In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On 22 Apr 2004 at 15:12, Herman Rubin wrote:
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, >> Robert J. MacG. Dawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >. >. >. >. >> For students wishing to do graduate work in mathematics or >> statistics, a graduate committee has little to go by, and >> the GPA is one of the worst parts. This is especially the >> case as the great majority of American students getting >> undergraduate degrees in mathematics have not had even one >> decent real mathematics course. >Is it really that bad, given there now is published so many good >undergraduate books? For instance, the Springer Undergratuate series >seems really good. I just got my hand on Davis Cox, John Little and >Donal O'Shea: "Ideals, Varieties, and Algorithms", which seems really >good, and teaching proofs and understanding. Should have had that a >20 years ago! The problem is very definitely NOT the quality of available books; students got good undergraduate degrees in mathematics 50 years ago. It is what is taught, and to some extent how it is taught, and what the students are willing to learn, and their preparation. The first time I taught calculus, the proof that the derivative of x^n with respect to x was taught by induction; the students all had induction, and they all knew what proofs were. This is definitely NOT the current situation. Also, with the now mandatory student evaluation of teachers, and the students complaints against wasting their time with concepts (they call it "theory") instead of drilling them on how to solve examination problems, it is not even possible to correct this. We have to be ready to tell them when they get to college that memorizing facts and learning how to calculate has nothing to do with understanding anything, and that they need to learn the concepts if they are not majors, and the proofs also if they are. But the other departments are not willing to go along with this, and want us to teach their students "all the mathematics they need" in too little time to even get started doing a good job. >Kjetil Halvorsen > Courses in how to calculate >> solutions do not help in understanding anything. -- This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558 . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
