Posted on 04/05/2011 5:39:25 AM PDT by reaganaut1
With its intricate mysteries of quadratics, logarithms and imaginary numbers, Algebra II often provokes a lament from high-schoolers.
What exactly does this have to do with real life?
The answer: maybe more than anyone could have guessed.
Of all of the classes offered in high school, Algebra II is the leading predictor of college and work success, according to research that has launched a growing national movement to require it of graduates.
In recent years, 20 states and the District have moved to raise graduation requirements to include Algebra II, and its complexities are being demanded of more and more students.
The effort has been led by Achieve, a group organized by governors and business leaders and funded by corporations and their foundations, to improve the skills of the workforce. Although U.S. economic strength has been attributed in part to high levels of education, the workforce is lagging in the percentage of younger workers with college degrees, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
But exactly how to raise the education levels of the U.S. workforce is a matter of debate. And whether learning Algebra II causes students to fare better in life, or whether it is merely correlated with them doing better — because smart, motivated kids take Algebra II — isn’t clear. Meanwhile, some worry that Algebra II requirements are leading some young people to quit school.
The District this year joins other states requiring high school graduates to meet the Achieve standards that include Algebra II; Maryland and Virginia do not.
But no state has pushed Algebra II more than Arkansas, which began requiring the class last year for most graduates
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
That’s a good point. Thanks for reinforcing that for me!
I have no problem admitting I was a marginal student at best, but ten years after graduating I decided that something must be wrong with the whole system of educating engineers. I probably wouldn't have qualified for engineering school if the admissions offices could have seen how poorly I would do, yet I passed both my EIT and P.E. licensing exams on the first try -- and by pretty wide margins, too.
Good points.
Some of the “liquids” we deal with are only liquids by the most generous defintion.
An old timer I worked with said that todays engineers were yesterdays techs. I see that also.
LOL ru4 reel?
LOL, me too!
In response to the comment to the book, I do think that some of the elegance of math is lost when ONLY applying it to practical situations. From the title of the book, there is an artistic element to math, especially some of the abstract math (group theory, topology, etc.) For instance, some abstract math had no "practical" value until recently.
Creative thinking in math creates tools that may later be used for practical applications, but some of this creative thinking leads to the math equivalent of a painting: there is no value in what was done, save for the elegance of the final product.
That being said, I am an engineer, and use math for practical purposes. I also like the show "Numb3rs", which showed some of the "practical" uses of math (a side note is that the technical consultant to that show was my prob & stat prof in college).
I still crack up when I remember one class in fluid mechanics on open channel flow. My previous instructors had gone into all this arcane fluid theory about how to measure fluid velocity, flow rates, etc. My adjunct instructor had a more simple approach for measuring velocity: (1) measure a fixed distance along the open channel; (2) drop a ping-pong ball in the water and see how long it takes it to travel that distance; and (3) velocity = distance/time.
Even in some engineering disciplines, there's something to be said about the phrase: "It ain't rocket science, folks!"
That was me. My teacher let me be a 'student instructor' in geometry class.
Algebra? I found it difficult.
Overall my math skills were/are not so good. It caused me to rethink my two loves, chemistry and physics.
I'm a mathematician in the financial industry, but my senior year of undergrad I took a grad course at UCF called "Advanced Math for Engineers." It was very fun and interesting. I especially loved Fourier Transforms.
One of the problems that I see in early elementary school arithmetic is that they are so busy teaching the why something works rather than teaching the procedure and then the concept. In older grades flip of this works, but not in the early levels. They don't want the physics of why they can ride a bike, they just want to ride a bike. Same for math.
“Algebra II is the leading predictor of college and work success”
I think the most valuable subjects I took that served me best in life are Latin (I, II & III) and Personal Typing. Latin was a great base for all language. Because of Personal Typing, no matter what was going on in my life or with the economy, I could always get a job. Algebra was wretched, Trig was double-wretched, and Geometry... ugh! Sadly, in NY during the ‘60s, in order to get a Regents Diploma all three were required. Torture.
True story.
We were specing out a new heat exchanger at my old job. There were three of us, my boss (40 years of experience), an intern, and myself (8 years).
My boss looked at the ceiling for a minute and said “Size X”. I noodled a bit and said a little bit more.
The intern spent all day doing the equations, and came back mad as heck that we were right!
Rules of thumb can get you close enough for a lot of things!
My boss looked at the ceiling for a minute and said “Size X”. I noodled a bit and said a little bit more.
The intern spent all day doing the equations, and came back mad as heck that we were right!
Experience has it's own power. I was remodeling and hired an older guy to set some windows for me. He walks in, takes out the old window, sets in the new window and starts shooting nails
"WOAH!!" I say, "aren't you going to check for square and plumb?"
"do you have a square and a level?"
"Sure" I say
Then check it."
Absolutely right on the money. He was there for the whole week working that room. I never saw him use a square or a level yet everything was absolutely perfect. He'd been doing it for 60 years or so and knew what square and level looked like. (And yes it really teed my off :^) )
That would have been another subject covered within that class. The neat thing about an EE degree - you’re about 1 year away from an additional Physics degree or Math degree. That is one of the reasons I went into engineering. I had a love of science and math - and I got to optimize both studies, then do something practical with it ;-)
Excellent! I have had a couple CQ engineers working for me through the years.
I used it through college and I’ve used it help my kids with their homework. I have alot of kids - so that helps. :)
Practical use in everyday life? nada.
This should be a given.
Yes, correct - because only the smart ones take it now.
Do these idiots really think that forcing low-IQ kids to sit uncomprehendingly through Algebra II will somehow, in a cargo-cult magic fashion, cause them to be as successful as their smart classmates?
Makes me wanna holler.
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