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"Alternative Math" - The confusing times we live in

bcglorf says...

I went through and can't find the grading example that they had when I was dealing with this with my kids. If I can get the spacing right they showed the student's work as below, with the proper pen marks for 'carrying' if you were doing long hand multiplication:

37
*23
------
111
740
------
851

The marking guidelines stated that this was to be marked as INCORRECT, because the student was falling back and using the algorithm and the correct answer was to formulate multiple different strategies for solving the 'problem'.

A better answer would have been 10 times 37 is 370, so 20 times 37 is 740, then 3 times 37 is 111. So 740 plus 111 makes 851.

Even that though was NOT a good enough answer. No, the BEST answer was the above and then a second method like calculating 25 times 37 and subtracting 37 twice as an alternative solution.

dannym3141 said:

@bcglorf

I'll have to take your word for how they're marked on this, because you've talked to the teachers and whatnot, and i've spent 20 mins looking at the document without finding any regulations on it. I spent most of my time reading the examples. The rest was chock full of text and a bit hard to digest so like a true scientist i gave up.

I can't defend that, i think in essence they've got a very good idea. I've always been good with maths, and i remember when i was learning what i thought were hard bits, i'd find shortcuts a lot like they suggest. And by luck that helped me a lot with more advanced maths. I think these methods are great to set people up for algebra, infinitesimals and therefore calculus. But it's also a very top heavy burden to place on a learning mind, and you're presuming they'd have a use for it, or have the knack for it. And then if you test them on it, you're testing their ability to do stuff they don't need yet.

The way you say it, it's like it was designed by someone with a bit of a gift for maths but no idea about teaching, or kids, or how other people think. These are great ideas for pushing kids to better understanding though. Could easily confuse people.

"Alternative Math" - The confusing times we live in

bcglorf says...

@drradon: I agree with you 100% on teaching both and teaching basic arithmetic first and then leading on to proper math once that foundation is established.

@dannym3141,

I was first blindsided by it when my kids came home with multiplication homework and were adamant they couldn't answer it the way I was showing them because it would be marked wrong, it was the wrong way to do multiplication.

The link to the full Manitoba math curriculum is below. The worst sections are under 'Mental Math' with the idea being that you should be able to add/subtract/multiply/divide all numbers in your head with a dozen pages worth of tricks. The tricks being what newtboy was calling 'proofs'. Our curriculum calls them 'techniques' though and I've included an example from the Grade 3 curriculum verbatim after of how it is supposed to be 'taught'.

Overall Math curriculum:
http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/math/index.html

Grade 3 example:
http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/math/support_gr3/number.pdf

From page 56:
Describe a mental mathematics strategy that could be used to determine a given basic fact, such as
-doubles (e.g., for 6 + 8, think 7 + 7)
-doubles plus one (e.g., for 6 + 7, think 6 + 6 + 1)
-doubles take away one (e.g., for 6 + 7, think 7 + 7 – 1)
-doubles plus two (e.g., for 6 + 8, think 6 + 6 + 2)
-doubles take away two (e.g., for 6 + 8, think 8 + 8 – 2)
-making 10 (e.g., for 6 + 8, think 6 + 4 + 4 or 8 + 2 + 4)
-commutative property (e.g., for 3 + 9, think 9 + 3)
-addition to subtraction (e.g., for 13 – 7, think 7 + ? = 13)."

Now before you think me and observe there's nothing wrong with showing kids some extra tricks to help them, that is NOT how this is supposed to be used. If you read further, students are REQUIRED to "explore" multiple methods of calculating answers and must demonstrate they know and can use all these 'tricks'. So instead of providing assistance for difficult calculations as it should be, it's used to make ALL calculations difficult, and create extra work, AND makes kids just learning the concept completely overwhelmed with everything you MUST know to get a right answer to 2+2=4.

And here's the link to the Grade 11 review of the basic arithmetic:
http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/math/ess_mm_gr11/full_doc.pdf

And for the Grade 11 students and teaching them to add/subtract/multiply and divide, the teacher's guide describes this like a subjective discovery process with quotes like this:
"Consequently, mental calculation activities should include periods for thought and discussion.
During these periods, the teacher should encourage students to
-suggest a variety of possible solutions to the same problem
-explain the different methods used to come to the correct answer and their
effectiveness
-explain the thought process that led to an incorrect answer"

An important note is we are not talking about solving complex word problems here or anything, but specifically for calculating a basic arithmetic operation with the different methods being those described from back in Grade 3 already outlined above.

dannym3141 said:

Could we see some evidence of a curriculum that asks for proof in the form of reducing all numbers to 1s and summing a list of 1s?

It sounds utterly mental, to the point i can't believe it without proof. I could believe that they may ask a kid to do that once or twice, with small numbers, to show that they understand from first principles what is actually happening, and perhaps to teach them to count better. But as a way of teaching to add, i need to see it to believe it.

"Alternative Math" - The confusing times we live in

ChaosEngine says...

Think you might have a typo there, newt.
5-4 = 1
not -1
I even checked it on a calculator

also in plenty of programming languages, "2" + "2" does equal "22"

newtboy said:

All that said, I got paddled in 5th grade for insisting 5-4=-1. My teacher didn't understand negative numbers.

Vox: Why America still uses Fahrenheit

TheFreak says...

Maybe there's no logical reason to have different systems but the reasons to have only one system are kind of thin. I am perfectly capable of using more than one system and I find that I prefer different systems for different uses. I can use imperial measurements when I build a shed and metric when I do engineering calculations. When I cook, I might use cups and tablespoons to make chili but I use grams to measure ingredients when I bake bread. And if you prefer one or the other, I can adapt. Humans are good at that. ;-)

Extend the argument and it's not logical for the world to speak more than one language. Translating between languages is a whole lot more work than translating temperature scales. We should all speak Mandarin, because it's the most spoken language in the world. But my best friend's 2 year old speaks Mandarin AND English. I suspect he'll be just fine.

Anyway, long story short, I agree we should all know how to use the metric system. That doesn't mean we all need to use it for everything.

ChaosEngine said:

Nope, she proves it.

"but you can easily convert it!!"

Yeah, but it's a pointless waste of time. It took 10 secs for that conversion in the video. There are 323 million people in the US. If 1% of the population did the conversion once a month, that's still over 100,000 hours wasted every year (and in the real world, the figure is likely several orders of magnitude higher).

There is no good reason whatsoever to use imperial measurements.

What Makes John Bonham Such a Good Drummer?

Fairbs says...

when the narrator talks about how it sounds chaotic even though it's calculated (in this case) is what I think makes a ton of music great... thinking sloppy drunk punk, jazz and blues going any which direction, moments in most live performances...

Nope

MilkmanDan says...

In the limited times that I've been around skunks, it definitely seemed possible to watch them from a safe distance and be in basically no danger of being sprayed. If there's a dog around, that gets a lot riskier fast though.

There's definitely a risk vs reward calculation to be made there. I think the reward of seeing some nature first-hand would have been enough to keep me on the porch if I was the guy in the video, but I'd have been pretty cautious about it. And I can't fault him for opting for "NOPE" either.

bitterbug said:

He missed out on an awesome experience.
There were skunks living under the tree in our front yard in Toronto, and when I'd sit on the front steps the babies would all come over and stand up in a line with their noses peeking over the bottom step.
Don't bother the family and nobody gets sprayed. You really have to harass or scare them for it to happen.

Because the window will stop him...

Mookal says...

Most vehicle side windows are made of tempered glass, compared to the laminated glass of the windscreen. The windshield is designed to "hold" its pieces upon severe impact due to the lamination process (a layer of plastic material sandwiched between two layers of glass) whereas the tempered side windows will shatter into small relatively harmless globules. Tempered glass is used due to it being roughly 4x the strength of non tempered glass, and cheaper to produce than laminated.

Most automotive side glass is typically between 3-6mm thick, depending on the region of origin, eg Europe, Japan, USA etc. That said, calculating the compression, tensile and sheer strength a particular window can sustain is not exactly simple. However as a simple baseline, a 2ftx2ftx5mm sheet of tempered glass, with supports 2ft apart can support roughly 160lbs of sustained weight. In the case of automotive design, window frame support, distance of supports, curvature etc will change the properties and strength of the glass.

Long story short, with the vehicles window fully rolled into the frame, that lion would need hundreds of pounds of force directed at a single point to reach the shatter point. Granted, I've never arm wrestled a lion, so maybe those folks were just a can of Vienna Sausage ready to open anyway. Best not to mess with the king.

sanderbos said:

So now I am curious about this, based on the title.

So they have these safari parks right, where you drive your own car between the animals. So based on that I would imagine the car would be safe from lions.

But when I just think about it, and about how much stronger such animals are than humans, I would expect the window to break if a lion pounces at it. It would shatter of course, so it would immediately confuse a big predator, but if it is dedicated enough to get really angry at the driver (maybe if the car stereo would be blaring Britney Spears or something like that, really pissing of the lion), that car window would only be a very minor stoppage for the lion's attack?

4 Revolutionary Riddles

visionep says...

I guess the hint for these is the rotational test that they show at the first.

1) A sticky object that would let go like a wall crawler that climbs down a wall would create this effect. (see below)
2) You can't. As you approach infinite speed it would get very close. (see below)
3) The bike will move forward. (see below)
4) The outside parts of the wheels that overlap the rail. Also if the train has a flywheel that is larger than the wheel size the bottom of the flywheel would also always move backwards faster than the train was moving.

1) He says "what object is inside?" so I'm not sure a liquid would count. Also a viscous liquid would flow a slow rate and would probably not stop and start. You might be able to get a viscous liquid to stop and start if you had fins, but that still might just move slowly or gain enough momentum to roll fast without any flow.

2) A little excel calculation shows that the average velocity approaches twice the initial but will never hit it.

attempted m/s - total time - average m/s
1 100 1
2 50 1.333333333
3 33.33333333 1.5
...
200 0.5 1.990049751
201 0.497512438 1.99009901

3) I'm not sure if the parameters of this experiment are explained sufficiently.

If it is allowed to slip then no matter the mechanical advantage a hard pull should always be able to get the bike to skid back and defeat friction.

If the bike is not allowed to slip on the ground then I don't understand how it could ever move backwards, the only options would be that it doesn't move at all or it moves forward.

If it can't slip then the ratio of the pedal to the wheel is what is in question. Bikes only have gear ratios higher than 1 and the crank is smaller than the tire so the tire will always rotate more than the crank thus the bike should move forward.

4 Revolutionary Riddles

ChaosEngine says...

This line is incorrect Vavg = (V1+V2)/2. That only applies if you run at V1 and V2 FOR THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME.

Speed is Distance divided by Time, so the formula for calculating average speed is Dtotal / Ttotal.

The problem is that that only works if your second lap can be longer than the first lap.

If they are the same distance, the maths are undefined.

V1 = D1/T1
V2 = D2/T2

Vavg = (D1+D2)/(T1+T2)
if (D1 = D2) then
Vavg = 2D1/(T1+T2)

if Vavg = 2V1 then
2D1/T1 = 2D1/(T1+T2)
then T2 = 0

therefore V2 = D1/0 .... cannot divide by 0 (and no, it's not infinity )

Digitalfiend said:

The track question seems really straightforward. The question is how fast do you have to run the 2nd lap such that the average of the two laps (Vavg) is twice the velocity of the 1st lap (2V1); so Vavg = 2V1 (says right in the video). Unless I'm missing something, V2 has to equal 3V1:

Since the problem states that Vavg must be 2V1, we can substitute that in the average calculation below:

So, Vavg = (V1+V2)/2 becomes 2V1 = (V1+V2)/2

Now solve for V2:

V2 = 4V1-V1
of
V2 = 3V1

i.e. your 2nd lap must always be 3x faster than your 1st lap so that the average of the two laps is twice the velocity of the 1st lap.

No?

For example:

V1 = 1 m/s
V2 = 3 m/s
Vavg = 2 m/s

2m/s = 2V1

V1 = 5m/s
V2 = 15m/s
Vavg = 10m/s or 2V1.

4 Revolutionary Riddles

Digitalfiend says...

The track question seems really straightforward, so I must be missing something.

The question is how fast do you have to run the 2nd lap such that the average of the two laps (Vavg) is twice the velocity of the 1st lap (2V1); so Vavg = 2V1 (says right in the video). Unless I'm missing something, V2 has to equal 3V1:

Since the problem states that Vavg must be 2V1, we can substitute that in the average calculation below:

So, Vavg = (V1+V2)/2 becomes 2V1 = (V1+V2)/2

Now solve for V2:

V2 = 4V1-V1
of
V2 = 3V1

i.e. your 2nd lap must always be 3x faster than your 1st lap so that the average of the two laps is twice the velocity of the 1st lap.

No?

ChaosEngine said:

Are you sure about that? Let's say the track is 100m for simplicity's sake and you run it at 1m/s (so 100s).

...

Rex Murphy | Free speech on campus

Asmo says...

Watch further, particularly his videos on authoritarian regimes. His issue is that controlling language with force is a hallmark of classic far left regimes (ie. Lenin/Stalin's Russia, Mao's China etc), so his beef is not only with the uni, it's with the government and the deluded (or worse, calculated) morons who think that state sanctioned and enforced speech is a "good thing".

He has spent decades studying authoritarianism and makes compelling arguments as to why the current "SJWs" are almost identical to the precursors of other authoritarian regimes.

I don't ask anyone to take anything said at face value, but Peterson does the due diligence for his arguments, and will often defer answering a question if he doesn't think he can offer a well reasoned response. I've yet to see a single video where he has said anything negative about trans people (as opposed to saying negative things about a government law to force language), yet he is described as a homophobe because it's far easier to label him to discredit him than to actually listen to what he is saying.

enoch said:

in my opinion,dr petersons only real gripe,and valid argument,is against the university of toronto,and how they handled the situation.

i have watched a number of dr petersons videos on language,and the psychology behind language,and the societal and cultural impacts of language,and even the abuses that can arise with the misuse of language and the inevitable conflicts that can arise.

i have also seen peterson speak to a group of protesters and have watched them settle down and actually have a conversation with him.

so i think peterson has a beef with the university,and not the addendum to an already existing law,although that is not his contention.i simply do not see where he can take it to that extremity,when there is little evidence to support it.

i dunno..seems kind of a waste of time in many aspects to me.

Japanese people take their calculators very seriously.

ant (Member Profile)

Japanese people take their calculators very seriously.

newtboy (Member Profile)

oritteropo says...

Thanks I didn't work out how they calculated it either.

newtboy said:

Um...51 BILLION?!?!!! That's a good trick with a population of around 7 billion.
How does it save every person that's ever died of malaria...and why would you do that? We're overpopulated enough already.
*quality inventions. I'm glad these immigrants got to go to Stanford instead of Mumbai Tech.



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