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The sole idea of going for a college course in Algebra is truly scary for many, many students. There must be some kind of deep fear when it is about learning algebra, and especially, when they fear intensely to the possibility of failing the class. The fear of failing and just not being able to comprehend what will be taught puts everyone in a alert state. And it is that fear and initial standing what creates and even deeper problem.
The process of learning math takes preparation, but fundamentally, it requires a continuity path, a trajectory. It is a like a playing at building figures with blocks, where we need to place one block upon the other. Subjects like algebra, calculus, etc, involve a pathway, a trajectory of knowledge, where a broken link can prevent students from reaching the final comprehension, from fulfilling the expected objectives of an introductory college course. And let's say those goals are in general very basic, and yet failure manifests persistently.
One of the initial things things we need to do is discovering where is this gap being created. In general, college programs are very well designed, with a very logical pathway toward the end goal, with great emphasis on practical applications, which makes everything more down to earth and comprehensible. But yet, in spite of a clearly well thought curricula you'll find that college teachers find that rarely the objectives are met in a satisfactorily way. They seem to not understand why students perform the way they do. In fact, taking into consideration all the resources put at the students availability (tutors, online resources, websites offering solved problems), it is simply hard to understand for a college math instructor.
It seems that the link is broken way back. In fact, if student would come to their first college algebra class equipped with the tools and background they�re supposed to, we would probably a full row of A�s all the time. Reality proves that this is not the case, so the link must be broken somewhere in the early years. What must be happening is that kids to come to college prepared enough. This lack of preparation usually involves lack of emotional readiness as well.
So, what is the origin of this I feel inclined to think that the genesis of the issue can be spotted at the high school years. It seems that kids are used to learn new math all the time at elementary level, and inf fact, their minds get exposed to this radically new objects which tend to expand their mathematical minds (think of what is like for a kid to see a fraction for the first time). Then, in high school, they don�t continue "learning", they just spend lots of time memorizing formulas and rules, instead of being exposed to more "new math objects" like they were in their earlier days. I think the key to the problem is realizing how little of new concepts is learned in high school.
There is a difference, in which students who took calculus in high school tend to do much better in their college math than those who did�t.And this is probably because they continued learning new things in high school as well. It is truly necessary to enhance math in high school, and to convert it from a big memorization routine, to truly exciting discovering years. If we don't, chances are that we'll continue this frustration path and the unnecessary fear will triumph.
John is in charge of a website called AlgebraTutor.us, which provides algebra homework help
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