Marnetmar
-
Content count
3396 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Single Status Update
-
Why do math teachers suck at teaching math? In my book it's not an issue of not paying attention and then complaining/blaming everything on the teacher. Ever since the start of high school, I've had a consistent habit of failing at math until someone explained a concept to me in understandable terms, and then acing everything for the rest of the unit.
For example, I was taught that the definition of a linear equation is as follows:
1) F(a*X)=a*F(X) for every real number a
2) F(X+Y) = F(X)+F(Y) for every X and Y which can be taken as an argument of the function or the operator. These two conditions can be sinthesized in the following single one: CONDITION FOR LINEARITY: F(a*X+b*Y) = a*F(X) + b*F(Y)" etc etc etc
I couldn't understand a thing.
Then a trustworthy friend of mine explained that a linear equation simply doesn't contain exponents and doesn't curve on a graph. Aced the rest of the unit.- Show previous comments 2 more
-
Marnetmar said:For example, I was taught that the definition of a linear equation is as follows:
1) F(a*X)=a*F(X) for every real number a
2) F(X+Y) = F(X)+F(Y) for every X and Y which can be taken as an argument of the function or the operator. These two conditions can be sinthesized in the following single one: CONDITION FOR LINEARITY: F(a*X+b*Y) = a*F(X) + b*F(Y)" etc etc etcI suppose that's meant to generalize in case F applies on any kind of vectors X, Y (like in vector spaces), not just numbers. That kind of generalization ought to be taught in colleges rather than high schools, I think.
In high schools we were basically taught that linear equations = first degree. Whatever C30N9 said. -
-
In the same way people tend to misinterpret posts on this very forum, some people simply process information differently. So things that seem completely simplified to the teacher may be taught in little detail, while other things get over explained when you understood it right away.
my teacher in my accounting class seems to explain things the first time in such a way like he's talked about it before, with lots of abbreviations and undefined vocabulary which at times don't make any sense to me. If I follow what he's talking about in the text book it usually makes more sense to me to read it than to listen to him talk about it. The first week of class I've taken notes from his lectures that were completely backwards from what was in the book and more importantly, the test!
some teachers are really good at interpreting what you aren't getting and explaining it to you in a way you'll understand, and for others its just a job.