On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 09:19:54AM -0400, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: > While much of the conversation below is steeped in issues I only peripherally > understand, from a pedagogical perspective I am in complete agreement with > Benjamin. A basic understanding of probability and statistics is more likely > to > be achieved by students, and would be more useful in most of their lives than > a > basic understanding of calculus. Calculus is a big stumbling block even for > many students who enjoyed the math before that. I'm not sure how the high > school curriculum would change to accommodate the new agenda, but I'd be > really > interested in finding out. > > Eric >
I don't see why its an either/or thing. From what I recall of my years 11/12, we had two maths subjects, one which covered things like algebra, trig and logarithms, and the other covering probability, statistics, differential and integral calculus. The next level down (1 unit maths as opposed to 2 unit) left out the calculus part, but did do statistics and probability, along with reduced algebra etc. Of course the whole thing was a complete snap for me. I learnt the entire calculus syllabus during a two week period in year 11 whilst on a trip to France, sitting in cafes drinking beer. My teacher was a gifted year 12 student! Where I agree with the original poster is that more use should be made of writing programs that illustrate the maths concepts from a discrete point of view. There's nothing like watching a series converge on a computer screen to see how the discrete maps to the continuous. In fact I purchased a TI58 calculator in year 12, and writing programs to do these sorts of things formed part of my "extension". These days, one would probably do it in Matlab (or Octave). -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
