mathwonk
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students are ages roughly 18-22 in the classes i was discussing.
older students are indeed much more responsible.
returned teachers have the best attitude. of course students vary, but when porerequisites are clearly stated, it is discouraging to have a large number who have no visible preparation at all.
Many people attempt calculus without knowing how to write an equation for a straight line, or what slope means, or what cos and sin are, or the area of a parallelogram. In fact this is typical.
but attitude is even more important. on the occasion when the average score was 15/100 on a prerequisite test, the test was given again as homework, overnight, with open book access, and the average only went up to 20/100.
older students are indeed much more responsible.
returned teachers have the best attitude. of course students vary, but when porerequisites are clearly stated, it is discouraging to have a large number who have no visible preparation at all.
Many people attempt calculus without knowing how to write an equation for a straight line, or what slope means, or what cos and sin are, or the area of a parallelogram. In fact this is typical.
but attitude is even more important. on the occasion when the average score was 15/100 on a prerequisite test, the test was given again as homework, overnight, with open book access, and the average only went up to 20/100.