Andy Ewing » Teaching http://www.andrewewing.com Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:55:51 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 The Future of Math Education? http://www.andrewewing.com/blog/2008/09/the-future-of-math-education/ http://www.andrewewing.com/blog/2008/09/the-future-of-math-education/#comments Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:20:08 +0000 Andy Ewing http://www.andrewewing.com/?p=110

Continue reading »]]> The New York Times ran this article today about the relationship between humans’ intuitive approximate number system that is shared with many other animals and the concocted symbolic number system that we often regard as “math”.  Unsurprisingly, the two seem to be related.  From the article:

“What’s interesting and surprising in our results is that the same system we spend years trying to acquire in school, and that we use to send a man to the moon, and that has inspired the likes of Plato, Einstein and Stephen Hawking, has something in common with what a rat is doing when it’s out hunting for food,” [Justin Halberda] said. “I find that deeply moving.”

Behind every great leap of our computational mind lies the pitter-patter of rats’ feet, the little squeak of rodent kind.

My hope is that math educators can harness this relationship in a meaningful way in the future.  The article also has a version of the test used in one of the cited studies here.  See what your high score is!

]]> http://www.andrewewing.com/blog/2008/09/the-future-of-math-education/feed/ 0 Teaching and Learning http://www.andrewewing.com/blog/2006/10/teaching-and-learning/ http://www.andrewewing.com/blog/2006/10/teaching-and-learning/#comments Sat, 21 Oct 2006 19:11:38 +0000 Andy Ewing http://www.andrewewing.com/2006/10/21/teaching-and-learning/

Continue reading »]]> Silberberg Lecture

Yesterday, I had a wonderful opportunity to give a presentation in front of a couple hundred Principles of Microeconomics students. The slides are here. I thought it went pretty well, and several students were interested enough in the material to come talk to me afterwards and/or give me a thanks (which, by the way, is one of the nicest things you can do for your teachers.)

I was a little disheartened, however, by the handful of students that made an exit when they realized that my talk wouldn’t be covered on any test they had in that class. It reminded me of this website I came across a few weeks back, which discusses some of the myths and realities of college education. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of what is said, I think this professor hits on some very good points.

I know that as a student I was probably guilty of a few of these, but as a teacher, it has become clear to me that the meaning of a college education has really changed over the past few decades. You read stories about students in the olden days really getting into learning the material and deepening their knowledge base, rather than just showing up to class and doing the minimum that is necessary to get that piece of paper at the end of 4, 5, or 6 years. The huge jump in demand for a college education has forced these eager learners to pursue graduate studies. Is this bad, or is it just progress? I think we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the next few decades.

Thanks again to those students who spent just 45 minutes of their Friday with me, learning for the sake of learning. I really do appreciate it.

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