I was helping my son with his Common Core math homework the other day. The topic was mean (average), median (middle element in a set) and mode (the most frequently occurring element in a set).
The last question read something on the lines of “The term (mean, median, mode) best describes the following: 1,1,3,5,7,7,12.”
I sent the teacher a note saying the question was absolute gibberish. None of those terms can describe a set. They each can describe a particular property of the set (i.e., the mean would be approx. 5.1, the median would be 5, and the modes would be 1 and 7), but the terms cannot describe the set.
The teacher agreed with me, and just gave all students a correct answer on the question regardless of what answer they gave.
[ I was helping my son with his Common Core math homework the other day. The topic was mean (average), median (middle element in a set) and mode (the most frequently occurring element in a set).
The last question read something on the lines of “The term (mean, median, mode) best describes the following: 1,1,3,5,7,7,12.”
I sent the teacher a note saying the question was absolute gibberish. None of those terms can describe a set. They each can describe a particular property of the set (i.e., the mean would be approx. 5.1, the median would be 5, and the modes would be 1 and 7), but the terms cannot describe the set.
The teacher agreed with me, and just gave all students a correct answer on the question regardless of what answer they gave. ]
some of the common core stuff is “Math Theory”, which is fine but math is one of those few things where it is better for you to learn the HOW before you learn the WHY.