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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday May 16 2018, @08:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the keeping-up-with-current-currency dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow0245

Cryptocurrencies have found a ton of admirers recently, but guess who isn't loving them right now — Dutch high school students.

This year's VWO examination – a matriculation test high school students are required to take to be eligible to pursue university education in the Netherlands – featured an unorthodox theme: Bitcoin.

The students were provided a description for Bitcoin and how the cryptocurrency is mined:

Bitcoin is a digital currency that only exists online. It exists since January 1, 2009 and can be used to pay at online stores or for other online services. Bitcoin is not issued by a central bank, unlike normal money. Instead, Bitcoin is created by letting computers work on solutions for selected mathematical problems.

It works like this: anyone can run special software on his or her computer to contribute to solving such a mathematical problem. The owner of the computer that finds the solution to a problem receives 25 BTC (newly mined) as a reward. Because in 2014, such a problem was solved every 10 minutes, 25 BTC were put into circulation every 10 minutes.

Based on the paragraph, the students were asked to answer five questions, which were all about mathematical problems but developed on the provided description of Bitcoin.

The questions asked were relevant to the real world Bitcoin, including calculating the year by which the reward for miners will be lower than one Bitcoin and determining the maximum amount of Bitcoins that can ever be in circulation.

Source: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/05/15/dutch-high-school-exam-bitcoin/


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 16 2018, @10:43AM (5 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 16 2018, @10:43AM (#680345) Journal

    However, many students have lots of problems with visualizing the mathematical concepts and mapping them onto real-world problems.

    I guess it all depends on how math was taught in the first place.

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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday May 16 2018, @04:56PM (4 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @04:56PM (#680448) Journal

    I guess it all depends on how math was taught in the first place.

    Obviously, but it's safe to say that a lot of students are often taught math in a very abstract dry fashion, involving mostly symbolic manipulation. Teachers even starting in primary school know students will struggle more with "application problems," because they often require higher level thinking. Thus, math teachers avoid these problems, both because they don't understand math at a deep level (especially primary teachers) so explanation is difficult and because they know exploratory problems take up more classtime. It's easier to simply have them do a dozen basic multiplication problems for homework.

    And this often continues, with the high-school equivalent being solving a bunch of abstract algebra equations rather than doing application problems. With each year, it gets even harder to introduce application problems as part of the standard curriculum, because students aren't used to them... so the barriers to get teachers to use them get higher and higher... leading many teachers to just avoid them.

    It's sad, but it happens far too often.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @06:19PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @06:19PM (#680476)

      And this often continues, with the high-school equivalent being solving a bunch of abstract algebra equations rather than doing application problems.

      Solving "application problems" is not an education in "mathematics" as a general topic. In very broad strokes the study of mathematics can be roughly divided into two major categories:

      • Pure mathematics, which is study of mathematical structures without specific reference to real-world applications. Examples of topics in this category include analysis, abstract algebra, automata theory, metamathematics, etc.
      • Applied mathematics, which is the study of how mathematical structures apply to the real world. Examples of topics in this category include statistics, combinatorial optimization, numerical analysis, complexity theory, etc.

      If you just completely rule out pure mathematics from your "mathematics" curriculum, quite simply what you are teaching is not a "mathematics" class (but perhaps is could be called a "statistics" class or maybe even a "physics" class).

      • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday May 16 2018, @06:39PM (2 children)

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @06:39PM (#680483) Journal

        Who was "ruling out pure math"?? To DO an algebra problem at the high school level, you have to have some basic understanding of symbolic manipulation. You can't really do application problems without understanding the underlying "pure math" on some level.

        That said, I strongly (STRONGLY!) believe that the emphasis in primary and secondary mathematics should lean toward all sorts of applications, rather than abstract math. Not because I dislike abstract math or think it's not worthy (I'm a math nerd myself), but 99% of students will not go on to do any significant thing in pure math in their future careers, whereas almost all of them will benefit from basic numeracy and ability to apply math to real-world situations.

        If possible, primary and secondary math teachers should ALSO try to teach an appreciation of pure math, exploring theoretical concepts, proofs, etc. I would LOVE that to be part of a typical math curriculum, but it really isn't most places. So what you actually tend to get at the primary and secondary level is a watered down version of abstract symbolic manipulation that isn't really teaching them "pure math" (as you'd understand it at the college or graduate level, as you've described it), NOR are they getting applied math. So they're really not getting ANY decent math at all in many curricula -- just watered down algorithms for symbolic manipulation.

        Ideally, I'd like to see both added, but applied math is easier to teach and more relevant to 99% of students, so it should be the first priority.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @09:12PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @09:12PM (#680516)

          They don't even teach abstract math, either. They just teach rote memorization. 'If you see a problem that looks like this, do this, this, and this to solve it.' No deep understanding of the material required. That's the extent of the 'education' in the vast majority of schools, and not just for math.