Re:How Old Is The Shepherd?
by dragonwriter on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @01:15PM
(#6848859)
> This is totally unsurprising. Most word problems in textbooks are poorly written and have little to no basis in reality.
There's a difference between a basis in reality and a internal completeness.
I think the problem isn't the way "most word problems in textbooks" are written, except insofar as most are, in fact, internally complete and so students are not taught to verify that the question is complete and are instead encouraged to just throw math at the numbers in the problem until they get something that looks like an answer.
Pedagogically, there may be some sense to this at certain levels, but eventually it becomes problematic if students don't have the both the skills and the understanding that it is desirable to first evaluate whether the question is complete.
There's a difference between a basis in reality and a internal completeness.
I think the problem isn't the way "most word problems in textbooks" are written, except insofar as most are, in fact, internally complete and so students are not taught to verify that the question is complete and are instead encouraged to just throw math at the numbers in the problem until they get something that looks like an answer.
Pedagogically, there may be some sense to this at certain levels, but eventually it becomes problematic if students don't have the both the skills and the understanding that it is desirable to first evaluate whether the question is complete.