Creative Thinking in Math Class | Samuel Grayson | TEDxUTD

Samuel Grayson is known by everyone on campus for having a huge passion for math. Sam will discuss his view on math education reform and how we can restructure the way we learn math.

Our first speaker is Samuel Grayson! Samuel is a student studying computer science, math, physics, and anything else he can get his hands on. He is proud to be an Eagle Scout. His main hobby is also his work: using mathematics to augment programming. When he needs a break from that, he also enjoys camping, singing, piano, and long walks on the beach.

[williesnyder]

I wish I’d had math teachers who made the effort when asked for help! They were all locked solidly into doctrine and assisting the normally apt and superior students.
It want until community college did I fine an excellent, compassionate and interested instructor!
Thank you Mr. Chari!! You had a lot to teach other teachers!!

[FellowInconsistent]

I love this Ted talk. This is exactly what I’m saying. I’m alwase getting repetitive problems. Sometimes the teacher wouldn’t explain the reasoning very well so I would have to reason it myself. My brain rarely accepts a solution that I didn’t understand.

[thecwd]

This reminds me on how on a test, the hardest problem was the most simple. There were 4 triangles, the question was which one was not possible based off of the measurements of the sides. School never prepared me for this problem. I tried my template for triangles, but it didn't work. I only solved the problem when I thought "what does it mean to be a triangle" and then I saw that one of the sides was shorter than the sums of the other two sides.

[vister]

Sometimes even art is thought to stifle creativity. Cat cannot be painted blue; learning known techniques to paint and not allowing different ways unless you are famous (?)

I used to ask my son why he did math this way since it is not the conventional methods but his answer is correct because I was interested to find out how he got the answers. Often it's very interesting and he was not wrong just that the methods may not be accepted. But now he has to sit for exam so he has to just learn to answer questions according to how the marking scheme wanted.

[trashonspeed]

I don't know what you are talking about. In maths there are 3 different skills we are rated on :
-theory ( C1 ) : knowing definitions and demonstrations to formulas
-exercices ( C2 ) : being able to solve exercises that are similar to ones solved in class
-problems ( C3 ) : applying theory to solve exercises that were not solved in class, finding answers by thinking through all of the material viewed in the chapter and think outside the box to solve the problems

[nathandesousalopez]

This talk was inspired by Paul Lockhart’s essay “A Mathematicians Lament”

[Someone-zxxd]

Wow. So many subscribers but just 13.6k views. Seems like nobody is interested in maths.