Is the mathematics you learn in school really needed in everyday life?

Reply 140

OP

7

Original post

by Sir Cumference

Here are some:

https://2fv5d843v9w22sxtto1ibxtu-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Algebra-H-Algebraic-Proof-v2.pdf

Thanks, I enjoyed working through them.

Reply 141

mqb2766

21

Original post

by University of Huddersfield Guest Lecturer

That is a terrifying thought.

But do you think that there is a certain basic level of mathematics that would have helped Jim overcome the efforts of Sir Humphrey? For instance when dealing with badger population numbers?

Politicians using statistics rationally? As Humphrey might say, interesting idea which might be tried sometime.

Hopefully for the current situation they are listening to the best medical / statistical advice, rather than lumping their prior biases into the decision making.

Reply 142

Charlotte's Web

21

I think for me much of the issue is that I did well in maths at school (despite not enjoying it) didn't do much in A level other than very applied and specific maths in science subjects, did a tiny bit of very basic maths at university and now have a job where I really could do with knowing a bit of maths, but because I haven't really used those skills in nearly 10 years, they're hard to pick back up.

It's really hard as an adult to find the time to study or even begin to know how to re-teach yourself these basic skills, for example things like dealing with invoicing and basic Excel skills are things I now struggle with but either wasn't really ever taught or have forgotten. In the world of work, employers simply expect you to know these things.

Reply 143

HuddsuniComp/Eng

OP

Official Rep

7

Original post

by Sir Cumference

It's common to hear e.g. "Algebra is useless, we should be taught about finance instead". I think there should be more finance/life skills taught in schools but this should be separate to maths lessons.

If the school maths curriculum was just filled with life skills then firstly it would be a very limited and boring curriculum. Also it would be too easy - there's a limit to how hard you can make a question involving percentages. Maths lessons are not just for teaching you skills that will be required in life/career but they also develop your logic, reasoning and problem solving skills that are so important. The more varied the curriculum the better. There's a good reason why A Level maths is desired so much by universities and employers for jobs that don't require any A Level maths knowledge.

Thanks, that's a great contribution.

It would be terrible to make the curriculum too simple in an attempt to make it relevant.

But would it be possible to include more focus on for instance the problem solving skills? In my own experience I often find that in solving a problem doing the maths is the easy part, and it is finding the right mathematical approach that is challenging.

I also wonder if someone on the forum is going to take up your challenge and come up with a difficult question involving percentages :-)

Reply 144

Notnek

21

Original post

by University of Huddersfield Guest Lecturer

But would it be possible to include more focus on for instance the problem solving skills? In my own experience I often find that in solving a problem doing the maths is the easy part, and it is finding the right mathematical approach that is challenging.

The new GCSE and A Level maths specs have a much bigger emphasis on problem solving and I think it's worked pretty well.

Reply 145

Rabbit2

18

Original post

by University of Huddersfield Guest Lecturer

I'm afraid that even for professional mathematicians knowing when something is so rare not to have occurred by chance is something we struggle with.

The social sciences are struggling with a replication crisis at the moment due to this very question. People have been using a threshold of 1/20 as the definition of a rare event, but there are problems with that as illustrated by this comic
https://xkcd.com/882/

Every car licence plate we see is a rare but not surprising event. (Although Ramanujan and Hardy might disagree with me! https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hardy-RamanujanNumber.html )

Actually, if you look into it, car license plates [at least here in Virginia] are not random. They are assigned according to rules that most ppl are unaware of. The 'normal' - i.e. "non-vanity" tags are formatted as 3 letters and 3 or 4 numbers, as: FGB 1325. The 3 letter prefix are 'zoned' - certain ones are used in any given locale. As an example, in 'town A', the prefixes SEU, FGB, and PGA may be used. In another town, other prefixes would be used. If you are a cop, you can tell where a car is from by the prefix it displays. Certain prefixes are reserved. VSP is only issued to employees of the Virginia State Police for their personal vehicles. This prefix is issued "state-wide", because there are not that many VSP employees in the state - so they have plenty of numbers to go around. I'm not sure whether this applies to 'sworn' officers only, or whether office staff and people like lab technicians qualify for them. Other prefixes are reserved for other uses. I presume that people like FBI and DEA sworn officers are issued particular prefixes - altho i have not 'sussed out' what these are. There may be other rules that apply to the numeric part of the tag. If you could get your hands on one of these automated 'tag readers' that you see riding around on the trunk lid of police cars, logging all passing tags, it might be interesting to run a survey and see how the numbers are assigned. I know that some tags come back as "In Use" when you run them on a computer that can 'run' license tags. No user name or address is listed. Presumably, these are undercover vehicles, or those being used for surveillance work. Cheers.

Reply 146

QE2

20

Original post

by University of Huddersfield Guest Lecturer

Good point. And learning is definitely a useful skill. (Although some of my students are shocked when I tell them I'm still learning about maths.)

Do you think that maths is a particularly good subject when viewed from that perspective?

Anything that encourages grasping abstract concepts is going to be useful.

Reply 147

Profesh

20

If you can't develop an intuition for percentages, ratios and averages, or otherwise steer your mind around the occasional course of 'heavy-duty' arithmetic, then it's really only a matter of time before some egregious and wholly avoidable numerical infelicity costs you the confidence of your client, your employer, your bank, your spouse, your mortgage broker, et cetera.

Reply 148

HuddsuniComp/Eng

OP

Official Rep

7

Good morning everyone. We are discussing mathematics education in schools and whether it provides us with the skills we need to navigate everyday life.

Some users point out that part of the value of mathematics education comes from learning other skills, e.g. QE2 says learning to learn is one of the key things we learn in schools, peaerhead7997 sees value in the logical reasoning needed to construct algebraic and geometric proofs.

However, practical examples of mathematics in everyday life continue to pour in! Squeakysquirrel uses trigonometry when finding a ladder long enough to get to the roof. Rabbit2 spots patterns in car number plates. Onde would like to see compound interest taught. Profesh forecasts dire life consequences for those who indulge in "egregious numerical infelicity". Scorpion95 points out that mathematics is so fundamental we probably don't even notice how much we use it.

Some users such as Sir Cumference agree that schools should teach mathematical life skills, but question whether that should be delivered within maths lessons or elsewhere.

With different ideas about how to respond to the coronavirus currently debated round the world and in the UK parliament, I'd like to ask what mathematics you think a minister or MP ought to know in order to do their job effectively? Is there a minimum level that would allow them to engage effectively with an expert, or to integrate recommendations from experts from several different domains e.g. medicine and economics?

Reply 149

mqb2766

21

Perhaps there should be a focus on visualisation if the aim is to use stats to interpret everyday life. It's what Florence Nightingdale and Hans Rosling did:
https://vimeo.com/18477762

For instance, you could (won't) pour through pages of statistical tables or look at a graph like

http___com.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.png

and conclude we want to be more like Hong Kong.

So perhaps a greater focus on visualisation rather than the raw numbers. Also the Stephen Byers 7*8 = 54, comes to mind about mathematical literacy in ministers :-)

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 150

HuddsuniComp/Eng

OP

Official Rep

7

Original post

by mqb2766

Perhaps there should be a focus on visualisation if the aim is to use stats to interpret everyday life. It's what Florence Nightingdale and Hans Rosling did:

Not to mention John Snow https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/mar/15/john-snow-cholera-map
and Charles Minard https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/jun24/napoleon-invades-russia/

Does anyone else have a favorite historical or contemporary visualisation?

Reply 151

peaerhead7997

12

Original post

by University of Huddersfield Guest Lecturer

Some great suggestions. Does anyone have some examples of proof questions that could be asked at GCSE level?

I think that ideas like the pigeonhole principle could be used; a lot of people are surprised at what it can be used to prove when they first hear about it. It also isn't very complex and allows for some creativity in proof while not becoming a completely random question as they style of question which uses it can be made fairly similar each year i.e prove that in a collection of 6 consecutive integers there is a number divisible by 5. They could also develop that further with 'prove their product is divisible by 120' for more advanced questions. Or things like prove n^4 - 1 is divisible by 24 as a grade 9 question. The pigeonhole principle I think is a really good example of more pure mathematical reasoning so it could interest the people who later go on to study pure maths unlike how currently gcses and a levels which cater more to the other stem people.

Reply 152

HuddsuniComp/Eng

OP

Official Rep

7

Happy pi day everyone!

Reply 153

mqb2766

21

https://twitter.com/DrFrostMaths/status/1238931995809533953?s=08

1/2 'relevant discussion

Reply 154

jenhasdreams

20

Original post

by Puddles the Monkey

I wish I'd learned more basic maths.

It feels like a big hole in my life and I often run in to day to day situations where I know WHAT I want to do, but I just can't do it :rofl:

Especially around percentages and fractions.

@jenhasdreams has tried to explain things to me using loads of pens and pencils and moving them around :lol:

(I've forgotten what I was trying to understand now though).

I don't know if you'll ever see this reply now :cry:

but @Evil Homer just asked me exactly the same question :lol:

it brought it all flooding back. I managed to explain it over Slack though, no pens needed.
It was about forum overlaps, that % of study help posters who posted in universities forums could be a different figure from % of universities posters who also posted in study help forums. I had pens to represent posters and was moving them around

Is the mathematics you learn in school really needed in everyday life?

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