[ghshephard]

Undergraduates (at least for the first few years) have to be in the "Answer Getting" mentality. I'm fine with curve balls being thrown at graduate students, and maybe, just maybe, fourth year students, depending on the course - but can you imagine what a freshman/sophmore student would do if faced with this situation?

[ColinWright]

I disagree - in my experience the "answer getting" mentality is the largest barrier to doing "proper" math that there is. The students are unwilling to just try stuff to see what happens, because they think there's one way to do it, and one answer to find. They think they need to find the right process, apply it without making any stupid errors, get the answer, and move on.

That's a huge problem when you've trying to teach them about proofs, and kicking them out of that mentality is the biggest challenge in first year under-grad. This idea of letting them work for a limited time on an unsolved problem seems a useful approach to changing their attitude.

[superuser2]

>They think they need to find the right process, apply it without making any stupid errors, get the answer, and move on.

Perhaps because they've been conditioned for 12 years to believe that this is what "math" is.

[Nadya]

It also doesn't help that they hide details and sometimes straight up lie to students during those first 12 years. To avoid "confusing" them.

Students aren't usually taught subtraction is adding a negative number. Students aren't usually taught division is multiplying by a fraction. Students aren't usually taught that there are ways of counting outside of the decimal 'base 10' way of counting, or the advantages of counting in Octal, or how to count in Binary on your hands.

Math teachers love to say "2+2 does not always equal 4" but never explain that's only true in Base2-4 where the representation of "4" doesn't exist and it is represented as 100, 11, or 10.

So not only are we taught "there's always an answer". We're not taught other concepts and sometimes information is left out entirely until you reach a college level of mathematics - at which point all these lies, unexplained concepts, and "answer-seeking mentality" become a problem.

[ska]

> but can you imagine what a freshman/sophmore student would do if faced with this situation?

Learn, in my experience.

Getting people to leave a mere "answer getting" mindset and engage with the "technique and problem understanding" mindset is one of the most important parts of the job of teaching freshmen and sophomores (particularly in mathematics). They've often been rewarded for this approach in high school and have trouble letting it go -- but it really constrains the ability to understand things.

The really sad cases are the ones who are really good at it, good enough to survive all the way to grad school sometimes. They aren't doing themselves any favors, and invariably get left behind by people who may have less innate talent but engage more. Hopefully recoverably.

[sophacles]

I very strongly disagree. This applies to programming and engineering as well as math you know... There is way too much "there is a right answer" focus on undergrad. An aspect of working with newly graduated people I really dislike is that they always ask "am I doing it right?" or "What's the right way" and not even faintly grasping the idea when I tell them "I don't know, that's why we're doing it - if there was a known good solution, we'd just buy it and move on".

Thing is - it's not these kids' fault, once they do grok the notion of "not yet solved", they are great. It's that they spend the last 16 years being punished for getting something wrong, in a context where there is only a right answer or wrong answer, and that fact is known - even in subjective topics.

[tokenrove]

One of the things people often fail to learn in university is that, once they leave, they will be judged on what they have learned, not on their grades. I think that the sooner an undergrad learns that getting an answer wrong on a homework assignment isn't the end of the world, the better. For their own stress levels, too.

The focus on grades and "the right answer" instead of learning and thinking is probably why it can be so frustrating for both parties when someone fresh out of university comes to a (programming) job interview.

I've noticed a lot of attempts on freelancing sites to pay a contractor to complete homework and school assignments. I can't imagine a worse form of self-sabotage, and it seems like students have profoundly the wrong message about education.

[DanBC]

They get furious.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8972744

(I don't know why you were so heavily downvoted. I upvoted you.)

[Nimitz14]

im guessing youve never been to college because no math/physics/eng student is going to complain about something about like that