This is what Prof. Yossi Matias, director of Google's research and development center in Tel Aviv, says at the fourth conference as part of Matach's platform for public discourse in mathematical education.
"The role of mathematics has been found to be important for solving technological problems, answering many technological challenges faced by developers in companies today." This is what Prof. Yossi Matias, director of Google's research and development center in Tel Aviv, said at the "Mathematics from Different Angles" conference held by Matach - the Center for Educational Technology at the Yaffe Israel Studies Center in Tel Aviv.
This conference was the fourth in the framework of the stage for public discourse in mathematical education. These conferences are designed to raise the public discourse on issues related to mathematical education. It was attended by about 200 professionals interested in and engaged in mathematics and mathematical education.
The conference featured lectures and discussions with the participation of: Prof. David Tal - Professor Emeritus in Mathematical Thinking from the University of Warwick, England, Prof. Avi Berman - Faculty of Mathematics and the Department of Technology and Science Teaching at the Technion, Prof. Ron Livna - Einstein Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University, Prof. Yossi Matias - Director Google's research and development center in Tel Aviv, Dr. Verda Lieberman - Deputy Dean of the Arison School of Business Administration at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, and Dr. Rosa Laikin - Head of the Mathematics Education Program at the University of Haifa.
The conference ended with a panel of lecturers led by Prof. Avi Berman from the Technion, who presented the question that concerns many: what should a school student learn in the 21st century from the vast variety of mathematical fields of practice.
Dr. Hanna Perel, from the Department of Mathematics at the Ministry of Education, said in her opening remarks that "the State of Israel has been blessed with mathematics educators and mathematicians of repute and knowledge who are willing to contribute their time and knowledge to the improvement of mathematical education in the country. But it should be remembered that the main factor that can bring about the change is the math teachers who teach the younger generation in the country. Only teachers with a broad mathematical education and didactic skills will be able to bring about the desired turn. In order for us to have good teachers in the future, the status of teachers must be improved so that the teaching profession will support those who engage in it with dignity."
Prof. Perla Nesher from the University of Haifa spoke about the difficulty of many students in learning mathematics. "This is a long-standing difficulty arising from deep problems concerning the learning processes of this abstract field," said Prof. Nesher. "Teachers are important, but it is not clear whether they must have a high mathematical education. Teachers in China, for example, in light of Liping's research, have a lower education than teachers in the US, yet the achievements in China are better. The teacher needs special characteristics, and it's not necessarily the level of mathematics he studied."
Prof. Yossi Matias, director of Google's research and development center in Tel Aviv, said that the main issue in mathematics is not how to calculate accurately, but also how to make sense of imprecise information.
"In technology companies, you have to use increasingly sophisticated tools to answer questions and solve problems. Intuition is not enough," said Prof. Matias, who brought fascinating examples of the uses of mathematics in a variety of Google activities, such as the use of mathematics for search engines, retrieving information on huge volumes, popularity ratings, indexes, and more.
Matias also noted the importance of mathematics in the operation of the Adwords service, which is a major source of income for Google, allowing users to enjoy Google's availability for free.
"The Adwords advertising mechanism contains advanced mathematical parameters: the probability that a user will click on an advertisement when he sees it, results in the advertisement being displayed or not," said Prof. Matias.
"The decision of which ads to display is determined by a tender between advertisers with a price set by the advertiser in the case of a user clicking on the ad. There is an algorithm that collects all the offers, makes a probabilistic calculation, weighs and gives the best results. All of this is based on mathematical theory, so that mathematics is at the basis of technology on a day-to-day level."
According to Dr. Sarah Hershkowitz, Head of Mathematics at Matach, Matach sees great importance in raising central issues of mathematics teaching to an open public discourse in a serious and in-depth manner by the best experts from Israel and the world. "At the conference, a selection of topics from the field of mathematics were presented and the issue was discussed as to which of the various aspects that mathematics deals with, should and is possible to incorporate into the curricula of the students of the education system," says Dr. Hershkowitz. "This conference raised the issue for a discussion that will continue to take place in different settings."
13 תגובות
fresh:
That is not accurate.
All the study material of various universities has been on the Internet for years and although I have not checked it, I assume that the same applies to all high school material.
The social learning environment is probably necessary for most people - what's more, along with their training in the various professions, they also want to learn to cope socially.
I agree with you that it is possible and even mandatory to deepen the penetration of technology in order to improve teaching and allow a good human teacher to serve more students, but I do not think it is possible (and I do not even think it is desirable) to create a world in which the child who is born sits in front of the computer until he is ready (only professionally) for the market the job.
From my experience in private teaching (many years ago) I can tell you that transferring knowledge face-to-face is much easier than transferring it in writing and this is because in the personal contact between teacher and student the teacher can sense what the student does not understand and explain to him exactly that.
A static Internet system will not be able to do this and a system with artificial intelligence that will be sufficient to replace your diagnostic ability as a teacher is still very far from our capabilities.
I want to suggest a change of mind
It was said in the article that in order for the youth to have a high level of mathematics, there is a need for many good mathematics teachers who are compensated fairly. In my opinion, in the modern era, this is no longer true, since it is enough for the Ministry of Education to create one website that provides the entire world of content that it wants to instill in students and has an answer to every question that may arise from the students regarding the study material, and raising the awareness of the youth will do wonders. And in fact there will be no need for teachers at all, neither for mathematics nor for any other subject, in fact the only reason why the schools continue to operate today is a social reason and not an educational reason.
Now the mathematicians can rest easy.
Mathematics is a very difficult subject for me
One of the problems is that children are taught to solve exercises, and they are not taught to think or even understand the results they get.
For the vast majority of high school students, mathematics is a collection of methods and manipulations that need to be remembered for different appearances for different problems and there is no connection between a problem and a problem.
The reason for this is the created bar that the students, together with the teachers, enter into in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth-XNUMXth grade, at the end of which they have to go to matriculation, if someone had shown me the beauty of mathematics in the XNUMXth/XNUMXth grade instead of teaching me methods and tricks, maybe I wouldn't have suffered so much in school, but luckily for me I discovered the joy of mathematics myself and today I am a happy student (almost)
For a point of debate - in Hayat Rabak, you didn't even read the article. I promise you he is not boring.
If not for math, my life would be much simpler (and better)
Dear Nir
The simple common sense from reading the title of the article you posted for reference.
Reinforces my previous words. That is, the incomprehensible effectiveness of mathematics in creating order in science is truly incomprehensible.
That is, this is not a path that was chosen in the first place. This is a path that is followed because it is successful. But no one can say whether there is a language that is much more successful and much more effective. All in all, as we know, mathematics, despite its successes, is not a natural language, it is artificial. In other words, humans glued it to the patterns found in nature, it is not necessary that nature sees it from the same point of view. There are enough indications that the opposite is true.
to the previous commenter. I do not agree at all. There is an excellent article called THE UNREASONABLE EFFECTIVENESS OF MATHEMATICS
You can find details about him here:
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences
Over the years the article has been updated. warmly recommended!
It seems to me that mathematics is not the basis of all science but is the glue we use to connect ideas to science.
In my opinion, this is not the ideal type of glue, it is simply what we are used to using. It is very possible that when humanity moves forward a little they will find more elegant and easier ways.
Take our biology for example, it does not deal with mathematical calculations and is in any case many times more efficient than mathematics. For example, one protein molecule knows how to organize its own spatial structure in a living body. As we know, performing this operation in conventional computational ways is not effective at all. The attempt to organize everything according to only one language is similar to the attempt of communism at the time to organize one ideology.
The problem in my opinion is less in mathematics but more in science education. Our children do not study at the CRITICAL THINKING school, do not learn basic principles of scientific thinking. Mathematics is indeed the basis of everything, but it is simplistic and many students do not see the connection between the numbers in the world. Proper education for CRITICAL THINKING is much more important. Two hours a week is enough time...
"Mathematics has proven to be important for solving technological problems"
An unfortunate announcement. All science and technology derived from it is based on mathematics.