Implications for Math Instructors
They say a picture is worth 1000 words. Then here are about 15,000.
I’ve taken screenshots of several examples of the algebra through calculus that WolframAlpha will do.
You can see the album of screenshots here: http://tinyurl.com/q49xy8
I’ll let you see the implications for yourself.
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Tags: Wolram Alpha
WOW ! SHIFT HAPPENS! THIS IS THE REVOLUTION I WAS WAITING 4. MATH BOOKS WRITERS … AND MATH TEACHERS … FINALLY SOMETHING WILL CHALLENGE THE SYSTEM! HOPEFULLY PROBLEM SOLVING WILL BE THOUGHT IN MATH CLASSES … NOT PARROT(MONKEY) MATHEMATICS. FINALLY (HOPEFULLY) MATH TEACHERS WILL START THINKING ABOUT CREATING RELEVANT MATH PROBLEMS THAT CAN’T BE SOLVED USING WOLFRAMALPHA! I’M HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY. I’M IN ECSTASY! SO… EXCITING!
This is a great example over at Number Warrior: http://numberwarrior.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/wolfram-alpha-is-live/
To Paul’s posting - doubt that math teachers will stop teaching the parrot math, partly because it’s in a required syllabus. Just as graphing calculators didn’t do much to modify teaching methods, neither will Wolfram Alpha (although I’m personally very excited about the possibilities.) In class exams will not allow software anyway.
Homework may be less weighted and online instructors who teach skills based math and rely heavily on online homework systems for a good portion of the grade may need to be concerned. If all their exams are online, then they’ll definitely need to be concerned. algebrahelp.com has step by step tutorials for many problems for many years now, but it’s not as extensive.
I’m teaching a face-to-face Inter. algebra course this summer and will be referring students to Wolfram Alpha for study help. Homework will not count very heavily in my class.
[...] quite figure out what it was so I didn’t keep too close an eye out for it. Then I read on Teaching College Mathematics and the Number Warrior that it was up, and I was pretty impressed with the screen shots. [...]
I’ve told all my classes about WolframAlpha. One way to use it is to check the answers after they solved the problems. I told my math students that by next year I will have their homework and tests completely changed. There will be some “traditional” problems ( monkey math ) but the majority of their assignments will require thinking. Working like mad right now to create sets of problems that will be relevant and not solvable with WolfRamAlpha. Some of the assignments will be assigned to be solved with WA so they get practice with the syntax. As simple as that!
[...] And here. [...]