As a student in high school who excels in the math classes offered here, I have been saying pretty much the same thing about the way our curricula are set up. It is astonishing when my friends ask me to help them with math to see how little they truly have retained from their many years of taking math courses.
I'm 65. All the math and science I ever got was in a small town high school where I graduated in 1963. And I'm here to tell you it wasn't always like he portrays. Our schools have died in the last ~40 years. Now our schools are largely run by teachers who have no technical skills themselves. I'm afraid it's too late to turn it around. Unless we can clone this guy, it's just too late.
Starting at about 6:57 he began to talk about problem involving a huge tank and I started laughing. I first had a flashback to 10th grade Mr. Powers' Algebra II/Trig class where Mr. Powers had a chart on the wall full of formulas...each had an example of a real-world application. About 7 yrs later I was managing a whole recycling operation in Florida and we had these 500,000 gallon tanks. One day I tried to calculate how fast it would fill up. It all came back together. This man is a gr8 teacher
classic TED talk. take a problem people aren't talking about, and fix it in a clear and simple way that makes us all think "why didn't I think of this?!"
Part 3 The best 'talking about math' (calc): "How many leap years are in a trillion seconds?" "If you have swiss cheese, and your swiss cheese grows, then the amount of holes grow too. Meaning you have less cheese the more cheese you have. This was supposed to be an example of the L'hospital (
A word problem uses a short text to describe a situation to you, instead of simply giving you an equation to solve. For example: "Ben has six Apples. Sarah eats two of them. How many apples does Ben have left?" would be a word problem, whereas "6 - 2 = x" would be the corresponding equation.
I'm trying to do exactly this when teaching statistics at the university. The biggest trouble that I am finding is student's resistance to be creative when solving problem.
I always felt that my math teachers in high school never gave you the base knowledge of something, you just slowly learned a formula and applied it to things. I once raised my hand and ask "What would you ever use this for?" And his response was "To Teach Grade 11 math"
@tonybeir scientists and exerts are already writing the textbooks. He also mentions he's not an expert; teaches remedial students due to his lack of experience. What we need is new blood (like him) in the system with a fresh perspective on how to teach kids. Technocracy is a form of governance, not an educational reform. ->Montessori Teaching Method: involves the teacher's curriculum to view the child as having an inner natural guidance for his or her own self-directed development
i am a junior chemical engineering student. the only reason engineers get paid more is because we are trained to solve problems like the ones he showed. that's it. teach this to everyone and everyone's an engineer. it can only benefit us all.
@Murre3000 but you all have to understand that it mostly on the children. if they don't give a shit (at all) then even an amazing, innovative method won't be super effective
@heylookitsnana Part 2. A lot of us would say, "wtf?" when the book tried to hold our hands in making us work step by step in the problem. He's totally right when we never talk about math. In the advanced classes I was in, we were always rushing to cover more material. Of course, my teachers tried to make the class engaging (b/c my middle school classes had mostly advanced students) with different techniques, but nothing like he said.
Part 1:I skipped two grades in math in high school in CA, meaning I was taking my second year of algebra as a freshman. We never read out of the textbook. My math teachers only cared if I did the homework, not whether or not I did it correctly. (For grading purposes, we'd go over any questions in class. The grades were mostly based on tests.) So all of that garbage that's in the textbooks he mentioned were totally ignored by me and my peers.
Basically the difference between college and university. College give you the formula, tells you when and how to use it, while university give you the problem, and says "go for it!".
The Irony is that this video is one of the few that aren't labeled with anything but a name. No interest in math, and no interest in pushing the videos that might change that. Still Love you TED :^)
What I think the problem here is not with math, it's with the learning style of students. Educational systems are bringing up students with the expectations that they are going to be fed the answers if they ask. That is not how education should be. I have a book called Self-Directed Learning sitting on my desk right now that gives many reasons why this is a bad thing and yet we're still forcing our students to learn more and more this way. I suggest you look up Self-Directed Learning.
@tonybeir sadly he wont there are teachers unions that will make sure of that. There are reasons why school isnt most exiting place in the world and its NOT because learning isnt fun
@tonybeir You what's bullshit? You made a great point & 106 people gave you thumbs up but...it has been a year since you posted your comment & things are still quite the same. Human beings make progress at such a slow rate because we are naturally more comfortable with what's familiar and radical but simple changes like this take far too long to be made.
@donnyz89 I don't think it's safe to assume that all teachers are C/B students. I was at the top of my class and I certainly had more lucrative options than teaching. However, some of those "top of the class" people are, like myself, interested in structuring social change and have found that teaching offers this opportunity in a much more fundamental way than any other career we might have considered.
@jreed136 And yet, you rely on their output for every single breath you take, every action you make, the floor beneath your feet, everything you eat and drink, etc.
If a bad car accident, God forbid, happened outside the classroom, kids would start asking questions, would look to teacher for answers, there'd be hubbub and the teacher would be pairing kids up to comfort less understanding kids. OK. Rethink that and replace "bad car accident" with "everyday math problem" or "poem" - that's an effective lesson right there and a pen wasn't put to paper until well after.
@tonybeir He does have a point, you know. Instead of always jumping to "they're trolling me" whenever someone makes a remark on your sacred 63-thumbed-up-comment on UA-cam, you could always rebuttal properly instead of taking a shot against their identity. Scientists are still just as human as politicians, and being human comes with biases. Was it not scientists who forged a lot of the global warming statistics? What exactly does that tell you?
@tonybeir You are wrong. Scientists in general is not better decision makers than politicians in general and explanation models can not be held responsible in the same way an elected officials can. Suggested reading is Poppers The Open Society and Its Enemies. But democracy must be well informed and hopefully this will trigger a change in public opinion.
@ncho0 scientists are not better policy makers, nor are they necessarily great educators. a problem is public school teachers are NOT top of their class, in fact, the standard for these teachers are very low. I mean look at the teachers, what do you think their percentile is in their graduating high school class? point is, the experts are not gonna be public school teachers. we are letting C/B students in highschool teach public school, this is what we get.
This guy is awesome, we need more teachers like him, it's nice to see a teacher genuinely care about improving education.
We need more teachers like this, high school and college alike!
As a student in high school who excels in the math classes offered here, I have been saying pretty much the same thing about the way our curricula are set up. It is astonishing when my friends ask me to help them with math to see how little they truly have retained from their many years of taking math courses.
I love how TED's intellectual discussions made it onto UA-cam. It's a rare sight seeing someone actually put some thought into their comments.
I'm 65. All the math and science I ever got was in a small town high school where I graduated in 1963. And I'm here to tell you it wasn't always like he portrays. Our schools have died in the last ~40 years. Now our schools are largely run by teachers who have no technical skills themselves. I'm afraid it's too late to turn it around. Unless we can clone this guy, it's just too late.
man a college physics teacher taught like this in my Electric-Magnetism class and that class kicked my ass. I approve of this method of teaching
Starting at about 6:57 he began to talk about problem involving a huge tank and I started laughing. I first had a flashback to 10th grade Mr. Powers' Algebra II/Trig class where Mr. Powers had a chart on the wall full of formulas...each had an example of a real-world application. About 7 yrs later I was managing a whole recycling operation in Florida and we had these 500,000 gallon tanks. One day I tried to calculate how fast it would fill up. It all came back together. This man is a gr8 teacher
This man is a hero. He should paid what the worthless professional athletes are paid in this country.
This is my math teacher!
classic TED talk.
take a problem people aren't talking about, and fix it in a clear and simple way that makes us all think "why didn't I think of this?!"
Fantastic! I don't teach math, but do have 'word problems' in the biology courses I teach. This was inspirational :) Thank you!!!
Perfectly spoken.
math is a skill it should not be taught like its a set of facts. great video. also this concept applies to ALL science fields in public schools.
Part 3 The best 'talking about math' (calc): "How many leap years are in a trillion seconds?" "If you have swiss cheese, and your swiss cheese grows, then the amount of holes grow too. Meaning you have less cheese the more cheese you have. This was supposed to be an example of the L'hospital (
A word problem uses a short text to describe a situation to you, instead of simply giving you an equation to solve. For example: "Ben has six Apples. Sarah eats two of them. How many apples does Ben have left?" would be a word problem, whereas "6 - 2 = x" would be the corresponding equation.
I'm trying to do exactly this when teaching statistics at the university. The biggest trouble that I am finding is student's resistance to be creative when solving problem.
I always felt that my math teachers in high school never gave you the base knowledge of something, you just slowly learned a formula and applied it to things.
I once raised my hand and ask "What would you ever use this for?" And his response was "To Teach Grade 11 math"
we need to make a school where Ken Robinson is the principal, Dan Meyer as the math teacher, and homework is delivered through the Khan academy.
@tonybeir scientists and exerts are already writing the textbooks. He also mentions he's not an expert; teaches remedial students due to his lack of experience. What we need is new blood (like him) in the system with a fresh perspective on how to teach kids.
Technocracy is a form of governance, not an educational reform.
->Montessori Teaching Method: involves the teacher's curriculum to view the child as having an inner natural guidance for his or her own self-directed development
i am a junior chemical engineering student. the only reason engineers get paid more is because we are trained to solve problems like the ones he showed. that's it. teach this to everyone and everyone's an engineer. it can only benefit us all.
Amen, amen, and amen!!!!
@Murre3000
but you all have to understand that it mostly on the children. if they don't give a shit (at all) then even an amazing, innovative method won't be super effective
@heylookitsnana Part 2. A lot of us would say, "wtf?" when the book tried to hold our hands in making us work step by step in the problem. He's totally right when we never talk about math. In the advanced classes I was in, we were always rushing to cover more material. Of course, my teachers tried to make the class engaging (b/c my middle school classes had mostly advanced students) with different techniques, but nothing like he said.
@11889music Couldn't agree more. Extremely articulate.
omg, you seriously have 3 commercial breaks in a 22 min show in the U.S.A? DAIM, and i thought we had a lot of commercial in sweden (only one )
do work Dan Meyer!
Part 1:I skipped two grades in math in high school in CA, meaning I was taking my second year of algebra as a freshman. We never read out of the textbook. My math teachers only cared if I did the homework, not whether or not I did it correctly. (For grading purposes, we'd go over any questions in class. The grades were mostly based on tests.) So all of that garbage that's in the textbooks he mentioned were totally ignored by me and my peers.
Yeah, too many teachers ignore conceptual understanding and expect students to memorize procedures. Students that don't try are often the smart ones.
Basically the difference between college and university. College give you the formula, tells you when and how to use it, while university give you the problem, and says "go for it!".
The Irony is that this video is one of the few that aren't labeled with anything but a name. No interest in math, and no interest in pushing the videos that might change that. Still Love you TED :^)
Math is everything.
That is what I am undergoing right now.
What I think the problem here is not with math, it's with the learning style of students. Educational systems are bringing up students with the expectations that they are going to be fed the answers if they ask. That is not how education should be. I have a book called Self-Directed Learning sitting on my desk right now that gives many reasons why this is a bad thing and yet we're still forcing our students to learn more and more this way. I suggest you look up Self-Directed Learning.
@tonybeir sadly he wont there are teachers unions that will make sure of that. There are reasons why school isnt most exiting place in the world and its NOT because learning isnt fun
@tonybeir
You what's bullshit? You made a great point & 106 people gave you thumbs up but...it has been a year since you posted your comment & things are still quite the same. Human beings make progress at such a slow rate because we are naturally more comfortable with what's familiar and radical but simple changes like this take far too long to be made.
i'm gonna show this to my math teacher ;)
Question:Was it hard when you first started your course?
And what do you learn in chemical engineering?
@donnyz89 I don't think it's safe to assume that all teachers are C/B students. I was at the top of my class and I certainly had more lucrative options than teaching. However, some of those "top of the class" people are, like myself, interested in structuring social change and have found that teaching offers this opportunity in a much more fundamental way than any other career we might have considered.
@tonybeir It's often the scientists and experts that are making these mistakes.
@jreed136 And yet, you rely on their output for every single breath you take, every action you make, the floor beneath your feet, everything you eat and drink, etc.
3:15 patient problem solving
Great Stuff!
If a bad car accident, God forbid, happened outside the classroom, kids would start asking questions, would look to teacher for answers, there'd be hubbub and the teacher would be pairing kids up to comfort less understanding kids. OK. Rethink that and replace "bad car accident" with "everyday math problem" or "poem" - that's an effective lesson right there and a pen wasn't put to paper until well after.
wow this is pretty amazing
@ncho0 You make a fantastic case for reforming English education in the Public School System.
Awesome
@normloman
experts of a specific domain of knowledge = PhD by definition.
Hello what does 'word problems' mean? '
@tonybeir He does have a point, you know. Instead of always jumping to "they're trolling me" whenever someone makes a remark on your sacred 63-thumbed-up-comment on UA-cam, you could always rebuttal properly instead of taking a shot against their identity. Scientists are still just as human as politicians, and being human comes with biases. Was it not scientists who forged a lot of the global warming statistics? What exactly does that tell you?
@tonybeir agreed
Matematica - limbajul Universal al Ştiinţei.
Erm,not all professional athletes are "worthless".
Some did do some charity works and stuffs to make a world a better place in a different way.
@666pandemic thats what he is talking about, developing better problems to train problem solving skills
@tonybeir You are wrong. Scientists in general is not better decision makers than politicians in general and explanation models can not be held responsible in the same way an elected officials can. Suggested reading is Poppers The Open Society and Its Enemies. But democracy must be well informed and hopefully this will trigger a change in public opinion.
Didn't anybody watch the Simpson's? According to Apu, if the long line is single males with cash at the ready, go for that one.
@ncho0 scientists are not better policy makers, nor are they necessarily great educators. a problem is public school teachers are NOT top of their class, in fact, the standard for these teachers are very low. I mean look at the teachers, what do you think their percentile is in their graduating high school class? point is, the experts are not gonna be public school teachers. we are letting C/B students in highschool teach public school, this is what we get.
For advanced math topics, Meyer's comments are not all correct. Math is in some sense like a language and we need know some basic rules.
Wasn't as exciting as other TED presentations I've seen.
yu really bored me...