The worst teachers: the ones who bully their students. The ones who only want one type of student and treat unfairly any other student. The ones who don't know the subject they are "teaching". The best teachers: the ones who don't care how bad your grades are they still believe you can be the next Einstein.
I had a bad math teacher. She would confuse the students and refuses to help them. I heard a student failed her class three times. The instructor is STILL TEACHING!
I was actually taking out my maths homework while listening to this and over the rustling of my bag I just heard "[...] understanding how and why maths works" and this is such a motivation for learning maths, really. It signifies that not only does maths work, but it can always be explained. I don't even know the context of this quote but this is definitely something I'm going to have in the back of my mind during lessons. I even wrote it on a post-it note, how bout that
It really is! Math sorcerer is great at revealing the best things about math! In Calc II, I had a class with this kid who had already taken the class once but got lower than a C so he had to retake it. At the start of the course, he already knew how to do all the problems but didn’t know why we did them that way or didn’t completely understand it. I on the other hand, did not know how to do the problems but I was focused on understanding the concepts (like what different variables translate to an axis or point on a graph so I can picture it). The kid told me I was making it too complicated. I grinded for hours to make it click in my head and eventually came to class understanding. He ended up doing terribly in the class and I ended up getting a B. (The most hard fought B I’ve ever gotten!) As the class went on, it felt like I was able to just grasp the concept before we moved on to the next topic, but by the final, my cumulative knowledge helped me do well. I think it really set me up for Calc III because I just finished that class with a high A and I feel like I understand everything that was taught.
I have been struggling this semester worse than ever, I spend hours trying to comprehend simple problems. Your videos have been more helpful than any tutor or professor I've had. I cannot thank you enough for saving my grades.
Bad teachers teach as if you already know it. I had a professor who had thousands of citations. H-index through the roof. Terrible teacher... But why would any university turn down a guy like him? That's what sucks.
So true. My son had a teacher last year who gave out ZERO homework and randomly gave him the grades, but this year the new teacher has given out a lot of homework and grades them. For example, my son wrote a one-page essay, and the teacher wrote back 1.5 pages back. I think my son will pick up a lot this year.
Whenever I realised I'd misinterpreted a student's question in class, and my answer was inadequate, it stuck with me. On one such occasion, a couple of years later, I happened to meet the student socially, and mentioned this episode. He was very impressed and appreciative that I had remembered, but this meant he'd remembered it too!
I hab bad math teachers. Really bad. I thought my entire life i am to stupid for doing math, to stupid generally. I am 29 years now i am about to finish self studying my second math book (all you need to ace geometry and Harold Jacobs mathematics a human endeavor) I want to learn all the basic high school math till the end of the year and in the next year i want to study computer science. I will never give up as hard as the way is. I was for over 10 years something i call a mathematically analphabet due to my bad teachers. Now i have big fun in doing math i even became kinda like an math addict i can only think about math all the day. I wont give up.
If UA-cam would've been around, back in my day, I would have excelled in math regardless of the teacher. I can watch videos over and over and ask as many questions as want without feeling stupid. Between books and videos it's all there for me.
The title of Teacher should be considered the highest honor in society and a beautiful art. Lifelong damage can happen to students from bad, inexperienced, unqualified, unreasonable, and unprofessional teachers which should be a felony with possible imprisonment. (Baltimore)
This will be the last time I talk about this person but she was responsible for some deep, almost life long mental programming. This math teacher singled me out for her bitter, racist notions. She hated me more than all the black students in the class because I was half Italian. I was already getting bullied by other students and she bullied me more than any other teacher. She said, oh you won't need math when you grow up anyway when I lamented my struggles. Thats my experience of a bad math teacher.
I was pretty fortunate: I don't recall any bad teachers. A few of them had horrible lecture styles: reading from old notes & copying on the blackboard, speaking in a droning voice. However, they were good during Office Hours. So, got to Office Hours for your professor and Teaching Assistants.
I'm retaking college algebra after failing it last semester. This semester I got a new teacher and I've got a B in the class so far. The one thing I've learned from you is not to be scared of math. math is hard for everyone. do the work and eventually, you'll figure it out. once you figure out mathematics all other college subjects just seem to be easier. My major is Physics and Im still in algebra. ive got a long road ahead. but im soo excited for this journey. thanks for the positivity!
Worst math teacher I ever had forced us to copy her notes exactly while she was writing them on the overhead, and if the class said they needed more time to copy her notes, she would have us pass around the overhead sheet as she moved on to another.
I think we are really blessed that we can simply buy a course from very good math lectures online and study it in our own bedrooms by our own pace, gone the days when a person could be ready bad at a subject “specially math” only because he couldn’t find a good teacher. Ps: I genuinely think math sorcerer is one of the best online math teacher
My Son once had an 8th grade teacher that he said told them, "I'm only here for a check, whether you all pass or not doesn't mean s@&# to me." He's 30 now, but that situation has always stuck with me.
I think I had the worst math teacher in the world in the 1970s. My teacher Ms Benn##t was my 4th Grade teacher and she was new to our school. Her teaching was abusive and she would have everyone write in the chalkboard in front of everyone long division problems and would berate those not doing well. For me she was so frustrated that she snapped a few times and physically grabbed my face as she screamed at me. At the time, I was an abused child at home and later in life having Asperger’s. Turns out the next year I was actually great at math and calculus. Working in tech and the Marines piloting microwave and satellite comm shots. But in my 60s, I can forgive but I’ll never forget the year of hell I went through in the 4th Grade. Don’t rely on teachers but in yourself to learn the basics. Teachers can help but they can also hurt.
Your Discrete math professor reminded me of my Discrete math professor, he was/is a great teacher, he used the marker and projector method too, and he used to grind every simple concept down so you can absorb it just listening to him. one of the best I've ever had.
Whenever I had a bad a teacher I pulled a picture of Ramanujan, said my little prayer "I can't do what you did but I can try" then proceed to ask a knowledgeable friend for the best text book there's and get to work.. I remember this happening in "Advanced Probability distributions and Artificial Intelligence courses".
When I was first introduced to math I loved it it was magical, but in third grade I was having trouble and I didn't quite understand why. It hurt because I thought I was good at this and I understood it. I remember working up the courage swallowing my pride and asking I don't understand this, and you know what she said? Oh blank Ask someone else Ask someone else... who?! Up your Ms. Bush! We'd get in trouble for talking to other students most the time and it's not their job to teach me it's yours! It really held me back for years. I had great teachers in high school but by then the love was gone. Thank you so much for your videos, I'm learning to love math again :)
I had great math teachers. One of my High School math teachers was fired though because most of the class were ADHD flunkies so of course they didn't pass the exam which lead to his overall class grade being very low. I wonder if that happens in America.
I just turned 45. I started the process of getting my GED during the Covid lockdown, through this I took the opportunity to seize all avenues of studies. I just finished all of my testing, each test I scored an average of 168 on RLA/Science/Soc. Studies but in math I scored 187. a friction 95%! I owe much of this to one of my math teachers. She was a very serious and nonsense teacher. She came off as rather gruff at first, but I realized, she Actually wanted us to learn and she really wanted to teach a student whom was serious. She was hard on me because I hadn't been in school since 1996, but I saw it for what it was, I found she Really wanted me to succeed. She taught me not only advanced Algebra but she showed me how to properly write my papers and always has extra material for me to work on. A bad teacher leaves you feeling like you are not good, A great teacher will push you and motivate you. Now I am preparing for Fall term at college. I am going for a PHD in Mathematics, and I WILL SUCCEED! I am nervous and of course I get moments where I doubt myself but I always remember what my teacher said. You will succeed if you truly have a reason to, and if you put in the work.
My Calculus III instructor was the worst. He did not want to be bothered with teaching students! He never engaged with the class! He would turn to blackboard and start writing and drone on in a mono-tone. He never look at the class, or asked if we had questions. From the first week, people began drifting out of class. By the end of the third week, he would collect the homework, put the new assignment on the board, and the ENTIRE class would leave. He didn't even pretend to start teaching the lesson. I dropped the class BEFORE the midterm, and never took another math class at university. Math had always been my favorite subject--an easy A. But he ruin it for me. It has been 54 years, and I still CURSE this man. Unfortunately, as a freshman, I didn't know enough to complain to the department head. Slowly my love of math returned, and I learned Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, Statistic and Probability on my own. When I retired I discover 'students' over-65 may audit classes tuition-free at any of Oregon's public universities and colleges. To start I took Stats I & II and a beginning proof-writing class, before switching to philosophy and now logic
I've noticed that the newer the textbook, the more likely it is that I'll be able to do the problem sets from the examples in the book. Old math books were not ---- or at least do not seem to be --- "self contained" in this way. Extrinsic knowledge is required to do the problems. I always thought that the trend of modern textbook writing was to "bad teacher proof" the course. That is, even if you have a horrible instructor, you might have some shot of making it through the course if you have a good book.
My differential equations prof right now is not the best teacher but he’s a really nice guy and I know he’s trying his best. I constantly visit him at his office hours and I do a lot of supplemental studying. It is what it is.
Math teachers at the Bachelors or lower level should be people who are applied math degrees (engineers?), people who are good at math, but had to struggle to learn it like the average person. Math teachers need EMPATHY above all else. They need to be able to understand and relate to their student's struggles. Math teachers who were naturally gifted at math and never struggled with it are TERRIBLE teachers. These math people should NEVER be allowed to teach math to lower level students. Math teachers need to be able to teach things, explain things, more than one way. They need to understand that people don't "just get it". They need to be able to see why a person is struggling and immediately adapt and adjust their approach accordingly. They need to understand how and why students struggle, and adapt their teaching accordingly. Math needs to be taught with real world applications. Math teachers need to allow alternate solutions, so long as they are valid. Their way is Not the ONLY way. Math teachers need to give partial credit on problems if the student shows their work and only screwed up barely. Take points off for the errors, and point out why they got the wrong answer, not just that they got the wrong answer. I've watched so many students struggle thinking they sucked, when in reality they were doing EVERYTHING right, just making a minor mistake here and there, but they lost all credit for the problem. Once I showed them the mistakes they were making, and how to avoid making those simple errors ever again, they started getting A's. Lets say you have 5 calculus problems on an assignment worth 25 points. A person does the first problem right overall, but forgot to distribute a negative in one step, otherwise everything else was done 100% right. I'd take off 1 point for that and point it out, but give 4 points for doing the rest of the problem correctly. For each error they make I take off a point. And you can do this at any scale. If you had 25 problem assignment for 25 points, then I'd take off say .25 or .5 points for making a simple error in one of the problems. If we're doing Chain Rule, and the only mistake you made was totally messing up the application of the Chain Rule itself, then I might take off more points from that problem that a mere simple mistake (mark down 2 or 3 points out of 5, instead of just 1). But if all you do is tell students, "you're wrong", without telling them WHY, they will continue to struggle. Also, this approach teaches them to show their work, as they can get a higher grade by showing their work. if they don't show enough work for me to figure out where thy went wrong, and they got the wrong answer, then I take off full credit for that problem being wrong, rather than partial credit. They learn very quick to show their work after that. Let's say there are 5 different way to teach something, and your personally preferred method of teaching/learning is #4. But #1 is understood by 66% of students, #2 is understood by 45% of students, #3 is understood by 12% of students, #4 is understood by 57% of students, and #5 is understood by 82% of students, the first time you teach the subject to them in class. Then you need to be using the #5 method, regardless of you personal feelings on the matter, and save #4 for when 18% of your students show up at office hours looking for help. You want to teach a topic using the method that consistently reaches the greatest number of students, thus minimizing the number of students who need additional help after class, and maximizing the number of students who can help the few students who still don't get it. And then you have far more time to spend with fewer students 1-on-1 in office hours, maximizing the chances of them succeeding. And during your office hours you can try any of the 4 alternate methods that it takes to make them get it. Maybe what works best for that individual student is actually #3 or #2. In my years of experience teaching math to people of all ages, the number one reason people struggle with math is they never got a good grasp on the basics, or on basic algebra. Even when teaching/tutoring calculus students, the first thing I do with them if I've never worked with them before is test them on their basics (fractions, GEMA, groups, exponents, logarithms, subtraction and negatives, SOH CAH TOA, FOIL, graphing basics, etc.). If I find them lacking in anything critical, I first focus on remedial instruction before actually working on issues they have with their assignment. Then we get back to the issues at hand. And suddenly once they've been given fixes to things they struggle with, or finally got something explained to them properly for the first time in their lives, they start doing well in their assignments. My catch phrase when teaching math is always, "Why didn't they just say that to begin with?". Students always end up asking why teachers didn't just teach it to them the way I did years ago. They tell me how intuitive my methods are for them, and they go on to have success, and I gained a reputation as the guy to go to for help. Empathy is key.
OOOOOOhhhh yea!!! I had a math teacher that ran a 70 to 80% drop fail rate for most of his classes. I once got chewed out by this guy when I asked a question about one of the homework problems. Nice guy to talk to but he was with out question the worst teacher I ever had. Thanks for the great vids!
I'm glad I did my undergrad education at a small liberal arts college rather than a big R1 university. Professors at my school were mostly hired for their teaching ability. They did some research, but mostly in the summers. With big research universities, you can end up with someone who is absolutely groundbreaking within their field of study, but not very effective as an educator. Not that all researchers are bad educators. My own graduate advisor was primarily interested in scientific research, but approached his teaching assignments with a lot of enthusiasm. But professors at R1 universities are expected to wear both researcher and educator masks, and naturally different professors are going to have different interests and priorities with respect to those two roles.
Thanks, I'm realizing I've been a bad teacher. When I was a student, I loved school, the teachers and the subjects, and was inspired seeing my hardworking classmates. The problem was I really lacked self-awareness and maturity as a student. Me placing myself in the students' shoes didn't work out for me and them. I'm glad you posted this video, I think I'm getting to not-bad teacher stage haha.
I had a Trig Professor that was terrible at teaching. My last math teacher said I like it later on & will stick w/ me (She took trig. once in high school, she thought it was fun). Trig did not stick with me, and I still struggle with it. Still have trauma from that course. I did well in algebra but in Trig and Pre-Calc I did horrible. He expects you to understand concepts right away, and during the 1st 3 chapters (up until the 1st exam) he gave us answers to problems in class before you have a chance to do them, basically gave the answer away. He’s difficult to understand due to him expecting you to already understand concepts, his vague explanations & his thick Russian accent which adds to his poor verbal communication. Gives extra credit for doing problems on board which are usually worth 5 points (only help if you have 89% a “B” and you may get 90% an “A”), but if you take too long, or look confused, he'll tell you to sit down & call on someone who knows how to do the problem (won’t help us understand problem or attempt to help us), so you end up learning by copying what people write on the board. Makes us feel stupid if we take too long to do a problem, and gives us the amount of time it takes him to do it (expecting us to be able to do the problem at the same pace). If we ask for help in class, he will tell us “it’s easy” & horribly explain the problem which will make it more confusing. He seems to help the people & like the people who know what they’re doing. He has poor social skills (goes off on tangents that don’t have to do w/ math) & communication (hard to follow lectures which aren’t clear due to him writing all over board w/ no direction or distinction - poor written communication). Stands in front of what he’s writing, so it is blocked. After chapter 3 he didn’t return homework. Allows cheat sheets on exams (he thinks he is easiest math teacher b/c of this - wrong), but will help us on exams (like giving which formula to use) if you ask; furthermore, he will replace our lowest exam (midterms 100 points each) score w/ ½ of what you score on the final (200 points). For the second exam, he kept saying exam was easy, even when people were giving up & leaving the classroom, and when most of class failed (doesn’t grade on curve); he said exam was reflected by homework (not true); the homework was NOT REPRESENTATIVE of the exam (exam was a big leap from homework, w/ 40-50 % of exam not reflecting the homework), but 1st exam followed homework closely. He told us to go home & work on the problems from the exam that we were having trouble w/ & he’ll give partial credit, but kept procrastinating on giving partial credit on exam by telling us to show him the problems we had trouble w/ next class, and finally said he would not give partial credit for doing the problems. The 2nd exam’s problems were on IDENTITIES. The 3rd exam had 57% of the problems as IDENTITIES (didn’t even tell us there were going to be identities on it) which were representative of the last exam, but only 42% of the problems were equations which represented 1 chapter (on equations) out of 2 (2nd chapter on triangles, didn’t even tell us it would not be on exam) chapters that were covered after the 2nd exam. The teachers in the Math Lab had trouble understanding his exam questions & some homework question not from the textbook due the difficulty, and they agreed that the exams were way above the homework (some even asked why he gave such difficult problems). For example, a teacher in the math lab had to use calculus rather than trig to solve a problem, or another teacher was unable to find an answer. She even she would prob teach the course next time even how we were struggling. B/c students complained he did not teach Trig the following semester. I had a Pre-Calc Professor who claimed some material like piecewise functions were review, but when I asked in Math Lab, a professor said it was an advanced topic. She also claimed Descartes' Rule was easy, while another professor agreed with me that his Rule was weird. She was better than Trig Prof in that she was tough but fair.
Some teachers just burn out after being way overworked and underpaid. Other teachers just never felt the calling to be a teacher in the first place, and they're there just to have a job. I had 2 math teachers in a row for my last couple years in high school who were just checked out. They were in no mood to interact with the students at all. The last one used to yell at me if I had any questions during the lecture, telling me I should already know everything from the previous year. Luckily, I had a good book and didn't need the first bad teacher. Then I had a great physics teacher who kept my math skills just strong enough so that I could continue learning on my own eventually.
My sociology professor did something that maaaaaaaaaaaany professors do not do and that lets me know that he KNOWS his material to a tee And that is making your own test questions by scratch
I had to actually stop and put this up on the big screen and watch intently as I honestly struggle with my schools pedagogical methods. Does it make my teachers bad math teachers? I have had a couple that I was not so happy with but ultimately what I see it as in my current situation is that schools have perhaps sold out to the publishers. An example being is that all math class's at my current school are all hybrid and every student must purchase access to the publishers online platform and do the homework online, some even put all the quizzes and tests online. So the teacher is more a course facilitator then a traditional teacher, they are just parroting the course materials provided by the publisher. Every student in my class is required to purchase a $110 access to the Cengage ( or Pearson) platform just to do homework. This is a precalc course but is honestly just college algebra rehashed with a sprinkling of Trigonometry. There is not one single mathematics course on the entire course catalog that is taught fully in person with a book, with assigned homework, with the teacher actually grading homework. My current teacher had complained in class that her students grades had dropped and they just didn't seem to be able to grasp the subject matter, all of this starting around 2017. I asked her when the school started pushing students to the publishers online learning platforms, silence was the answer that said it all. This is also not just my school, I checked several California community colleges and all the math course where either fully online of hybrid. So I called the University of Wisconsin to see how things might be outside of California in a more conservative leaning state, the individual whom I talked to informed me that all of her math course where taught online through similar publisher platforms. Even our school bookstore is owned and run by Barnes and Nobles, its all corporate sell out. But hey you want that degree, you got to play the game. If you really want to learn mathematics, you better be prepared to do a whole lot of self study, hire a tutor, take the math sorcerers course, etc. If you think your going to learn in the modern United States school system your in for a rude awakening. Just my $0.02 from some one who is struggling through the California Community College system. I know this was off topic and if you read this far, thanks for hearing me out. Do you have a similar situation or thoughts on the situation?
I wanted to update this just to highlight yet another situation. So the teacher gives us worksheets to do and we are required to fill them out while we watch her video as she goes through the problems. These are done as a zoom video, the audio quality sucks and the actual video is delay several seconds behind the voice. So I do not watch her videos, I work through them myself and in the tutoring center. If I ask her for help she refuses since she already took the time to make the video and if I didn't watch it then its my problem not hers. Now once your done with these 10 pages, you must photograph or scan them and correlate them into a single pdf, save it then log into the school online platform and upload the document. You have several of these per week in addition to the homework which is online that you have to pay $110 for. Does this sound reasonable? This is the California Community College District, and yet we wonder why student mathematics scores are plummeting to the bottom of the proverbial toilet. I am honestly ready to give up myself, math is hard, but this is just makes it almost unbearable playing all these games and having to jump through all these hoops that have no positive outcome educationally.
Someone may have commented something similar already, but my calculus 3 professor told me that the best professors are the ones that motivate you to go above and beyond the call of duty. Couldn't agree more!
I was born in 1963...teachers back then did horrible things to children. Not all, of course. Some were excellent. I actually went into regular and special ed because I wanted to be there for kids❤❤
when i was 12 i took ill & was off school for 3 weeks when i got back my next math class was long division i did not have a clue how to go about it' i approached the teacher asking how to go about it the teacher snapped back do it like last week i explained i was off school i was dismissed with a wave of the hand , this just proves how bad some teachers are .....
Haering you say that you didn't fully understand maths till you got into your graduate degree makes me feel a lot better. I am currently taking calc 2 and feel like it's been a real struggle to understand why that math works.
I guess the tradition for logic classes is to hope students figure it out on their own. One logic class I took didn't even have a textbook and they weren't teaching even what was on the homework
I never had a bad math teacher. I had a few ineffective ones over the years, but no one explicitly bad. I DID have only one bad TA. Not merely bad, but criminally bad. That was in Calc I. TA for a recitation class of about 23 of us. As for good ones, I've had a few outstanding ones. I loved them. ❤ They made math fun.
The current professor I have for Calc 2 right now, I like her but I think the professor can be a little harsh when we dont finish all the homework. I have all these other classes to worry about and the professor just kinda questions you in a smirky way and I just dont know what to tell them sometimes...I was just busy doing other things with other classes. Gotta make time for everything. Someone failed Calc 2 in their class so bad that they just told them that they wont make it unless they do better in Calc 1 again and that person DID redo Calc 1 from their advice and I just wouldnt do that. Id retake it and make a comeback just to prove that I didnt need to go backwards in life.
I've dealt with a lot of bad math teachers, but there were two that were the worse of the worst. One was when I attended Orange Coast Community. He was the most miserable and lonely man i've ever met. You could tell he had no passion for teaching, The teacher was highly disorganized, unstable, moody, condescending, hostile, unhelpful, made many mistakes, spoke English poorly, was uncivil and easily provoked and egotistical many times, and went out of his way to undermine the students on multiple occasions. For some weird reason, he had it out for this one student that sat in front of the class. He was always throwing passive aggressive shade at the student til one day the student called him out for bullying him and the teacher backpedaled like a coward. The second one was when I attended Scottsdale Community, this guy was a complete asshole. He had the same bad traits as the first teacher I mentioned and he had it out for me. He acted very passive aggressive towards me making snide remarks and was generally unhelpful. The moment I realized this guy didn't like me was when one day I was 10 minutes late for class. He began to lecture me in the middle of class about the "importance of punctuality" and being late is not participating. I thought ok, being on time is important. However, a girl came in late 30 minutes later and he said nothing to her. I honestly believed that the teacher was racist, im black/hispanic and the girl that was late was white and his actions were fueled by his bigotry. In fact, the next semester I took a BIO 101 class and one of the girls I sat next to in the math class did notice the teacher's aggressive attitude towards me. So at least it wasn't my imagination.
My discrete math teacher was a brilliant woman. Knew her stuff, but she just didn’t know how to convey that knowledge to a group of students. Flied through her lectures. Didn’t slow down when asked. Sometimes, teaching just isn’t meant for even the smartest people.
fortunatly my math teacher is the same for physics and he always make connectios between the subjects. it was incredibile for me solving instantaneous rectilinear motion with Limits.
The National Pass rate for Caribbean Examinations Council Mathematics Tests for Guyana is 34 percent.... meaning that more than half of the candidates completing this exam failed.....yet there is no mention of related glaring incompetence of the current set of math teachers......and yes..... included in that 34 Percent are some that benefitted from " leaked" test papers...... with no end to this decay in the foreseeable future
i had a very bad high school physics teacher in high school, he was just always so smug and arrogant and just talked to students like s***. One time, I heard him in the corridor talking to other teachers, saying stuff like "my students are so dumb, they don't even know the surface area formula for a sphere", and i thought even if i knew this formula "that's absolutely not a measure of intelligence, this guy is really dumb". Another time, he put a test and there was a mistake on the test, i said it to him and he got annoyed and said "well i took it from a manual, just send a letter to the manual editors and see how it goes". I was really really mad. This guy was just frustrated in his life.
So, may be we have to talk about bad students. Students that think that you are there for introduce them the knowledge into their brains without their effort…
The Starbucks analogy struck a chord. "I"m paying, so it is your job to make sure I succeed, i.e., get a good grade." Often accompanied by "proof by intimidation"
The reason I never put any effort in was because math seemed useless. A bad teacher is the ones I have, that make you feel like there's no reason to be there other than the stupid score. Instead I taught myself the math I needed when doing what I wanted. Now imagine if the teachers helped while I wanted to learn it. A good teacher is one that makes you want to come back and learn things. Instead of endless lectures that seem to have no practical use, how about find a way to take that knowledge and fit it to the student's needs? You know, that's the whole job of the teacher to begin with, so any teacher that shows videos all day and does nothing but scoring things is a waste of space and hurts people's futures.
I had a math prof at UT Austin in 1958. He was ancient and came to class (8am) totally unprepared. He assigned homework and then spent the hour talking about, for example, the UT vs. A&M game he saw in the 19-teens, in a cow pasture somewhere. He probably couldn’t help it, but I would have had a hard time with a skilled teacher. I failed. It was called Numbers Analysis, a survey for gifted students. It started with counting systems and ended without me. I stopped attending.
I really want to be good at math. I feel that it is more my responsibility to become good at something than it is my teacher/professor. Once I accepted this, I became better at math. Not where I want to be at yet but I see the path much more clearly now than before
I believe there is really good math teachers because they are out there. Unfortunately we don’t have enough that enjoy teaching. I feel that teachers should spend 100 percent of their time helping students in class vs just throwing the problems up and expecting them to learn it on their own. Make math interesting not have students come after school to ask questions. That’s what time teachers are being paid to teach ,not to not be involved. Make it fun and people will actually want to learn.
I was always in higher level math and science classes and the spirit was "sink or swim." Calculus I at U. Iowa was brutal. I actually enjoyed the professor and loved my TA but there was no hand-holding or leniency. I received a C+ in the class after acing a previous, less rigorous version of calculus.
Many academic departments are under tremendous pressure to 'weed out' students in the intro courses for various reasons. Unfortunately it effects the most vulnerable students the most. Poor kids. The first ones in their family to attend college...or high school. Immigrant kids and kids from minority backgrounds. The kids form rich/connected families are better prepared or their parents are in a position to help them.
I wish someone would have told me as a young person that: Learning is an interactive process and that as a student - it is YOUR responsibility to get the education you want and need. Teachers, like people, are flawed people and the sooner that you arm yourself with bold personal responsibility the better for yourself and those around you. Poor teachers play this "gotcha" game. Academia and public sector jobs do something to these people where they make these silly games filled with busy work. My perspective is of a 35 year old 50+ hr work week engineering student. I do not have time to participate in trivial work.
I'm taking Precalculus DC right now, and my teacher is really nice. However, she really sucks at explaining stuff and constantly rushes the lesson which just fuels my testing anxiety. Whenever I struggle with the homework or pratice quizzes she assigns, I hop on to youtube and try to learn it here. I prefer math videos anyday over in person learning. Just wanted to put a honest thought in here.
The worst was a teacher for Non-Euclidean Geometry. It was apparent from day one that she only had a vague understanding of the concepts, couldn't really explain anything, was utterly hopeless at proofs. Made mistakes constantly in class and when we would correct her errors she just got snotty and rude. Tests were impossibly difficult for the time allotted but we figure she did that just to get back at us. Of course, when we asked why some answers were wrong she didn't know; she hadn't memorized the Instructor's Solution Guide. You may have a PhD, but you can't teach. Then there was the Abstract Algebra dude who walked in, filled the blackboard while talking all the time facing the board. Never had any care or interest that anyone understood anything. Dropped that one.
Oh yes, there are bad teachers in general. I think that teachers that are not very knowledgeable can make it up with the passion that they place into their lessons. Hey, I became a physicist because of a highschool teacher who was pretty bad at physics (even for basic standards), but he was passionate about it and pushed people to learn about it. On the other hand, while I was working at a well known University in Iowa (whose name I shall not mention), there was a (math, BTW) teacher who discouraged students from learning new topics and just limit themselves to what was being taught (poorly taught, by the way); even if it was the student who took the initiative. I literally told the teacher to go f**k himself, that is just doing a disservice to the office. That kind of teachers should NOT be teaching.
I had the exact same feeling for my calc 3 class 😭 I did pretty okay in the high 80s for every test and quiz, but looking back i dont remember or understand anything. What do you recommend to fix this? ps: thank you for your honesty in videos! its moments like this where i remind myself that just because i didnt do so hot in a class doesnt mean that math grad school is out of the equation
The way math is taught is simply stupid. They give you simplified formulae with no explanation for how it was made or why it's the best one. So what anyone should do to truly understand math is to take every individual tool and find out how it was made and what other patterns emerge. For example, take the differences of perfect squares. A while back, I noticed that 3 + 4 = 7 and 16 - 9 also = 7. So I tried to find a pattern to expand it. I noticed that the difference between the base numbers also matters, so 5 - 3 = 2, and if you multiply that by (5 + 3), you get 16, which happens to be the difference between 25 and 9. So what I came up with was sum * (last - first). However, if you try to search up anything similar you will only find an algebraic approach that ignores the relationship between the sum and difference of the bases and instead simplifies into foiling (first - last)(last + first). It's the same with perfect cubes, which are even more simplified. The more complicated the pattern becomes, the less clear the formula, until math just becomes rote memorization instead of pattern recognition. So yeah, once you work out from the bottom how each formula is made and your own versions of it, you might never forget it.
When I was in high school I really liked math just because of my teacher, he was so great and very professional. I remember him once telling me " I don't try to teach you math but rather teach u how it works and how to learn it". Thinking back I think he did givee his all but at the end of the day it is up to us as students to decide how much work we put in.
Inside The Matrix, there is a set of required math classes you must pass. You "take" these classes and "pass" or "fail" them, struggling to meet the requirements so you can move on to the subjects that interest you. There's nothing educational whatsoever here, just these traffic spikes that can derail your progress toward a diploma or degree. The best teachers are the ones who will offer you that red pill and work to show you that math is far more than just some class. I tried to do this with DEV math students at the college level and failed miserably, because both the framework and the administrators who made that framework have a Matrix mindset of "It's just a class, it's something you must do, these kids are dumb and don't care anyway, just get it done and move on." And that's exactly how students approach it now. Any kind of innovative teaching is frowned upon by higher-ups and even by the students themselves, who mindlessly chant, "don't rock the boat, let us get this done so we can move on to better things." This disaster is going to be incredibly hard to fix.
I don't care how good they are. If a Math teacher doesn't excite the interested students with the beauty of math how its infinite and divine. Doesn't teaches students to synthesize they are not good teachers
I get the sentiment, but you probably should elaborate on your experience for any aspiring teacher who might be reading this so they can avoid making the same mistakes.
If your sitting up front, going to tutoring, going during office hours, doing work sets, making a genuine effort then I would pass that person. I did a degree audit yesterday and I’m happy to say that I’m 50% away from getting my degree 📜
If you judge teachers based on how much understanding they "give" you, then you don't know what learning is. A great teacher doesn't give you understanding, they inspire you to teach yourself. In the end you're the only person that can put knowledge into your brain. If you read the Stewart book and taught yourself, then your teacher was a good teacher
They should inspire students to teach and challenge themselves. However, they are also based on how much understanding they can give you since it involves a lot of skill related to teaching. Being good at analogies, wording, presentation and being able to tell when students understand your lesson via questions and test scores feedback. In a way their job is to make learning efficient. Challenging students is important but there's a reason we read books instead of figuring it ourselves and it's because it's faster to learn and a good teacher will make you learn concepts fast. The greater teacher will go further and challenge students by giving adequately harder test and interesting questions, yet the student should excel because they were inspired to be motivated and had been taught well. I hate it when teachers do not slow down to fix a gap in knowledge in students that is essential to the lesson, basics and fundamentals are important and it's inefficient to not spend just a few minutes to resolve and give the fact needed to know to solve a problem. Lastly, being able to teach yourself makes you a good learner, not a teacher. Extremely smart and quick learners aren't always the best teachers because they cannot relate to slower students and they wouldn't bother making analogies or fixing their mindset, they're bad.
Results of a survey decades ago. Why did you fail the course.? 90% of American students answered "because i had a bad teacher." 90% of Chinese students answered "because I didn't study hard enougjh"
The worst teachers: the ones who bully their students. The ones who only want one type of student and treat unfairly any other student. The ones who don't know the subject they are "teaching". The best teachers: the ones who don't care how bad your grades are they still believe you can be the next Einstein.
I had a bad math teacher. She would confuse the students and refuses to help them. I heard a student failed her class three times. The instructor is STILL TEACHING!
Bad math teachers ....story of my life...! Thanks MS!!
"I got an A but I didn't understand anything", this guy wasn't kidding when he said "Math _Sorcerer_ "
I was actually taking out my maths homework while listening to this and over the rustling of my bag I just heard "[...] understanding how and why maths works" and this is such a motivation for learning maths, really. It signifies that not only does maths work, but it can always be explained.
I don't even know the context of this quote but this is definitely something I'm going to have in the back of my mind during lessons. I even wrote it on a post-it note, how bout that
It really is! Math sorcerer is great at revealing the best things about math!
In Calc II, I had a class with this kid who had already taken the class once but got lower than a C so he had to retake it. At the start of the course, he already knew how to do all the problems but didn’t know why we did them that way or didn’t completely understand it. I on the other hand, did not know how to do the problems but I was focused on understanding the concepts (like what different variables translate to an axis or point on a graph so I can picture it). The kid told me I was making it too complicated. I grinded for hours to make it click in my head and eventually came to class understanding. He ended up doing terribly in the class and I ended up getting a B. (The most hard fought B I’ve ever gotten!) As the class went on, it felt like I was able to just grasp the concept before we moved on to the next topic, but by the final, my cumulative knowledge helped me do well.
I think it really set me up for Calc III because I just finished that class with a high A and I feel like I understand everything that was taught.
I say all this because it came from wanting to understand the math and unveil the mysteries of these concepts that seemed like Greek when I started.
I have been struggling this semester worse than ever, I spend hours trying to comprehend simple problems. Your videos have been more helpful than any tutor or professor I've had. I cannot thank you enough for saving my grades.
Bad teachers teach as if you already know it. I had a professor who had thousands of citations. H-index through the roof. Terrible teacher... But why would any university turn down a guy like him? That's what sucks.
So true. My son had a teacher last year who gave out ZERO homework and randomly gave him the grades, but this year the new teacher has given out a lot of homework and grades them. For example, my son wrote a one-page essay, and the teacher wrote back 1.5 pages back. I think my son will pick up a lot this year.
My high school math teacher was my best teacher. He cared, and his attitude changed my life.
Whenever I realised I'd misinterpreted a student's question in class, and my answer was inadequate, it stuck with me. On one such occasion, a couple of years later, I happened to meet the student socially, and mentioned this episode. He was very impressed and appreciative that I had remembered, but this meant he'd remembered it too!
I hab bad math teachers. Really bad. I thought my entire life i am to stupid for doing math, to stupid generally. I am 29 years now i am about to finish self studying my second math book (all you need to ace geometry and Harold Jacobs mathematics a human endeavor) I want to learn all the basic high school math till the end of the year and in the next year i want to study computer science. I will never give up as hard as the way is. I was for over 10 years something i call a mathematically analphabet due to my bad teachers. Now i have big fun in doing math i even became kinda like an math addict i can only think about math all the day. I wont give up.
If UA-cam would've been around, back in my day, I would have excelled in math regardless of the teacher. I can watch videos over and over and ask as many questions as want without feeling stupid. Between books and videos it's all there for me.
The title of Teacher should be considered the highest honor in society and a beautiful art. Lifelong damage can happen to students from bad, inexperienced, unqualified, unreasonable, and unprofessional teachers which should be a felony with possible imprisonment. (Baltimore)
💯
This will be the last time I talk about this person but she was responsible for some deep, almost life long mental programming. This math teacher singled me out for her bitter, racist notions. She hated me more than all the black students in the class because I was half Italian. I was already getting bullied by other students and she bullied me more than any other teacher. She said, oh you won't need math when you grow up anyway when I lamented my struggles. Thats my experience of a bad math teacher.
I was pretty fortunate: I don't recall any bad teachers.
A few of them had horrible lecture styles: reading from old notes & copying on the blackboard, speaking in a droning voice.
However, they were good during Office Hours.
So, got to Office Hours for your professor and Teaching Assistants.
I'm retaking college algebra after failing it last semester. This semester I got a new teacher and I've got a B in the class so far. The one thing I've learned from you is not to be scared of math. math is hard for everyone. do the work and eventually, you'll figure it out. once you figure out mathematics all other college subjects just seem to be easier. My major is Physics and Im still in algebra. ive got a long road ahead. but im soo excited for this journey. thanks for the positivity!
Worst math teacher I ever had forced us to copy her notes exactly while she was writing them on the overhead, and if the class said they needed more time to copy her notes, she would have us pass around the overhead sheet as she moved on to another.
I think we are really blessed that we can simply buy a course from very good math lectures online and study it in our own bedrooms by our own pace, gone the days when a person could be ready bad at a subject “specially math” only because he couldn’t find a good teacher.
Ps: I genuinely think math sorcerer is one of the best online math teacher
My Son once had an 8th grade teacher that he said told them, "I'm only here for a check, whether you all pass or not doesn't mean s@&# to me." He's 30 now, but that situation has always stuck with me.
We climb from good teachers and fall back from bad teachers. Our knowledge is ours to keep for a lifetime. We should take greater agency ourselves.
I think I had the worst math teacher in the world in the 1970s.
My teacher Ms Benn##t was my 4th Grade teacher and she was new to our school.
Her teaching was abusive and she would have everyone write in the chalkboard in front of everyone long division problems and would berate those not doing well. For me she was so frustrated that she snapped a few times and physically grabbed my face as she screamed at me.
At the time, I was an abused child at home and later in life having Asperger’s.
Turns out the next year I was actually great at math and calculus.
Working in tech and the Marines piloting microwave and satellite comm shots.
But in my 60s, I can forgive but I’ll never forget the year of hell I went through in the 4th Grade.
Don’t rely on teachers but in yourself to learn the basics.
Teachers can help but they can also hurt.
So sorry 😞 😢 Things like that stay with us for ever! At least we have a cool sorcery teacher for Math now!
Your Discrete math professor reminded me of my Discrete math professor, he was/is a great teacher, he used the marker and projector method too, and he used to grind every simple concept down so you can absorb it just listening to him. one of the best I've ever had.
Whenever I had a bad a teacher I pulled a picture of Ramanujan, said my little prayer "I can't do what you did but I can try" then proceed to ask a knowledgeable friend for the best text book there's and get to work.. I remember this happening in "Advanced Probability distributions and Artificial Intelligence courses".
When I was first introduced to math I loved it it was magical, but in third grade I was having trouble and I didn't quite understand why. It hurt because I thought I was good at this and I understood it. I remember working up the courage swallowing my pride and asking I don't understand this, and you know what she said?
Oh blank Ask someone else
Ask someone else... who?! Up your Ms. Bush! We'd get in trouble for talking to other students most the time and it's not their job to teach me it's yours! It really held me back for years. I had great teachers in high school but by then the love was gone. Thank you so much for your videos, I'm learning to love math again :)
My junior year in high school the math teacher would scream "Heresy!" when the student made a mistake and threw an eraser at the student.
I had great math teachers. One of my High School math teachers was fired though because most of the class were ADHD flunkies so of course they didn't pass the exam which lead to his overall class grade being very low. I wonder if that happens in America.
I just turned 45. I started the process of getting my GED during the Covid lockdown, through this I took the opportunity to seize all avenues of studies. I just finished all of my testing, each test I scored an average of 168 on RLA/Science/Soc. Studies but in math I scored 187. a friction 95%! I owe much of this to one of my math teachers. She was a very serious and nonsense teacher. She came off as rather gruff at first, but I realized, she Actually wanted us to learn and she really wanted to teach a student whom was serious. She was hard on me because I hadn't been in school since 1996, but I saw it for what it was, I found she Really wanted me to succeed. She taught me not only advanced Algebra but she showed me how to properly write my papers and always has extra material for me to work on. A bad teacher leaves you feeling like you are not good, A great teacher will push you and motivate you. Now I am preparing for Fall term at college. I am going for a PHD in Mathematics, and I WILL SUCCEED! I am nervous and of course I get moments where I doubt myself but I always remember what my teacher said. You will succeed if you truly have a reason to, and if you put in the work.
I wish you the absolute best, doing that especially at your age is commendable. Let us know how it goes
My Calculus III instructor was the worst. He did not want to be bothered with teaching students! He never engaged with the class! He would turn to blackboard and start writing and drone on in a mono-tone. He never look at the class, or asked if we had questions. From the first week, people began drifting out of class. By the end of the third week, he would collect the homework, put the new assignment on the board, and the ENTIRE class would leave. He didn't even pretend to start teaching the lesson.
I dropped the class BEFORE the midterm, and never took another math class at university. Math had always been my favorite subject--an easy A. But he ruin it for me. It has been 54 years, and I still CURSE this man. Unfortunately, as a freshman, I didn't know enough to complain to the department head.
Slowly my love of math returned, and I learned Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, Statistic and Probability on my own. When I retired I discover 'students' over-65 may audit classes tuition-free at any of Oregon's public universities and colleges. To start I took Stats I & II and a beginning proof-writing class, before switching to philosophy and now logic
I've noticed that the newer the textbook, the more likely it is that I'll be able to do the problem sets from the examples in the book. Old math books were not ---- or at least do not seem to be --- "self contained" in this way. Extrinsic knowledge is required to do the problems. I always thought that the trend of modern textbook writing was to "bad teacher proof" the course. That is, even if you have a horrible instructor, you might have some shot of making it through the course if you have a good book.
My differential equations prof right now is not the best teacher but he’s a really nice guy and I know he’s trying his best. I constantly visit him at his office hours and I do a lot of supplemental studying. It is what it is.
Math teachers at the Bachelors or lower level should be people who are applied math degrees (engineers?), people who are good at math, but had to struggle to learn it like the average person. Math teachers need EMPATHY above all else. They need to be able to understand and relate to their student's struggles.
Math teachers who were naturally gifted at math and never struggled with it are TERRIBLE teachers. These math people should NEVER be allowed to teach math to lower level students.
Math teachers need to be able to teach things, explain things, more than one way. They need to understand that people don't "just get it". They need to be able to see why a person is struggling and immediately adapt and adjust their approach accordingly. They need to understand how and why students struggle, and adapt their teaching accordingly.
Math needs to be taught with real world applications.
Math teachers need to allow alternate solutions, so long as they are valid. Their way is Not the ONLY way.
Math teachers need to give partial credit on problems if the student shows their work and only screwed up barely. Take points off for the errors, and point out why they got the wrong answer, not just that they got the wrong answer. I've watched so many students struggle thinking they sucked, when in reality they were doing EVERYTHING right, just making a minor mistake here and there, but they lost all credit for the problem. Once I showed them the mistakes they were making, and how to avoid making those simple errors ever again, they started getting A's.
Lets say you have 5 calculus problems on an assignment worth 25 points. A person does the first problem right overall, but forgot to distribute a negative in one step, otherwise everything else was done 100% right. I'd take off 1 point for that and point it out, but give 4 points for doing the rest of the problem correctly. For each error they make I take off a point. And you can do this at any scale. If you had 25 problem assignment for 25 points, then I'd take off say .25 or .5 points for making a simple error in one of the problems. If we're doing Chain Rule, and the only mistake you made was totally messing up the application of the Chain Rule itself, then I might take off more points from that problem that a mere simple mistake (mark down 2 or 3 points out of 5, instead of just 1). But if all you do is tell students, "you're wrong", without telling them WHY, they will continue to struggle. Also, this approach teaches them to show their work, as they can get a higher grade by showing their work. if they don't show enough work for me to figure out where thy went wrong, and they got the wrong answer, then I take off full credit for that problem being wrong, rather than partial credit. They learn very quick to show their work after that.
Let's say there are 5 different way to teach something, and your personally preferred method of teaching/learning is #4. But #1 is understood by 66% of students, #2 is understood by 45% of students, #3 is understood by 12% of students, #4 is understood by 57% of students, and #5 is understood by 82% of students, the first time you teach the subject to them in class. Then you need to be using the #5 method, regardless of you personal feelings on the matter, and save #4 for when 18% of your students show up at office hours looking for help. You want to teach a topic using the method that consistently reaches the greatest number of students, thus minimizing the number of students who need additional help after class, and maximizing the number of students who can help the few students who still don't get it. And then you have far more time to spend with fewer students 1-on-1 in office hours, maximizing the chances of them succeeding. And during your office hours you can try any of the 4 alternate methods that it takes to make them get it. Maybe what works best for that individual student is actually #3 or #2.
In my years of experience teaching math to people of all ages, the number one reason people struggle with math is they never got a good grasp on the basics, or on basic algebra. Even when teaching/tutoring calculus students, the first thing I do with them if I've never worked with them before is test them on their basics (fractions, GEMA, groups, exponents, logarithms, subtraction and negatives, SOH CAH TOA, FOIL, graphing basics, etc.). If I find them lacking in anything critical, I first focus on remedial instruction before actually working on issues they have with their assignment. Then we get back to the issues at hand. And suddenly once they've been given fixes to things they struggle with, or finally got something explained to them properly for the first time in their lives, they start doing well in their assignments.
My catch phrase when teaching math is always, "Why didn't they just say that to begin with?". Students always end up asking why teachers didn't just teach it to them the way I did years ago. They tell me how intuitive my methods are for them, and they go on to have success, and I gained a reputation as the guy to go to for help. Empathy is key.
OOOOOOhhhh yea!!! I had a math teacher that ran a 70 to 80% drop fail rate for most of his classes. I once got chewed out by this guy when I asked a question about one of the homework problems. Nice guy to talk to but he was with out question the worst teacher I ever had. Thanks for the great vids!
I'm glad I did my undergrad education at a small liberal arts college rather than a big R1 university. Professors at my school were mostly hired for their teaching ability. They did some research, but mostly in the summers. With big research universities, you can end up with someone who is absolutely groundbreaking within their field of study, but not very effective as an educator. Not that all researchers are bad educators. My own graduate advisor was primarily interested in scientific research, but approached his teaching assignments with a lot of enthusiasm. But professors at R1 universities are expected to wear both researcher and educator masks, and naturally different professors are going to have different interests and priorities with respect to those two roles.
Thanks, I'm realizing I've been a bad teacher. When I was a student, I loved school, the teachers and the subjects, and was inspired seeing my hardworking classmates. The problem was I really lacked self-awareness and maturity as a student. Me placing myself in the students' shoes didn't work out for me and them. I'm glad you posted this video, I think I'm getting to not-bad teacher stage haha.
I had a Trig Professor that was terrible at teaching.
My last math teacher said I like it later on & will stick w/ me (She took trig. once in high school, she thought it was fun). Trig did not stick with me, and I still struggle with it. Still have trauma from that course. I did well in algebra but in Trig and Pre-Calc I did horrible.
He expects you to understand concepts right away, and during the 1st 3 chapters (up until the 1st exam) he gave us answers to problems in class before you have a chance to do them, basically gave the answer away. He’s difficult to understand due to him expecting you to already understand concepts, his vague explanations & his thick Russian accent which adds to his poor verbal communication. Gives extra credit for doing problems on board which are usually worth 5 points (only help if you have 89% a “B” and you may get 90% an “A”), but if you take too long, or look confused, he'll tell you to sit down & call on someone who knows how to do the problem (won’t help us understand problem or attempt to help us), so you end up learning by copying what people write on the board. Makes us feel stupid if we take too long to do a problem, and gives us the amount of time it takes him to do it (expecting us to be able to do the problem at the same pace). If we ask for help in class, he will tell us “it’s easy” & horribly explain the problem which will make it more confusing. He seems to help the people & like the people who know what they’re doing. He has poor social skills (goes off on tangents that don’t have to do w/ math) & communication (hard to follow lectures which aren’t clear due to him writing all over board w/ no direction or distinction - poor written communication). Stands in front of what he’s writing, so it is blocked. After chapter 3 he didn’t return homework.
Allows cheat sheets on exams (he thinks he is easiest math teacher b/c of this - wrong), but will help us on exams (like giving which formula to use) if you ask; furthermore, he will replace our lowest exam (midterms 100 points each) score w/ ½ of what you score on the final (200 points). For the second exam, he kept saying exam was easy, even when people were giving up & leaving the classroom, and when most of class failed (doesn’t grade on curve); he said exam was reflected by homework (not true); the homework was NOT REPRESENTATIVE of the exam (exam was a big leap from homework, w/ 40-50 % of exam not reflecting the homework), but 1st exam followed homework closely.
He told us to go home & work on the problems from the exam that we were having trouble w/ & he’ll give partial credit, but kept procrastinating on giving partial credit on exam by telling us to show him the problems we had trouble w/ next class, and finally said he would not give partial credit for doing the problems. The 2nd exam’s problems were on IDENTITIES. The 3rd exam had 57% of the problems as IDENTITIES (didn’t even tell us there were going to be identities on it) which were representative of the last exam, but only 42% of the problems were equations which represented 1 chapter (on equations) out of 2 (2nd chapter on triangles, didn’t even tell us it would not be on exam) chapters that were covered after the 2nd exam.
The teachers in the Math Lab had trouble understanding his exam questions & some homework question not from the textbook due the difficulty, and they agreed that the exams were way above the homework (some even asked why he gave such difficult problems). For example, a teacher in the math lab had to use calculus rather than trig to solve a problem, or another teacher was unable to find an answer. She even she would prob teach the course next time even how we were struggling. B/c students complained he did not teach Trig the following semester.
I had a Pre-Calc Professor who claimed some material like piecewise functions were review, but when I asked in Math Lab, a professor said it was an advanced topic. She also claimed Descartes' Rule was easy, while another professor agreed with me that his Rule was weird. She was better than Trig Prof in that she was tough but fair.
Some teachers just burn out after being way overworked and underpaid. Other teachers just never felt the calling to be a teacher in the first place, and they're there just to have a job.
I had 2 math teachers in a row for my last couple years in high school who were just checked out. They were in no mood to interact with the students at all. The last one used to yell at me if I had any questions during the lecture, telling me I should already know everything from the previous year.
Luckily, I had a good book and didn't need the first bad teacher. Then I had a great physics teacher who kept my math skills just strong enough so that I could continue learning on my own eventually.
My sociology professor did something that maaaaaaaaaaaany professors do not do and that lets me know that he KNOWS his material to a tee
And that is making your own test questions by scratch
I had to actually stop and put this up on the big screen and watch intently as I honestly struggle with my schools pedagogical methods. Does it make my teachers bad math teachers? I have had a couple that I was not so happy with but ultimately what I see it as in my current situation is that schools have perhaps sold out to the publishers. An example being is that all math class's at my current school are all hybrid and every student must purchase access to the publishers online platform and do the homework online, some even put all the quizzes and tests online. So the teacher is more a course facilitator then a traditional teacher, they are just parroting the course materials provided by the publisher. Every student in my class is required to purchase a $110 access to the Cengage ( or Pearson) platform just to do homework. This is a precalc course but is honestly just college algebra rehashed with a sprinkling of Trigonometry. There is not one single mathematics course on the entire course catalog that is taught fully in person with a book, with assigned homework, with the teacher actually grading homework. My current teacher had complained in class that her students grades had dropped and they just didn't seem to be able to grasp the subject matter, all of this starting around 2017. I asked her when the school started pushing students to the publishers online learning platforms, silence was the answer that said it all. This is also not just my school, I checked several California community colleges and all the math course where either fully online of hybrid. So I called the University of Wisconsin to see how things might be outside of California in a more conservative leaning state, the individual whom I talked to informed me that all of her math course where taught online through similar publisher platforms. Even our school bookstore is owned and run by Barnes and Nobles, its all corporate sell out. But hey you want that degree, you got to play the game. If you really want to learn mathematics, you better be prepared to do a whole lot of self study, hire a tutor, take the math sorcerers course, etc. If you think your going to learn in the modern United States school system your in for a rude awakening. Just my $0.02 from some one who is struggling through the California Community College system. I know this was off topic and if you read this far, thanks for hearing me out. Do you have a similar situation or thoughts on the situation?
I wanted to update this just to highlight yet another situation. So the teacher gives us worksheets to do and we are required to fill them out while we watch her video as she goes through the problems. These are done as a zoom video, the audio quality sucks and the actual video is delay several seconds behind the voice. So I do not watch her videos, I work through them myself and in the tutoring center. If I ask her for help she refuses since she already took the time to make the video and if I didn't watch it then its my problem not hers. Now once your done with these 10 pages, you must photograph or scan them and correlate them into a single pdf, save it then log into the school online platform and upload the document. You have several of these per week in addition to the homework which is online that you have to pay $110 for. Does this sound reasonable? This is the California Community College District, and yet we wonder why student mathematics scores are plummeting to the bottom of the proverbial toilet. I am honestly ready to give up myself, math is hard, but this is just makes it almost unbearable playing all these games and having to jump through all these hoops that have no positive outcome educationally.
Someone may have commented something similar already, but my calculus 3 professor told me that the best professors are the ones that motivate you to go above and beyond the call of duty. Couldn't agree more!
As this video is coming out I found out I got an 80% on my calc 1 limits exam
I was born in 1963...teachers back then did horrible things to children. Not all, of course. Some were excellent. I actually went into regular and special ed because I wanted to be there for kids❤❤
I read your words, and I heard Pink Floyd music in my head. 😊
@@argonwheatbelly637 Hey teacher leave them kids alone! All and all were just another brick in the wall🤣🥰
We once had a shortage of math trachers so the Biology Professor subbed that semester. It was a disaster. I got a C and took the class over.
when i was 12 i took ill & was off school for 3 weeks when i got back my next math class was long division i did not have a clue how to go about it' i approached the teacher asking how to go about it the teacher snapped back do it like last week i explained i was off school i was dismissed with a wave of the hand , this just proves how bad some teachers are .....
Haering you say that you didn't fully understand maths till you got into your graduate degree makes me feel a lot better. I am currently taking calc 2 and feel like it's been a real struggle to understand why that math works.
I have zero respect for people who only give it 100% To earn my respect, you must give 110%.
hehehehehehe
I don't know why this made me laugh, thanks:)
I always like to look for my math books on your shelf
I guess the tradition for logic classes is to hope students figure it out on their own. One logic class I took didn't even have a textbook and they weren't teaching even what was on the homework
I never had a bad math teacher. I had a few ineffective ones over the years, but no one explicitly bad. I DID have only one bad TA. Not merely bad, but criminally bad. That was in Calc I. TA for a recitation class of about 23 of us. As for good ones, I've had a few outstanding ones. I loved them. ❤ They made math fun.
The current professor I have for Calc 2 right now, I like her but I think the professor can be a little harsh when we dont finish all the homework. I have all these other classes to worry about and the professor just kinda questions you in a smirky way and I just dont know what to tell them sometimes...I was just busy doing other things with other classes. Gotta make time for everything.
Someone failed Calc 2 in their class so bad that they just told them that they wont make it unless they do better in Calc 1 again and that person DID redo Calc 1 from their advice and I just wouldnt do that. Id retake it and make a comeback just to prove that I didnt need to go backwards in life.
I've dealt with a lot of bad math teachers, but there were two that were the worse of the worst.
One was when I attended Orange Coast Community. He was the most miserable and lonely man i've ever met. You could tell he had no passion for teaching, The teacher was highly disorganized, unstable, moody, condescending, hostile, unhelpful, made many mistakes, spoke English poorly, was uncivil and easily provoked and egotistical many times, and went out of his way to undermine the students on multiple occasions. For some weird reason, he had it out for this one student that sat in front of the class. He was always throwing passive aggressive shade at the student til one day the student called him out for bullying him and the teacher backpedaled like a coward.
The second one was when I attended Scottsdale Community, this guy was a complete asshole. He had the same bad traits as the first teacher I mentioned and he had it out for me. He acted very passive aggressive towards me making snide remarks and was generally unhelpful. The moment I realized this guy didn't like me was when one day I was 10 minutes late for class. He began to lecture me in the middle of class about the "importance of punctuality" and being late is not participating. I thought ok, being on time is important. However, a girl came in late 30 minutes later and he said nothing to her. I honestly believed that the teacher was racist, im black/hispanic and the girl that was late was white and his actions were fueled by his bigotry. In fact, the next semester I took a BIO 101 class and one of the girls I sat next to in the math class did notice the teacher's aggressive attitude towards me. So at least it wasn't my imagination.
My discrete math teacher was a brilliant woman. Knew her stuff, but she just didn’t know how to convey that knowledge to a group of students. Flied through her lectures. Didn’t slow down when asked. Sometimes, teaching just isn’t meant for even the smartest people.
fortunatly my math teacher is the same for physics and he always make connectios between the subjects.
it was incredibile for me solving instantaneous rectilinear motion with Limits.
The National Pass rate for Caribbean Examinations Council Mathematics Tests for Guyana is 34 percent.... meaning that more than half of the candidates completing this exam failed.....yet there is no mention of related glaring incompetence of the current set of math teachers......and yes..... included in that 34 Percent are some that benefitted from " leaked" test papers...... with no end to this decay in the foreseeable future
i had a very bad high school physics teacher in high school, he was just always so smug and arrogant and just talked to students like s***.
One time, I heard him in the corridor talking to other teachers, saying stuff like "my students are so dumb, they don't even know the surface area formula for a sphere", and i thought even if i knew this formula "that's absolutely not a measure of intelligence, this guy is really dumb".
Another time, he put a test and there was a mistake on the test, i said it to him and he got annoyed and said "well i took it from a manual, just send a letter to the manual editors and see how it goes". I was really really mad.
This guy was just frustrated in his life.
So, may be we have to talk about bad students. Students that think that you are there for introduce them the knowledge into their brains without their effort…
The Starbucks analogy struck a chord. "I"m paying, so it is your job to make sure I succeed, i.e., get a good grade." Often accompanied by "proof by intimidation"
The reason I never put any effort in was because math seemed useless. A bad teacher is the ones I have, that make you feel like there's no reason to be there other than the stupid score. Instead I taught myself the math I needed when doing what I wanted. Now imagine if the teachers helped while I wanted to learn it.
A good teacher is one that makes you want to come back and learn things. Instead of endless lectures that seem to have no practical use, how about find a way to take that knowledge and fit it to the student's needs? You know, that's the whole job of the teacher to begin with, so any teacher that shows videos all day and does nothing but scoring things is a waste of space and hurts people's futures.
Everyone already knows there's bad students, it's not worth talking about.
I had a math prof at UT Austin in 1958. He was ancient and came to class (8am) totally unprepared. He assigned homework and then spent the hour talking about, for example, the UT vs. A&M game he saw in the 19-teens, in a cow pasture somewhere. He probably couldn’t help it, but I would have had a hard time with a skilled teacher. I failed. It was called Numbers Analysis, a survey for gifted students. It started with counting systems and ended without me. I stopped attending.
I really want to be good at math. I feel that it is more my responsibility to become good at something than it is my teacher/professor.
Once I accepted this, I became better at math. Not where I want to be at yet but I see the path much more clearly now than before
The test will go above and beyond what was covered in the homework.
I believe there is really good math teachers because they are out there. Unfortunately we don’t have enough that enjoy teaching. I feel that teachers should spend 100 percent of their time helping students in class vs just throwing the problems up and expecting them to learn it on their own. Make math interesting not have students come after school to ask questions. That’s what time teachers are being paid to teach ,not to not be involved. Make it fun and people will actually want to learn.
I was always in higher level math and science classes and the spirit was "sink or swim." Calculus I at U. Iowa was brutal. I actually enjoyed the professor and loved my TA but there was no hand-holding or leniency. I received a C+ in the class after acing a previous, less rigorous version of calculus.
Many academic departments are under tremendous pressure to 'weed out' students in the intro courses for various reasons. Unfortunately it effects the most vulnerable students the most. Poor kids. The first ones in their family to attend college...or high school. Immigrant kids and kids from minority backgrounds. The kids form rich/connected families are better prepared or their parents are in a position to help them.
@@MrSloika Agree with this 100%!
I wish someone would have told me as a young person that:
Learning is an interactive process and that as a student - it is YOUR responsibility to get the education you want and need. Teachers, like people, are flawed people and the sooner that you arm yourself with bold personal responsibility the better for yourself and those around you.
Poor teachers play this "gotcha" game. Academia and public sector jobs do something to these people where they make these silly games filled with busy work. My perspective is of a 35 year old 50+ hr work week engineering student. I do not have time to participate in trivial work.
I'm taking Precalculus DC right now, and my teacher is really nice. However, she really sucks at explaining stuff and constantly rushes the lesson which just fuels my testing anxiety. Whenever I struggle with the homework or pratice quizzes she assigns, I hop on to youtube and try to learn it here. I prefer math videos anyday over in person learning. Just wanted to put a honest thought in here.
The worst was a teacher for Non-Euclidean Geometry. It was apparent from day one that she only had a vague understanding of the concepts, couldn't really explain anything, was utterly hopeless at proofs. Made mistakes constantly in class and when we would correct her errors she just got snotty and rude. Tests were impossibly difficult for the time allotted but we figure she did that just to get back at us. Of course, when we asked why some answers were wrong she didn't know; she hadn't memorized the Instructor's Solution Guide. You may have a PhD, but you can't teach. Then there was the Abstract Algebra dude who walked in, filled the blackboard while talking all the time facing the board. Never had any care or interest that anyone understood anything. Dropped that one.
Oh yes, there are bad teachers in general. I think that teachers that are not very knowledgeable can make it up with the passion that they place into their lessons. Hey, I became a physicist because of a highschool teacher who was pretty bad at physics (even for basic standards), but he was passionate about it and pushed people to learn about it.
On the other hand, while I was working at a well known University in Iowa (whose name I shall not mention), there was a (math, BTW) teacher who discouraged students from learning new topics and just limit themselves to what was being taught (poorly taught, by the way); even if it was the student who took the initiative. I literally told the teacher to go f**k himself, that is just doing a disservice to the office. That kind of teachers should NOT be teaching.
I had the exact same feeling for my calc 3 class 😭
I did pretty okay in the high 80s for every test and quiz, but looking back i dont remember or understand anything.
What do you recommend to fix this?
ps: thank you for your honesty in videos! its moments like this where i remind myself that just because i didnt do so hot in a class doesnt mean that math grad school is out of the equation
The way math is taught is simply stupid. They give you simplified formulae with no explanation for how it was made or why it's the best one. So what anyone should do to truly understand math is to take every individual tool and find out how it was made and what other patterns emerge.
For example, take the differences of perfect squares. A while back, I noticed that 3 + 4 = 7 and 16 - 9 also = 7. So I tried to find a pattern to expand it. I noticed that the difference between the base numbers also matters, so 5 - 3 = 2, and if you multiply that by (5 + 3), you get 16, which happens to be the difference between 25 and 9.
So what I came up with was sum * (last - first). However, if you try to search up anything similar you will only find an algebraic approach that ignores the relationship between the sum and difference of the bases and instead simplifies into foiling (first - last)(last + first).
It's the same with perfect cubes, which are even more simplified. The more complicated the pattern becomes, the less clear the formula, until math just becomes rote memorization instead of pattern recognition.
So yeah, once you work out from the bottom how each formula is made and your own versions of it, you might never forget it.
When I was in high school I really liked math just because of my teacher, he was so great and very professional. I remember him once telling me " I don't try to teach you math but rather teach u how it works and how to learn it". Thinking back I think he did givee his all but at the end of the day it is up to us as students to decide how much work we put in.
There are those who 'know' what they teach and there's those who can 'teach' what they know. And there is a world of difference between the two.
It's the odd comments that upsets me. If the teacher discourages in any way or have conversations not related to the subject.
Inside The Matrix, there is a set of required math classes you must pass. You "take" these classes and "pass" or "fail" them, struggling to meet the requirements so you can move on to the subjects that interest you. There's nothing educational whatsoever here, just these traffic spikes that can derail your progress toward a diploma or degree. The best teachers are the ones who will offer you that red pill and work to show you that math is far more than just some class. I tried to do this with DEV math students at the college level and failed miserably, because both the framework and the administrators who made that framework have a Matrix mindset of "It's just a class, it's something you must do, these kids are dumb and don't care anyway, just get it done and move on." And that's exactly how students approach it now. Any kind of innovative teaching is frowned upon by higher-ups and even by the students themselves, who mindlessly chant, "don't rock the boat, let us get this done so we can move on to better things." This disaster is going to be incredibly hard to fix.
Quiet quitting teachers: I've had my share.
You bring balance to the force.🧙♂🪄🌟
Sir...... can you remember how you memorised the tables for multiplication....?
Thank you ❤
I was a bad math teacher, much as I wanted otherwise. I stopped. I was however, a good tutor. Maybe as an introvert I did better one on one.
I just got a job as a math tutor so funny to see a vid about math teachers
Knowledge
There is good math teacher and there is the math sorcerer
Make a vlog on your daily life please
I don't care how good they are. If a Math teacher doesn't excite the interested students with the beauty of math how its infinite and divine. Doesn't teaches students to synthesize they are not good teachers
Ted Kaczynski was a legend, his words were true!... That is why it was an honor for him to call you like him... He was also a great mathematician.
Despite the inappropriate and discouraging remark - Ted was brilliant.
My sister didn’t want me to study Mathematics.
I was going to tell you about a math teacher when I was young. But I am a grown woman now with zero excuses.
I get the sentiment, but you probably should elaborate on your experience for any aspiring teacher who might be reading this so they can avoid making the same mistakes.
If your sitting up front, going to tutoring, going during office hours, doing work sets, making a genuine effort then I would pass that person.
I did a degree audit yesterday and I’m happy to say that I’m 50% away from getting my degree 📜
If you judge teachers based on how much understanding they "give" you, then you don't know what learning is. A great teacher doesn't give you understanding, they inspire you to teach yourself. In the end you're the only person that can put knowledge into your brain. If you read the Stewart book and taught yourself, then your teacher was a good teacher
They should inspire students to teach and challenge themselves. However, they are also based on how much understanding they can give you since it involves a lot of skill related to teaching. Being good at analogies, wording, presentation and being able to tell when students understand your lesson via questions and test scores feedback. In a way their job is to make learning efficient. Challenging students is important but there's a reason we read books instead of figuring it ourselves and it's because it's faster to learn and a good teacher will make you learn concepts fast. The greater teacher will go further and challenge students by giving adequately harder test and interesting questions, yet the student should excel because they were inspired to be motivated and had been taught well. I hate it when teachers do not slow down to fix a gap in knowledge in students that is essential to the lesson, basics and fundamentals are important and it's inefficient to not spend just a few minutes to resolve and give the fact needed to know to solve a problem. Lastly, being able to teach yourself makes you a good learner, not a teacher. Extremely smart and quick learners aren't always the best teachers because they cannot relate to slower students and they wouldn't bother making analogies or fixing their mindset, they're bad.
Keep it up
Thank you:)
ty
I’m 41 and hate math to this day. Thank God for Excel spreadsheets and apps.
Results of a survey decades ago. Why did you fail the course.? 90% of American students answered "because i had a bad teacher." 90% of Chinese students answered "because I didn't study hard enougjh"
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
90% of you will fail this class.