ENGI

Math, Critical Thinking, and thee

One complaint that I often hear from other college students is the uselessness of Calculus in pertinence to their field. Indeed, many people who aren’t engaged in specific scientific fields often never use anything more but basic math skills which are learned in high school. But what many students neglect is the critical thinking part of learning math.

In a paper for the 2009 International Conference on Engineering Education, professors from the University of Technology in Malaysia wrote:

Forbes [18] in describing the breadth of failure in the American education system – in terms of academic achievement, in terms of social equity, and in terms of graduating citizens with the ability to think critically and act ethically mentioned significant related instances due to this failure in [critical thinking (CT)].

Among other striking examples which Forbes mentioned is one stated here accordingly: “Within the past thirty years, the US has initiated and heavily financed two military invasions in foreign countries. Both wars resulted in horrendous losses in terms of human life and suffering, and scarring, long term environmental damage. Historical review has not been positive about the need for, or the results of the earlier war. It is doubtful that historical review will be any more positive about the most recent wars”(p. 9).

Forbes [18] further remarked that the one common denominator to all of these noted incidents is that most of the people involved in these actions and decisions are products of the American education system. This system was a part of this failure in CT and ethical leadership (ibid). These are just some examples which could exist anywhere else where CT has failed to play part of the contributing factor in educating citizens to be responsible and accountable for their actions.

It doesn’t matter if you use Calculus on a daily basis or not; what matters is your ability to analyze complex situations, come up with solutions and consequences, and then choosing the best (most efficient, ethical, etc.) course of action. Critical thinking is perhaps the most important skill imparted to students by learning topics like math.

You can read the whole paper here (PDF).

The battle rages on

I managed to finish the first 5-week general chemistry course (Chemistry 200) and I’m currently in the second week of the second course (Chemistry 201). So far, things aren’t looking too hot for me; I still haven’t recovered fully from the intensity of the first class, which was ridiculous compared to the current course despite it being in the same series.

What really bothered me was that Chem 200 stipulated the completion of thirteen experiments, all with formal reports; this, in my opinion, is stupid. Why would you require two experiments and formal lab reports per week on top of trying to understand general chemistry in a period of five weeks? The reports ended up becoming a liability and ultimately the lack of time spent studying concepts for the lecture ended up affecting my grade, and even worse, caused me to compromise the quality of my work for the laboratory. I ended up writing garbage that would pass as analysis of the experiment instead of something substantial. I believe that learning should never become a liability. What made the situation worse was the extremely subjective grading of the reports and the poorly written laboratory manual that directed the experiments.

As for Chem 201, there are only nine experiments, only two of which require formal reports. Not only that, but the laboratory manual is very well written, concise, and even includes diagrams and illustrations. Why is there such a lack of continuity and consistency between these two classes, and more importantly, why hasn’t this problem been addressed by the chemistry department of community college yet?