Gina Kolata wrote again today about the cholesterol calculator that exaggerates “…the true risk of a heart attack or stroke by an average of 100 percent…” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/health/flawed-gauge-for-cholesterol-risk-poses-a-new-challenge-for-cardiologists.html?ref=us This article gives more insight into the statistical/mathematical problems: “…Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a medical professor at Dartmouth [says] the calculator, like many others used in medicine, is […]
Gina Kolata’s New York Times Article Gives Helpful Insight for Flawed Cholesterol Calculator
November 19, 2013 by
Excellent Explanation of How to Teach Math in The Atlantic – But…
November 13, 2013 by
…as I commented on the site, where do we get the teachers? (The article, which I recommend is at http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/the-stereotypes-about-math-that-hold-americans-back/281303/#disqus_thread) “I am a former math professor. I totally agree with the author about how math can best be learned. There is a gigantic hurdle: where do we get the people (teachers) who themselves were taught […]
Addendum to “Peter Cappeli” Post – Another Testimony About Higher Ed
November 11, 2013 by
Dan Laroque put this comment on the WSJ “… In the latter years of my teaching career, it got very frustrated dealing with students and administration. The universities have literally turned the curriculum standards over to the students. It is all about garnering as many students in a major as possible with no rules on rigor. It is ‘take […]
WSJ Writes That Businesses Want Workers With Math and Science Degrees
October 21, 2013 by
But they are having trouble sinceIn terms of basic math and science skills, “we’re really floundering here in the U.S.,” Mike Russo, Globalfoundries’ director of government relations, said in an interview. . Here is the article, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303672404579147282887082384 But Washington University in St. Louis says they have been working to fix this, as I wrote in […]
What does it mean to “learn calculus”
October 7, 2013 by
In a recent post, Calculus on the Road, I pointed out that studnts who didn’t know the definition of a derivative were making good grades in their calculus class. So what does “learning calculus” mean? At some “elite” schools it doesn’t mean knowing any formal definition of a limit (part of the definition of a derivative). For […]
Is The Atlantic Right to Report on a Report the Way it Did?
September 25, 2013 by
I previously commented on an article about a paper by the president of Northwestern, Northwestern President Publishes Study About Northwestern And the National Bureau of Economic Research Publishes It? The paper apparently is getting lots of publicity and The Atlantic published a second post on it, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/are-tenured-professors-really-worse-teachers-a-lit-review/279940/#comments I don’t agree with some of the reporter’s […]
The Economist Cover Story “How Science Goes Wrong” and NY Times “Risk Calculator for Cholesterol Appears Flawed”; Connected?
Both of these stories focus on what could be a failure of professionals to understand and utilize quantitative data and methods. In the case of the cholesterol test, I have no way of knowing exactly how the failure occured. But I am worried that it is symptomatic of our problems in higher education. I posted […]