[Blindmath] Division of Polynomials

[Jonathon Yaggie]

I have generally remained silent on this topic, but....

Division of polynomials is definitely used in advanced (abstract and
computational) algebra.   However, like many algorithms, polynomial
division   is done with computer algebra systems in all but very simple
cases.   Therefore, while I want to say learning and communicating the
algorithm for long division of polynomials is important, it is not this
specific algorithm which is important as much as the development of the
skills to cope, understand and communicate future algorithms of similar
style.

I doubt I completely understood the first time learned this algorithm,
because I relearned it in graduate school.  Realistically, no student can
learn everything thrown at them in a college math class.  Sometimes one
needs to pick and choose, what concepts and skills are worth the extra
time.  If you do not plan to go outside the realm of calculus/analysis,
polynomial division may never matter.

And I really like the Excel idea.  I hope maybe I will have some students
to try that with next fall.




Jon Yaggie
EYH Volunteer Coordinator
UIC Mathematics


On Mon, May 5, 2014 at 11:10 AM, Susan Jolly <easjolly at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> Hi Sabra and others,
>
> Writing as a sighted person, it is not my experience that all sighted
> people can't think outside the box.  Some of us are, of course, better at
> it than others. I'm sorry that our higher education system is letting blind
> students down. However, I can't tell what is going wrong.  I would hope
> that all you undergraduates can find some graduate students in the math and
> computer science departments who will work with you on a one-for-one basis.
>
> One advantage of working with graduate students is that you may discover
> that some of your professors are well-known for not being able to explain
> things well.  Other professors are unlikely to feel comfortable providing
> you with this information and other students in the same classes you are
> taking may not have enough experience to distinguish between problems that
> are the fault of the teacher or educational materials and problems that are
> their own fault.
>
> Another advantage of working with graduate students is that they are
> likely to understand the subject much better than undergraduates and to
> have a better memory of their own learning experiences than professors.
>  Lots of people enjoy the challenge of making sure that someone else
> understands what they understand.  I wish you success in finding some of
> them.
>
> I know that looking back on my own experience, sometimes one small
> misconception had a big impact on why it took me so long to understand
> something. Of course I didn't realize I had these misconceptions but I
> probably would have discovered them sooner if I'd been in informal study
> groups where eveyone was asking and answering questions.
>
> By the way I studied math through advanced calculus, differential
> equations, and numerical analysis and had a successful career as a
> computational scientist and I don't remember ever having to do the kind of
> factoring of polynomials that requires spatial methods or synthetic
> division!
>
> Again my best wishes,
> SusanJ
>
> P.S. I've posted this link before but here it is again. The main point is
> that if electronic braille math in the form of computer braille or ASCII
> braille is not backtranslated but simply displayed using a standard print
> font, many sighted people can learn to read it in a few minutes. You might
> want to show this to any sighted people you are working with.
> http://www.dotlessbraille.org/readnem.htm
>
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