Tag: benefits of mathematics

Tips In Studying Mathematics

Mathematics is taught in every stage in education whether in preparatory, middle school and college. Many of the students are having a hard time mastering mathematics because of its systematic process and its different practices and procedures.

These techniques will surely help students who want to sharpen their mathematical skills:

  • Always attend classes in a regular basis and give your full attention to the material. Math is normally more visual than other subjects because of its equations and problem solving. List down practice problems from class. When you scan your notes after the class, it will help your knowledge regain the specific lessons that were taught rather than relying on your textbook.
  • Always read Math problems completely before starting the computations. If you will just glance too quickly at the problem, you may misunderstand what really needs to be done to solve the problem.
  • If possible, draw a diagram and make it your guide. A hand drawn diagram will allow you to label the picture, to add lines and to visualize the situation from a different perspective.
  • Ask your professor any question that you might have because sometimes, the teacher may not tell you specifically what may happen in examination day, but he/she will definitely give you guidance if you don’t understand.
  • Do your homework. Most classes have assigned or suggested problems that the teacher wants you to answer. Keep your homework papers and collect the checked papers and home work sheets in a plastic binder so you can use those works as your study guide. Do as many problems as you can so that you can practice and be familiar with the process of solving.
  • Start to study 2 months before the exam and do not wait for the last minute to come. Study as much as possible the day before the test, but allow yourself to try other activities to maintain balance.
  • Try to research same problems that are similar to your assigned work in school. Download workbooks that may give you more knowledge and techniques in doing the problem.
  • The more, the merrier. Join group studies so that you can collect different ideas and ways in solving and a partner can also help you understand lessons in a certain topic.
  • Bear in mind that math is very systematic. Scan your notes in a daily basis so that you won’t forget even a small detail.

Ways Math is Used in Nursing

Math isn’t a topic that would go along with nursing. Nonetheless, nurses utilize math abilities every single day they are on the job. Whenever a nurse supervises treatment, computes an individual’s height or weight, she must make use of mathematics. Math is essential in nursing and may dictate the efficiency of the treatment the nurses administer.

Medicine Estimate
Nurses who are employed in hospitals need to ensure that the appropriate doses of medicine are given to their patients. The physician’s order will generally require a dosage of medicine that the hospital’s pharmacy doesn’t bring. For instance, a physician may order 150 mg of a treatment that is made only in 100 mg capsules or 300 mg scored capsules. In the event the hospital’s pharmacy only provides 100 mg capsules of the prescription drugs, the nurse must determine the number of tablets should be given to the patient. A wrong computation may endanger the life of the patient.

Patient Weight and height
Nurses must determine patients’ height as well as weight. The measuring procedure is usually basic and requires only basic math skills, some healthcare amenities demand nurses to convert the weight in kilos to pounds and also the height in inches to centimeters to the patient’s chart.

Inventory
Regardless of the hospital the nurse decides to be employed, he or she must handle inventory of some sort. Hospital floor nurses who are accountable for major patient care also handle the inventory of their patients’ medicines. Operating room nurse practitioners are accountable for inventory of working room supplies, and wound treatment nurses are accountable for stock of wound care items. The math necessary in these situations is comparable to that of fundamental accounting.

Experiential Learning: An Effective Teaching Strategy for Mathematics

Mathematics is undeniably a hard subject. Even the great minds of the past such as Albert Einstein know for a fact that there are difficulties in learning the matter. No wonder Math teachers experience difficulties in the way they teach students. The lecture approach where teachers let students memorize mathematical facts has long been gone. Today, teachers are called on to teach new and effective teaching methods to develop not only mastery, but comprehension as well.

Mathematics requires experiential learning where students are involved in their own understanding of mathematical concepts and practices. Through this type of learning, students are able to identify problems, use constructive reasoning to make viable arguments, and applying mathematics in real-life problems.

On improving mathematical concepts, a recent study explained that problem solving in mathematics is not a natural talent, but learned. The teacher’s role is to guide students through practice, provide both routine and non-routine problems, and help them develop their own strategies in solving those problems. In addition, the study highlights the importance of including the students in developing skills in problem solving and sharing them through argumentative discussions.

Traditionally, math textbooks often just provide fixed examples without providing rich experiences in problem solving. Teachers too often review the answers immediately without explaining what strategies students use to solve the problems or if the solutions can be explained by the students themselves.

For teachers to build their students’ mathematical problem solving strategies, they need to provide instruction that explores new concepts through scaffolding. Scaffolding includes asking guide questions that lead to answers rather than supplying them immediately.

In regards to experiential learning at the high school level, teachers need to focus on reasoning and acquire a sense of using mathematics on their daily lives. This is because U.S. high school students have the inability to apply math to solve problems in a variety of situations. This trends needs to be improved through experiential learning.

Importance of Mathematics in Health Care Support

Mathematics has a big role, not just in school, but in our daily lives as well. We may not be aware that from time to time, we use math in our daily activities. It is a fact that some fields or professions require math way over others. However, understanding how to do some essential and basic calculations is definitely necessary, no matter what job path you choose to take. This is also true if your profession is health care related. You are likely to work alongside other professionals, for example doctors and nurses, even though you will not be directly handling shots or medication, you still need math abilities to be able to thrive within the area. Otherwise, you may find it hard to obtain this type of position. Fortunately, these mathematical abilities aren’t excessively complicated and you’ll not be requested to do complex calculus algorithms.

In medical billing, typing billing information is essential; because it allows not just the patient to understand how much they have to pay, but the insurance company as well. If you input these details improperly it may lead to big trouble. To prevent any kind of complications and altercations regarding money situations, it is crucial to possess math abilities to be able to correctly accumulate information, take away obligations and input the information right into a spreadsheet along with other software program.

Occasionally, you’ll be required to supply detailed instructions for patients. It is usually recommended that you carry out the calculations; the patient must not do it on their own or it may cause some complications. You’ll learn just how to do this all by completing a pharmacy specialist course or with nursing unit clerk courses, which will assist you in your mission to be in any health care support position. When you won’t need extensive calculations, having fundamental mathematics abilities is essential during this type of area.

Is Mathematics Important in Healthcare?

You may be wondering why nursing and medical students need to study mathematics as a part of their course. We thought that nurses, physicians and other health care professionals must only study clinical procedures, treatments, medicines, anatomy and physiology. But the truth is math is incorporated into the daily lives of the health care professionals. Doctors and nurses use math when they write prescriptions or administer medications.  Medical professionals use math when drawing up statistical graphs of epidemics or success rates of treatments.

We are aware that doctors write prescriptions for their patients for various sicknesses. These prescriptions show a particular medication and dosage amount.  Usually, medicines have recommendations for dosage amounts in mg (mg) per kilogram (kg).  Doctors need to determine the number of mg of medicine each patient will require, based on how much they weigh.  When the weight of the patient is just known in pounds, doctors have to convert that measurement to kilos and then compute the amount in mg for that prescription.  There’s a really large distinction between mg/kg and mg/pounds, so it’s imperative that doctors learn how to precisely convert.

Doctors should also figure out how a prescription can last. They must be able to determine how long the medication will stay in the patient’s body. This is important, because through this, the patient will be aware about the interval of the medication. This can figure out how frequently the individual must take their medication to be able to keep an adequate amount of the medication in the body.

Mathematics plays a vital role in medicine. Since people’s lives are involved, it is crucial that nurses and doctors be really accurate with their mathematical calculations.  Numbers will give information to doctors, nurses, as well as patients.  Numbers are very essential within the medical area. Math is a crucial player within the healthcare arena. Medical companies must obtain reliable data and information to avoid, identify and treat medical conditions. Mastery of the tools of health care as well as scientific calculations will provide an efficient and lucrative delivery of services and reduces the chance of medical mistakes that may lead to malpractices and tragedies. The existence of mathematics in the medical theory will assure everyone that our doctors and nurses are properly trained and accurate with their prescription and medication.

Mathematics in Nursing Schools

There is a huge need for nurses right now, due to the aging population and in response to the upgrade of the health care system in the country. There were 85,000 US jobs eliminated in November 2009 but that doesn’t include nurses, in fact hospitals still added 21,000 which compose mainly of nurses. There was a need to increase the production of nurses in every nursing school.

Mathematics is slightly included in the curriculum of most schools but there are some who require nursing students to take up basic to advance math subject. So what are these math subjects required in college nursing school?

Algebra is a math subject that is required by many nursing schools. This subject is already a follow-up since it was already taken in high school. This subject can be done in one semester. It already included pre-calculus and may be directed to calculus in the next semester. The college algebra is more on concepts of algebraic expression, line equations and polynomial functions. Though nurses are not required to compute formulas and equations to be able to attend a patient, algebra is still a good subject to help students with their basic computations and makes their brains active with numbers.

Another math subject required was statistics. This subject teaches nursing students to use complex formulas to organize numbers into usable expressions. In this subject uses health care scenarios to be able to relate it to nursing. Probability was the main concept taught in statistics. Statistics may help the nurse in solving and interpret numerical fact about a medication for a patient.

Many nursing schools also taught finite math. This subject includes many subjects before the subject calculus. Geometry, basic math, statistics or pre-calculus are included in this aspect. This is important for nursing students. They must be able to know how to compute dosages of medicines or conversion of basic units.

Mathematics is required in many courses even in nursing. It is because we deal with numbers most of the time. Nurses will be able to use their basic knowledge and principles of mathematics in their daily routine in the health care facility.

Mathematics History

In the history of mathematics, there is no lack of debate over the credibility of statistical justifications. Berkeley’s prolonged review of the techniques of the calculus in The Analyst (1734) is one example. Another is the “vibrating string controversy” among Leonhard Euler, Jean d’Alembert, and Daniel Bernoulli, hinging on whether an “arbitrary” continuous function on a real interval could be represented by a trigonometric sequence. Carl Friedrich Gauss is usually acknowledged with offering the first appropriate evidence of the essential theorem of geometry, saying that every non-constant polynomial over the complicated figures has a root, in his doctorate thesis of 1799; but the history of that theorem is especially knotty, since it was not originally obvious what techniques could properly be used to set up the existence of the roots in question. In the same way, when Gauss provided his evidence of the law of quadratic reciprocity in his Disquitiones Arithmeticae (1801), he started with the statement that Legendre’s claimed evidence a few years before contained a serious gap.

Mathematicians have always been reflectively aware of their techniques, and, as evidence increased more complicated in the Nineteenth century, specialized mathematicians became more precise in focusing the part of rigor. This is obvious in, for example, Carl Jacobi’s compliment of Johann Chris Gustav Lejune Dirichlet: “Dirichlet alone, not I, nor Cauchy, nor Gauss knows what a completely extensive statistical evidence is. Rather we understand it first from him. When Gauss says that he has shown something, it is very clear; when Cauchy says it, one can bet as much pro as con; when Dirichlet says it, it is certain…” (quoted by Schubring21).

Mathematics has, at crucial junctures, designed in more speculative methods. But these times are usually followed by corresponding times of retrenchment, examining fundamentals and progressively implementing a tight deductive design, either to take care of obvious issues or just to make the content simpler to educate convincingly.

Mathematics is Fun

We are all conscious of the inadequate condition of our mathematics education and studying to accomplish a sufficient level of grades in math in our primary education and studying program and the effects that this has on our community, e.g. not enough engineers, who need an advanced stage of mathematics, are being qualified. There are many factors for this circumstance.

While we know that there are many factors for this, it is crucial that we need to instill interest and passion for mathematics among all the stakeholders engaged with education and studying, such as the parents. This could be a massive process, but it is one that must be performed.

Mathematics is one of the only places of information that can logically be described as “true,” because its theorems are a result of genuine reasoning. Compared with, say chemistry and physics, where there can be discussion or debate about trial outcomes or concepts, mathematics always symbolizes the truth: 7+5 will always equal 12, it cannot be anything else. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying:  “Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poems of sensible concepts.”  To some specialized mathematicians, “math is like love, a simple concept, but it can get complex.”  The biggest time in the life of a math wizard is when after he has shown the result, but before he discovers the error. This does not matter; the excitements of getting the outcomes exceeds the frustration of discovering the error and, in any situation, spurs him on to recalculate and again experience the high of a new outcome. Charles Darwin, however, had a rather depressing perspective of mathematics: “: “A math wizard is a sightless man in a black space looking for a black cat which isn’t there.”

 

What is Mathematics?

Mathematics is the study that focuses with the reasoning of shape, quantity and agreement. Statistics is all around us, in everything we do. It is the foundation for everything in our everyday life, such as cellular phones, architecture (ancient and modern), art, money, technological innovation, and even sports.

Since the beginning of documented history, mathematics development has been at the leading edge of every civil community and in use in even the most primary of societies. The needs of Mathematics appeared based on the wants of the community. The more complicated a community, the more complicated the mathematical needs. Primitive communities needed little more than the ability to count, but also trusted math to determine the position of the sun and the study of hunting.

Several societies in China, India, Egypt and Central America contributed to mathematics as we know it today. The Sumerians were the first people to create a counting system. Specialized mathematicians designed arithmetic, such as primary functions, multiplication, shape and rectangle origins. The Sumerians’ program passed on through the Akkadian Kingdom to the Babylonians around 300 B.C. Six millennium later, in the United States, the Mayans designed intricate schedule techniques and were experienced astronomers. About this time, the idea of zero was designed. As societies developed, mathematicians started to work with geometry, which determines areas and volumes to make angular dimensions and has many realistic programs. Geometry is used in everything from development to fashion and internal planning.

Geometry went side by side with algebra, developed in the 9th Century by a Persian math wizard, Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi. He also designed quick methods for multiplying and dividing figures, which are known as algorithms, a corruption of his name. Algebra provided societies a way to split inheritances and spend resources. The study of geometry meant mathematicians were fixing straight line equations and techniques, as well as quadratics, and diving into good and bad alternatives. Specialized mathematicians in the old days also started to look at a variety of ideas. With origins in the development of shape, number strategy looks at figurative numbers, the character of figures and theorems.

Overcoming Fear in Mathematics

We all experience stress and anxiety but sometimes our fears of heights, insects or even mathematics can be unreasonable. In fact, mathematics stress, an acknowledged trend, can be a huge hurdle to learning. Fortunately, instructors who understand this can help their learners get over it. Math stress is typical. In 2005, United merican researchers Mark Ashcraft and Kelly Ridley approximated that 20 percent of people in America were extremely math nervous and it is reasonable to believe that the amount here would be similar. Math stress, as American specialist Ray Hembree has described, is the feeling of concern, stress or anxiety experienced along with mathematics.

German psycho therapist Reinhard Pekrun’s work on kids’ stress in regards to accomplishing a particular result helps describe why mathematics stress is so typical. Put simply, we are more likely to be nervous when we extremely value a process, but feel we have no control over it. Math is respected because it is considered an indication of intellect. So, displaying poor statistical capability has effects for how smart you will be recognized to be. Emotions of lack of control could come from the idea that mathematics is difficult, or the idea that you need a math mind to be successful in the subject. These two types of misconceptions cause mathematics stress, but it is the in-congruence, when a university student extremely values a process, but seems they are not in control, that results in stress.

Math stress predisposes learners to be sensitive to statistical stimuli; to experience worry almost instantly after they experience math and to be less capable of employing techniques to control this worry. It can also impact an individual’s capability to run working memory, the type of memory that allows them to hold information in their mind as they complete projects like psychological computations. So what can instructors do to lower mathematics stress and help learners control their psychological response to mathematics? A good first step is to deal with some of the misconceptions that can make learners feel negative towards the topic. They can motivate learners to believe that things like gender generalizations and adverse peer culture should not limit their statistical options. They can also make learners become aware of the many programs of mathematics in many professions and life routes.