Bad Habit Algebra
Cimbala, John Michael
Colleagues,
I have noticed a disturbing trend in the past year or so related to how students do algebra. Namely, they plug in numbers right away and then do their algebra with numbers rather than with variables. I was curious as to where our students were learning this method, which I call “Bad Habit Algebra.” We are not talking about just a few students. In a recent homework assignment (in my technical elective with 93 students, mostly seniors), I found out that more than 50% of students do this! I did a quick survey of my students and found out that most of them learned it in high school. A smaller percentage of them told me they learned it at PSU as freshmen, mostly in Chemistry class.
Please feel free to reply (to me or to all) if you want to have an email discussion about this. Also feel free to forward this email to your colleagues (at your or other universities); I would like to know how wide-spread this problem is.
- Have you noticed your students doing this “Bad Habit Algebra?”
- If so, what, if anything, have you done about it?
- As for me, I spent a little time in one of my in-class lectures talking about this and showed them how to do algebra more properly – using variables and then plugging in numbers at the end. I was surprised that many of them had not seen this before.
- I created one of my short YouTube videos about this to summarize my thoughts and to give some examples. Of course, I included some of my zany characters in the video to make it more fun. Here is a short description of the video in case you are interested:
A Bad Algebra Habit And How To Kick It
In this 4-minute video, Professor Skeptic shows some of his whacky students a better way to do algebra. Namely, instead of plugging in numerical values right away, he advises them to stay in variables as far as possible before plugging in numbers. He also lists some reasons why this latter method is better. Special guest Yoda makes the final wise comment.
Enjoy!
John
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John M. Cimbala
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Penn State
234 Reber Building
University Park, PA 16802
jm...@psu.edu, 814-863-2739 (office)
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"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free"