Simple gambling games should be used as teaching tools in Scottish schools to make maths lessons more interesting, a leading academic said yesterday.
Professor Alastair Gillespie, chairman of the Scottish Mathematical Council, believes using dice and packs of cards in secondary school lessons would help pupils learn basic maths techniques such as probabilities. He also believes it would encourage more people to take up maths.
Too bad learning probability and statistics isn't the same as learning elementary math.
dice?
ReplyDeletedoesn't he mean number cubes?
Now you've got me thinking about flash card poker:
ReplyDelete"I've got 1+6, 9-2, and 21/3, with a 9*9 kicker."
that works!
ReplyDeleteI can see how a lot of basic operations can be exemplified with cards and dice, since what is being presented as probability here is nothing more than basic linear algebra that just happens to use red and blue balls and the word "probability." But only up to a point, then it seems the utility of cards and dice is lost.
ReplyDelete