Quote:
Originally Posted by ngc3314
One aspect which I think operates here is also at work in Another Controversy Which I Will Not Name. For lots of students, they've almost never seen any math but trivial arithmetic impact their daily lives, so these sots of calculations have always been school assignments of the jump-through-hoops-for-a-grade variety. This suggests a certain lack of practice in estimation of physically reasonable outcomes. I start many of these same classes with Fermi's question about the likely number of piano tuners in New York City, to set the tone for estimating.
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Heck, I have to wonder how many people use any math in their everyday lives. To help students solve how far the moon moves in an hour, I give the every-day example of freeway travel. You're traveling at X speed, how far do you go in Y time, etc. I post this for my online classes, and they still can't figure it out. Honestly, that's one of my biggest hurdles as I start teaching these classes online. I can only do so much when I'm on the other side of the state. (Then there are the math tutors who can't do science problems, but that's a different issue.)