full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Another thing it allows us to do is reorder the ciuurlrcum. Traditionally it's been by how difficult it is to calculate, but now we can reorder it by how difficult it is to understand the concepts, however hard the calculating. So clluuacs has titlnaiadolry been tguaht very late. Why is this? Well, it's damn hard doing the calilotnaucs, that's the problem. But actually many of the concepts are amenable to a much yegnuor age group. This was an example I built for my daughter. And very, very simple. We were talking about what happens when you increase the nemubr of sides of a polygon to a very large number. And of course, it turns into a circle. And by the way, she was also very itnensist on being able to cnghae the color, an important feature for this dsomirtaeotnn. You can see that this is a very early step into limits and differential calculus and what happens when you take things to an emerxte — and very small sides and a very large number of sides. Very simple example. That's a view of the world that we don't usually give people for many, many years after this. And yet, that's a really important practical view of the world. So one of the roadblocks we have in mnoivg this agenda forward is exams. In the end, if we test everyone by hand in exams, it's kind of hard to get the curricula changed to a point where they can use computers during the semesters.

Open Cloze


Another thing it allows us to do is reorder the __________. Traditionally it's been by how difficult it is to calculate, but now we can reorder it by how difficult it is to understand the concepts, however hard the calculating. So ________ has _____________ been ______ very late. Why is this? Well, it's damn hard doing the ____________, that's the problem. But actually many of the concepts are amenable to a much _______ age group. This was an example I built for my daughter. And very, very simple. We were talking about what happens when you increase the ______ of sides of a polygon to a very large number. And of course, it turns into a circle. And by the way, she was also very _________ on being able to ______ the color, an important feature for this _____________. You can see that this is a very early step into limits and differential calculus and what happens when you take things to an _______ — and very small sides and a very large number of sides. Very simple example. That's a view of the world that we don't usually give people for many, many years after this. And yet, that's a really important practical view of the world. So one of the roadblocks we have in ______ this agenda forward is exams. In the end, if we test everyone by hand in exams, it's kind of hard to get the curricula changed to a point where they can use computers during the semesters.

Solution


  1. insistent
  2. calculations
  3. change
  4. traditionally
  5. younger
  6. calculus
  7. curriculum
  8. number
  9. moving
  10. taught
  11. demonstration
  12. extreme

Original Text


Another thing it allows us to do is reorder the curriculum. Traditionally it's been by how difficult it is to calculate, but now we can reorder it by how difficult it is to understand the concepts, however hard the calculating. So calculus has traditionally been taught very late. Why is this? Well, it's damn hard doing the calculations, that's the problem. But actually many of the concepts are amenable to a much younger age group. This was an example I built for my daughter. And very, very simple. We were talking about what happens when you increase the number of sides of a polygon to a very large number. And of course, it turns into a circle. And by the way, she was also very insistent on being able to change the color, an important feature for this demonstration. You can see that this is a very early step into limits and differential calculus and what happens when you take things to an extreme — and very small sides and a very large number of sides. Very simple example. That's a view of the world that we don't usually give people for many, many years after this. And yet, that's a really important practical view of the world. So one of the roadblocks we have in moving this agenda forward is exams. In the end, if we test everyone by hand in exams, it's kind of hard to get the curricula changed to a point where they can use computers during the semesters.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
real world 5
teaching people 5
math education 3
modern world 2
ancient greek 2
minute suggesting 2
hand calculating 2
people bring 2
school math 2
large number 2


Important Words


  1. age
  2. agenda
  3. amenable
  4. built
  5. calculate
  6. calculating
  7. calculations
  8. calculus
  9. change
  10. changed
  11. circle
  12. color
  13. computers
  14. concepts
  15. curricula
  16. curriculum
  17. damn
  18. daughter
  19. demonstration
  20. differential
  21. difficult
  22. early
  23. exams
  24. extreme
  25. feature
  26. give
  27. group
  28. hand
  29. hard
  30. important
  31. increase
  32. insistent
  33. kind
  34. large
  35. late
  36. limits
  37. moving
  38. number
  39. people
  40. point
  41. polygon
  42. practical
  43. problem
  44. reorder
  45. roadblocks
  46. semesters
  47. sides
  48. simple
  49. small
  50. step
  51. talking
  52. taught
  53. test
  54. traditionally
  55. turns
  56. understand
  57. view
  58. world
  59. years
  60. younger