Colleges across the country are grappling with the same problem as academic setbacks from the pandemic follow students to campus. At many universities, engineering and biology majors are struggling to grasp fractions and exponents. More students are being placed into pre-college math, starting a semester or more behind for their majors, even if they get credit for the lower-level classes.
Colleges largely blame the disruptions of the pandemic, which had an outsize impact on math. Reading scores on the national test known as NAEP plummeted, but math scores fell further, by margins not seen in decades of testing. Other studies find that recovery has been slow.
Don’t they teach fractions in junior high or elementary school? Kids that age during the pandemic aren’t in college yet.
The question isn’t if fractions are taught. The question is why aren’t people retaining it while they are there.
I tutored math for a number of people. One of my pupils was a real problem case. He was attending a kind of specialized high school equivalent in my country, basically a vocational training plus ability to attend university later with a subject close to his training. This guy wanted to go into chemistry. If there is one area in STEM where you need fractions day in and day out, it’s chemistry. And this guy had serious problems grasping the very concept of it. Having problems with fractions + chemistry is a dangerous and possible explosive mix. Luckily for humanity, he later went into a different branch of jobs.
It’s literally just division. Like, even if you add variables, it’s still just division.
Fractions and decimals are where the vast majority of Americans start having trouble with math. I don’t remember learning them, but as a student teacher I did notice that the textbooks circa 2000 were teaching decimals and fractions weird. Unfortunately math is one of those things that if you don’t understand one part, you won’t get the rest cause it builds on itself. I left teaching before I even graduated college, for many reasons that have nothing to do with teaching, so I don’t know how to fix the issue. I’m just aware of it, so anyone in my adult life that complains that they just “aren’t good at math,” I will suggest that fractions and decimals are what they don’t understand, and 90% of the time they agree with me, and realize that they don’t actually suck at math.
I think people are bad at fractions and decimals because they are bad at division. My brain isn’t “normal” though, so I don’t know if I understand how “normal” people think. I “get” math.