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US Students Struggle With Understanding of the 'Equal' Sign
bickerd--- writes with news of research out of Texas A&M which found that roughly 70% of middle grades students in the US don't fully understand what the 'equal' sign means. Quoting:
"'The equal sign is pervasive and fundamentally linked to mathematics from kindergarten through upper-level calculus,' Robert M. Capraro says. 'The idea of symbols that convey relative meaning, such as the equal sign and "less than" and "greater than" signs, is complex and they serve as a precursor to ideas of variables, which also require the same level of abstract thinking.' The problem is students memorize procedures without fully understanding the mathematics, he notes. 'Students who have learned to memorize symbols and who have a limited understanding of the equal sign will tend to solve problems such as 4+3+2=( )+2 by adding the numbers on the left, and placing it in the parentheses, then add those terms and create another equal sign with the new answer,' he explains. 'So the work would look like 4+3+2=(9)+2=11.'"
That's not what = means. = is ASSIGNMENT. They're looking for ==.
Also, on a serious note, from what I recall of the US school system, frankly, the most surprising thing about this is that the problem isn't worse than reported.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Because I can't figure out how you are supposed to solve such a problem, and I have a BS in Computer Science.
Let's look at the problem:
4+3+2=( )+2
4+3+2 = 9
( ) + 2 = 2
So we have a false equality 9 = 2
Since this is not true, I can easily see how lots of kids would go through contortions to try and make it true.
But unless this is a trick question, why are the setting up false equalities like this for grade school kids?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Let's see here.. I'm going to go with:
4+3+2=(21/3*981727612785316256514034236^0)+2
Now, now. Just because these youngsters need pictures of the food on their cash-register buttons in order to do their job doesn't mean they're stupid. :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Obviously the US students are now totally confused about what equality means, everything is equal to everything else, your work effort is equal to anybody else's work effort because based on liberal agenda the outcomes are supposed to be equal.
So clearly, women=men, black=white, all humans have equal rights, this inevitably leads to everything else being equal to everything else.
so 11=9, 0=1, Islam=Terrorism, America=Fuck Yeah=One Nation Under God=Obama=God Bless America=And No Place Else=Nuke The Whales=There Is No God=Gay Is Good=Gay Is Bad=Government Is Going To Fix Everything=Large Corporations That Are Monopolies Because Government Made Them Monopolies Are Going To Fix Everything
So you see, these students maybe confused, or maybe they are right and everybody else is stupid for not getting with the times.
Obviously.
You can't handle the truth.
Do your Barbie dolls say "Maths are hard"?
Women = time * money ...and as we all know, "time is money":
Time = Money ...and therefore:
Women = Money * Money = (Money)^2 ...and because "Money is the root of all evil":
Money = sqrt(evil) ...therefore:
Women = (sqrt[evil])^2 ...and we are forced to conclude that:
Women = Evil
My thoughts exactly.
For me, 4 + 3 + 2 = ( ) + 2
=> 4 + 3 + 2 = (empty value) + 2
=> 4 + 3 + 2 = 0 + 2
=> 9 = 2
=> wtf?
1. Let a and b be equal non-zero quantities
a = b
2. Multiply through by a
a^2 = ab
3. Subtract b^2
a^2 - b^2 = ab - b^2
4. Factor both sides
(a - b)(a + b) = b(a - b)
5. Remove canceling values (a - b)
a + b = b
6. Observing that a = b
b + b = b
7. Combine like terms on the left
2b = b
8. Divide by the non-zero b
2 = 1
???
Hmmm ... I just noted that 6*9 / 6 is, of course, 9. So maybe the true problem is all of them knowing the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the testers didn't get the joke :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The bible comes this close to giving us the square root of 2.
Rev 21:16 -- And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.
And this close to giving us pi.
2 Chron 4:2 Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
Oh well.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
int main()
{
4+3+2=()+2;
return 0;
}
error: expected expression before ')' token
Those idiots forgot to name the function they're calling.
Yeah, from what I've seen here in DC, playing farmville all day is worth only $40K max. That's with at least 2 years of FarmVille experience.
oh! Whoosh for me then!
(heads on to Wikipedia)
What exactly sounds weird about Ohioan and Wyomingite?
More to the point.. why would those sound any 'weirder' than people from TexaS being TexaN or people from Puerto RicO being Puerto RicAn, while people from Massachusetts aren't Massachusettan but Massachusettsan?
Not to mention Connecticuter.. cuter? Surely for pronunciation that should have been Connecticutter?
At least Ohioan makes it more clear it's somebody from Ohio than New Mexican does for somebody from New Mexico.. that should have been New Mexicoan as well.
Then again, I'm from The Netherlands, or Holland if you prefer, but you English-speaking folk insist on calling us Dutch.. so maybe I'm just used to these sorts of shenanigans ;)
Shouldn't that be "generation ()+1"?
So they don't understand NULL. That's acceptable. 70% of people saw the equation had a memory leak and carried data over into the null that just happened to be the last equation they saw. That happens all the time to a computer program that's not properly debugged. I'm more worried about the 30% of people who saw null and created X. Who are they to just randomly initialize variables to catch an exception that they didn't know was going to come there way any time soon.
A circle? Oh thats soooo easy! You just fill it in using a #2 pencil.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I drank WHAT?
Socrates, (399BC)
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."