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Math Electives

DrPizza

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
I'm trying to come up with some new ideas for math electives for a new course to teach. As the people here come from a wide variety of backgrounds, I'm interested in knowing what non-typical math electives your school had available for students. The target audience of such an elective would be students not necessarily strong enough in math to take a more rigorous pre-calculus class.

ideas I've had so far: a non-AP level probability and statistics course
a programming course

But, thought that there might be a really good idea out there that I haven't thought of. Thanks.
 
My first thought you've already covered (probability/statistics). I took two terms at the college for entertainment. I bet if you specifically push the game theory side of it you'd get some takers.

Viper GTS
 
Viper GTS said:
My first thought you've already covered (probability/statistics). I took two terms at the college for entertainment. I bet if you specifically push the game theory side of it you'd get some takers.

Viper GTS
Click to expand...

Definitely probability&statistics, I did the same, took the ECE and MA versions.

Its appeal is that I think the students would find it very useful, as I have. I really enjoyed realizing how important of a subject it really is in everyday life.
 
Viper GTS said:
My first thought you've already covered (probability/statistics). I took two terms at the college for entertainment. I bet if you specifically push the game theory side of it you'd get some takers.

Viper GTS
Click to expand...

mm, probability with poker... teach students how to gamblerrrr... play cards recreationally.
 
How about a geometry or basic number theory class with proofs? Proofs really require a totally different skill set than applied math (closer to verbal than visual skills), and some students discouraged by math may actually do better with abstract math. You'd have to go very slow at the start to introduce them properly to the language of proofs, though.
 
Actually, my favorite elective in school was a math elective - engineering economics. It was basically just a interest/financial type class. I don't know why it had engineering in the title...probably so they could call it an engineering tech elective. But the actual math isn't hard at all, definitely doesn't require any prior calc knowledge or anything. Probably no class relates more to my everyday life ($$$) than that class.

The only other thing that comes to mind is fuzzy logic or neural networks, but although those involve math, I guess I wouldn't really call them math classes.
 
rcpratt said:
Actually, my favorite elective in school was a math elective - engineering economics. It was basically just a interest/financial type class. I don't know why it had engineering in the title...probably so they could call it an engineering tech elective. But the actual math isn't hard at all, definitely doesn't require any prior calc knowledge or anything. Probably no class relates more to my everyday life ($$$) than that class.
Click to expand...

Engineering economics was very useful, especially since the professor would go off on tangents about personal finances almost every day.
 
History of Math. This will only work if you can manage to keep the class interested and engaged. I took it with a professor who had performed stand-up comedy in the past, so needless to say it was quite entertaining and nobody was nodding off.
 
Stats would be useful in college since anything non science related will be taking stats. My high school forced students into taking AP Calc. It was the worst time in math I'd ever had.
 
i've always thought there should be courses on the following three topics:

1 - math tricks, ie how to quickly do some complicated arithmetic in your head. simple examples are how to figure out simple tip values, more complicated examples, how to do some long division or something

2 - mathematics behind various gambling and games. you can extend this as far as you want, online world games, vegas games, etc

3 - mathematics applications in everyday usage. this would require more thought but back in the stone age, my calculus teacher showed us various applications on how to find profits of making thinner coke cans (less aluminum used). which was pretty cool, and taking a course on this would be extremely fascinating. the direction to go could range from economics, materials to physics.
 
You could do a probability and statistics class that focuses on weird stuff (take a look at the book Freakonomics if you haven't already).
 
Adv Computer Math (elementary Java stuff, programming calculators, etc.)
AP Stats (I took it concurrently with precalc, but seriously, class was such a joke)
Discrete Math
History of Math (sounds pretty awesome, tie some basic math and concepts into the course)
Maybe like a "Conceptual Math" kind of course? Similar to Conceptual Physics. As in you'd learn about integrals and whatnot, but the focus would be on how they were come up with and their applications in several fields.

Oh and at Governor's School, there was an "Experimental Math" class that I wish I had taken. Basically, you learn all sorts of abstract mathematical concepts and then use them to make up problem sets in groups to present to the class on designated days. That class looked so interesting. I remember they used stuff like MATLAB and Geometer's Sketchpad.
 
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