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To Keep Students in Stem Fields, Let’s Weed Out the Weed-Out Math Classes (scientificamerican.com)
11 points by webmaven on March 16, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments



Math is a language. It is the language of science. Even in the life sciences you need to understand sampling statistics and p-values. Chemistry involves reaction rates and exponentials.

Learning any language is hard. But without the ability to read, understand, and use language you limit yourself.


Not all brains are as developed at age 18 and not everyone received an education conductive to passing Calc 1. Split it up over two semesters, don’t remove it…


TLDR: title is misleading. It’s not about removing math classes, it’s about redoing them so that they’re taylored to the particular stem field they’re taken in.

E.g. rather than a standard intro to calculus which uses abstract examples, the new intro to calculus for a biology courses is heavily based on biology examples and applications.




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