lunatics doesn't automatically make on an accomplished genius.
I mean, it might be worth 40,000 sissy points in this fan-boy echo chamber, but all the huffing and puffing over MSU (the usual daily shit here, OBSESSION with SPARTY) is glass houses, stones, pots and kettles, etc etc.
and negging the OP. Nice try though.
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I just can't see how you lower the bar at instutuions of higher learning. Why not dumb down the class a bit before taking this route?
Glass houses and all... my freshman year rooomate at UofM couldn't solve for x when given "5x + 2 = 10".
It made me squash any superiority complex I had about our school in the first week of freshman year.
Caveats do apply here. He was a male Nursing school student who applied to nursing only to get admitted. He had no intention of finishing in that school; he just wanted in. And I hated him every single waking day for that.
I have never used algebra to balance a checkbook, budget, measure something to cut, or figure out how much to tip a waiter.
Algebra and all that mathy shit is great for college, but you don't use it afterward, at all.
People who don't understand math think they don't have any use for it. People who understand math use it all the time.
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Now geometry...fuck that stuff
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You will not be commanding top dollar in my avocation without utilizing algebra and other maths everyday. No way around it. And if you succeed in life via sales or some other business pathway please know that you will always be vulnerable to folks unless and until you have math under control personally. I take advantage of the math-challenged all the time in my line of work. Just please accept that University matriculants will benefit from stats, algebra and trig de minimis and, further, at the very least you should have mastered these maths presupposing there is any mathematical component to your future. It's worth your time.
Definitely we apply advanced maths to the legal billing computations. How else to charge 25 hours for each 24-hour day. In addition, my work is majority CS/EE, and the projects are not infrequently bleeding edge. The producers, the engineers and scientists, have better things to do and they hate participating in the enforcement of company riches. (It should gall them; they make the sh!t and the sales folks make the money. You know, because the latter have visions, could results from doing blow off the hookers' navels, but I digress.)
I always sucked at geometry though because I could never remember the formulas.
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Truth is, many students who've taken algebra didn't learn very much and can't apply it very well. Math is a habit of mind, and many people lose the habit as soon as they leave school. So I'm in favor of "dumbed-down" math classes that emphasize skills that students will use (including some aspects of algebra) to function at a high level in our complex world.
The standard algebra curriculum (and especially the standard calculus curriculum) doesn't do a very good job of teaching students the math they actually need. Fractions, ratios, percentages, compounding, logarithms . . . these are actually difficult concepts that many students never master. They fake it well enough to pass the test and go on through life without ever being able to use it. And that's a shame.
Just returned from spending a few days in Savannah, GA. While walking the waterfront a container ship cruised by, on its way to the port terminal. The ship was home-ported in Haifa, Israel, and carrried (my guess) about 3 to 4 thousand containers. After the ship berthed, cranes began plucking the containers off the vessel and onto waiting tractor-trailers. The order in which the containers came off and the order in which the waiting trucks received them was completely synchronized, each container landing on the next truck in line that would deliver that container to its appointed destination.
How much math was involved in scheduling and prioritizing the onloads in Haifa and other ports, and the offloads in Savannah? Someone somewhere developed the algorithms necessary to sychronize all the aspects of this complicated process. And whoever it was studied a lot more than "quantitative literacy" in college.
Fibonacci started the Renaissance in the Western World by introducing Arabic numerals and reviving Hindu- Indian Algebra. Math and the logic process associated with it is important to every great society.
This is not a criticism of MSU but rather how only a small part of our culture seems to value math other than means to get test scores to get into college.