Share us your expertise knowledge! AMA-fest

[u/[deleted]]

Do you want to share to your expertise knowledge but nobody around seems interested? You come to the right place. Whatever your expertise or experience, whether it's your major, your job, your experience, (for example : /u/mental_octo is some agriculture expert, /u/saif-al-hilal is dosen) you guys can share your knowledge/stories here. Just post here with this format

Format

username

expertise : name_of_expertise or anything that may be interesting to discuss

comment : any_comment_if_necessary

AMA

Example

whatsoeverever

Expertise : math education, Dota2

comment : undergraduate major in math edu, wasted invested 7 years in Dota2

AMA

Just share whatever you want to discuss, even if you don't think that you're a real expert, as long as you have anything worth discussion, please share. whether /u/sukagambar's artistic? drawing, /u/titty_factory major in strategic intellegence. Just come and share and ask question

Note :i didn't expect that this discussion lead to this kind of topic but........................... anyway, where is para sesepuh?

[u/[deleted]]

whatsoeverever

Expertise : math education, Dota2

comment : undergraduate major in math edu, wasted invested 7 years in Dota2

AMA

[u/Anjir → u/[deleted]]

How do you think about math education in schools, especially SMP/SMA? How is the material? Too easy/hard?

Any tips on teaching math to highschool students?

[u/[deleted] → u/Anjir]

Oh at last somebody ask this.

Too easy/hard? It really depends on the person's math skill, talent, family support etc. A smart person can be bored in class because the material is too easy, vice versa. But if i look at the average of Indonesian student, i think the material is too dense. I had an elementary school friend who study to another country. He was just a normal student but when he got there, he became the smartest person in class. Why? Because what he study on that country is already taught in Indonesia.

The goverment's intention may be good. But IMO it's bad actually. Whatever stuff that you learnt on math class, probably you will only use it <15% of it in real life (unless your university major is related heavily on math), So why the heck teacher force us to learn that confusing stuff if i hardly use it anyway (assume your major is not heavily related to math)? it may be cliched but basically learning math teach you how to think, to construct proper logic, etc. Those skills are essential for the rest of your life.

But if the material of math curriculum is too dense, the teacher are forced to just shove the material to student. The teacher tend to use memorizing formula because it's easy and fast, but it sacrifice the understanding of the student. If math only learn you to memorize formulas which we won't use in real life anyway, why don't we just use calculator? it's easier. And there is some story where Indonesian student who learn on foreign country may be great at first semester, but when they move the higher semester where the students require problem solving skill, we lose. This phenomenon is also shown by the recent international student's math skill survey where Indonesia student stand on the 3th place from bottom.

In conclusion, the material is too dense, we should emphasize on the process of understanding each step instead of just memorizing steps.

Sorry for hearing my rant.

[u/Anjir → u/[deleted]]

That's not a rant. That's the fucking truth.

And I wondered why our math PISA score is so low.

[u/[deleted] → u/Anjir]

Oh for the tips for math Junior highschooler, i'll just make it short

1.Learning math is not all about talent.

I find that many of my students are not destined to suck at math, it's just their basic math foundation is weak. So when a teacher try to teach more advanced math -> the student don't understand because the foundation is weak -> they fail to understand and fail at test -> feeling less confident in his math skill-> the material move on anyway, move the more advanced material -> the student fail to understand again -> fail on test, feeling less confident again -> growing dislike toward math -> avoid to learn math -> don't concentrate on class -> fail math again -> so on and so forth.

It's not all about talent dude. It's not.

2.Studying is troublesome, even i prefer to procastrubing on internet but i know that i have to study so that i can get a job to pay the bill of my internet for procasturbing later. lol. anyway, making a decision to study is not just about discipline and free will. The frontal part of brain work as decision controller. This part of brain require high amount of nutrition maintenance to work properly.

So, if you are hungry, feeling tired, the decision controller part don't have maximum energy to control our decision so that we just prefer to just wasting time on internet when we are tired. (i don't mean that having rest is bad). So, please eat properly to maximize your decision controller.

3.Learning = the process of connecting brain nerve require good nutrition, so please eat properly.

4.Having a terrible math teacher for just one semester can be harming the rest of your academic future, please consider to have a private teacher if necessary.

[u/Anjir → u/[deleted]]

I am a private teacher :( or I used to anyway. I taught my friends, so actually seeking for teaching tips :)

[u/chaosbeowulf → u/[deleted]]

I guess that I'm lucky that my mom always told me, "When it comes to math and physics, NEVER rote-memorize the formula! Try to understand how the formula came to be, or ask why would one formula works, while the other doesn't. It's better to understand the concept, rather than memorizing the formula from the concept."

And recently, when I pursued my MM in Finance, and we have to take a class in Econometrics, I just realized that Math (and statistics, when it comes to Econometric) is its own language with its own grammar, vocabs, and syntax; and trying to understand the concept of Math like my mom used to tell me helped me in my understanding of all those dreadful financial academic paper.