12 Oct
2020
12 Oct
'20
11:14 a.m.
If anyone has spare time, and is familiar with discrete mathematics, I
have a friend who is a young college kid and desperately needs a tutor.
His prof just says to read the book, and take online quizzes. He is
failing. If you can help, please email me. He is in Delaware.
--
Cindy Croxton
Electronics Plus
1613 Water Street
Kerrville, TX 78028
830-370-3239 direct
12 Oct
12 Oct
12:24 p.m.
have you looked into your local hackerspaces at all?
https://hackerspaces.org/ list of them all over the world.
4:29 p.m.
I'm not too sure Hackers will have someone that is into Discrete Math. It is way
beyond what a typical engineer will go through to get a degree. It is not a course someone
would take without expecting to get into theoretical mathematics.
Dwight
________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Adrian Stoness via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2020 9:24 AM
To: Cindy Croxton <sales at elecplus.com>; General Discussion: On-Topic and
Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Tutor needed for college student
have you looked into your local hackerspaces at all?
https://hackerspaces.org/ list of them all over the world.
4:41 p.m.
On 10/12/2020 3:29 PM dwight via cctalk <cctalk at
classiccmp.org> wrote:
I'm not too sure Hackers will have someone that is into Discrete Math. It is way
beyond what a typical engineer will go through to get a degree. It is not a course someone
would take without expecting to get into theoretical mathematics.
Dwight
Hacker Spaces are filled with lots of different people. Not all are engineers.
It might even be safe to say they are in the minority.
Will
5:14 p.m.
If the textbook isn't working for him, . . .
1) Look at OTHER textbooks on the subject.
There is even a Schaum's "made easy , "Outline Of Discrete Math" by
Lipschutz.
The title promises more than it can deliver, but it might help get through
some of the more troublesome sections.
2) Seek out other students who had taken that specific course, from that
specific prof.
We used to have a "Computer Math" course. Some of the instructors used a
Discrete Math textbook for it. Instead, I concentrated on things such as
binary representations of negative and floating point numbers, because the
majority of the computer students who showed up for it had been UNAWARE
that anything but positive integers could be expressed in binary!
FOR REAL.
For your amusement: The calculator included in Windoze purports to have a
"Programmer" mode. But within that calculator non-integers do not exist
in the "programmer" mode. Although it does have some 2's complement
negatives.
Even had a few students who had been told in school that "PI is about
3.1416 or 22/7" by teachers who interpreted that to mean (about 3.1416)
or ([EXACTLY] 22/7). and similar, comparable misinformation. That is
apparently STILL being taught!
(60 years ago, I got sent to the principal's office for discipline in 5th
grade for disagreeing with my teacher, and pointing out that since 22/7
was NOT "about 3.1416" (3.142857), why would they say that it was about
3.1416 if it is 3.142857, and that PI was NOT a "rational number" )
So, I'm not the right person for Discrete math.
For a course entitles "computer math", I considered getting competence
with hex, octal, binary, including negatives and floats, to be a higher
priority than the math theory.
I made the students manually calculate the (first 32) bit pattern for PI.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
5:27 p.m.
I agree with the others: go look for other textbooks. There are also
surprisingly good "webinar's" on various math related topics on YouTube
(free), so it might be worthwhile to have him do a bit of searching.
Oddly, I never had any discrete math courses in school...it was "old
school EE" so everything was differential equations and stochastic
processes.
I did end up teaching myself about finite fields (Galios Fields to be
specific) when I needed to do some work with error correcting codes. I
ended up with 3 or 4 different textbooks on the topic. I have since
gone back to refresh myself about them and found several good video
courses on YouTube.
TTFN - Guy
5:14 p.m.
On Mon, Oct 12, 2020 at 4:58 PM Will Cooke via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
I might be weird, but I thought discrete math was easier than most other
maths I took, but I took it in grad school and by then I was more serious
about studying. It's more of a programmer's math not as much of an
"engineering math". I wish I had time to help, but I live near the U of
Del and I'd suggest contacting the U of Del math department,there are a lot
of students there looking for part time jobs.
Bill
On 10/12/2020 3:29 PM dwight via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I'm not too sure Hackers will have someone that is into Discrete Math.
It is
way beyond what a typical engineer will go through to get a degree.
It is not a course someone would take without expecting to get into
theoretical mathematics.
Dwight
Hacker Spaces are filled with lots of different people. Not all are
engineers. It might even be safe to say they are in the minority.
Will
4:54 p.m.
On 10/12/20 4:29 PM, dwight via cctalk wrote:
I'm not too sure Hackers will have someone that is
into Discrete Math. It is way beyond what a typical engineer will go through to get a
degree. It is not a course someone would take without expecting to get into theoretical
mathematics.
Seriously? Every CS and CIS student at the University where I
worked for 25 years had to take Discrete Math. I am sure most
other engineering disciplines required it, too but I would have
to look it up to be sure.
bill
5:43 p.m.
Remakable. It was not the descrete math I know, then. It would vary heavy on logic and set
theory stuff. Not the kind of stuff I deal with at work. It was a long time ago though.
Things have changed. The closest we go to a real computer was a Monrow calculator.
Dwight
________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Bill Gunshannon via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2020 1:54 PM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Tutor needed for college student
On 10/12/20 4:29 PM, dwight via cctalk wrote:
I'm not too sure Hackers will have someone that is
into Discrete Math. It is way beyond what a typical engineer will go through to get a
degree. It is not a course someone would take without expecting to get into theoretical
mathematics.
Seriously? Every CS and CIS student at the University where I
worked for 25 years had to take Discrete Math. I am sure most
other engineering disciplines required it, too but I would have
to look it up to be sure.
bill
13 Oct
13 Oct
10:23 a.m.
On 10/12/20 5:43 PM, dwight wrote:
Remakable. It was not the descrete math I know, then.
It would vary
heavy on logic and set theory stuff. Not the kind of stuff I deal with
at work. It was a long time ago though. Things have changed. The closest
we go to a real computer was a Monrow calculator.
I used to laugh when I heard students (Freshman who had not
actually started CS classes yet) talking among themselves about
how this was totally unrelated to CS so why do they have to take
it. I started in CS before I had any kind of degree so taking
college courses later was like finishing up the documentation
on a project. When I took Discrete Math I was amazed at how
much of it applied to my everyday job in IT. Venn Diagrams and
writing SQL queries. Node Diagrams and linked lists or network
architecture. And the list goes on and on. Yes, I did the
job without having taken a Discrete Math course, but that doesn't
mean I didn't learn it. I just learned it like everything else.
The hard way on the job learning from my mistakes. I didn't
take any college level programming courses until after 20 years
of doing the job. But that doesn't necessarily mean the courses
are unneeded.
bill
Dwight
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Bill
Gunshannon via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
*Sent:* Monday, October 12, 2020 1:54 PM
*To:* cctalk at classiccmp.org <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
*Subject:* Re: Tutor needed for college student
On 10/12/20 4:29 PM, dwight via cctalk wrote:
I'm not too sure Hackers will have someone
that is into Discrete Math. It is way beyond what a typical engineer will go through to
get a degree. It is not a course someone would take without expecting to get into
theoretical mathematics.
Seriously?? Every CS and CIS student at the University where I
worked for 25 years had to take Discrete Math.? I am sure most
other engineering disciplines required it, too but I would have
to? look it up to be sure.
bill
12 Oct
12 Oct
6:48 p.m.
Cindy - if he can't find any other alternative, please feel free to forward
his contact info to me, or send my e-mail address to him (a Reply To will
expose it), cc: me.
The rest of this is background for those who may be curious about the state
of our educational system from someone on the inside - those with lives may
return to them now.
In the olden days, before CS was offered Pretty Much Everywhere, discrete
math courses were often disguised by titles such as Finite Automata and
State Machines and offered in Science or Engineering departments, while
courses on Predicate Calculus, and Number Theory (e.g., Groups, Fields, and
Rings) were typically required to be taken in Math departments.
Some requirements have been gradually sliding down into earlier grades, to
the point where Number Theory is now taught in small bites (pun fully
intended) starting in middle schools as early as 5th grade (beginning the
hierarchy with Whole numbers). Eventually, a number type or two,
properties, identities, etc., are added, potentially up through Real
numbers in high school, depending on whether Physics and/or Advanced
Electronics is going to be taken.
Some states are mandating CS fundamentals in every grade, from K through 12
(Virginia has come up with one of the best I've seen, as it includes
sample lesson and unit plans in addition to the curriculum requirements).
CS in K - 12 may sound ridiculous, but the sooner you can expose kids to
the most basic concepts, it's much more likely they'll be able to continue
the progression. I've taught binary math to kindergartners using pennies.
They don't know that a penny is 1/100th of a dollar, because they can't
understand what either of those concepts are, but they do know that pennies
are shiny (I go to the bank to get rolls of new ones) and they see that
others who are older use them to buy things.
I just use pennies to represent ones, and absence of pennies as zeroes in
binary, usually in egg cartons to immediately show the organization of
bits, and making more obvious where the absences are. Kids learn how to
read and say binary numbers (e.g., 10 isn't "ten", it's
"one-zero", and
they haven't learned decimal ten yet anyway, which is a good thing). It's
much easier to teach binary math first, and higher-order number
representations later, than the other way around.
Then, we go through the four rules for binary addition - zero plus zero
equals zero, zero plus one equals one, one plus zero equals one, and one
plus one equals zero and carry a one to the left. It's easy for the kids
to learn this by handling the pennies and moving them between egg carton
depressions in accordance with those rules. In later grades,
multiplication by two by moving each penny one space to the left is
likewise a piece of cake, as well as division by two by moving each penny
to the right.
When kids learn a concept, they get to keep the pennies used in that day's
lesson, and kids will do lots of things to become shiny penny hoarders.
That includes stealing other kids' pennies, whereupon, when, not if caught,
we make a detour into computing ethics, which is one of the sets of
concepts required to be covered in every CS course!
BTW, one of the reasons that we have to get girls exposed to STEM in a
friendly way as early as possible is because peer pressure against them
excelling in STEM starts around the fourth grade. I've actually overheard
conversations among girls that young that go something like this: "Oh, you
don't want to be too good at math and science because then you'll make the
boys not like you because you're smarter. Then, they won't ask you out on
dates, you won't get married, and you'll never have kids and grandkids." I
am not making this up, and there are geographic/ethnic groups that
reinforce this in spades - girls are supposed to get married after high
school, have kids, and raise a family ... period.
Based on what I've observed going on in K - 12 STEM in most states, I'm
seriously wondering who will be keeping the lights on, let alone the rest
of our infrastructure running, when I'm at the age where getting my
favorite flavor of pudding will be the high point of my day. People with
humanities degrees (almost no universities offer true liberal arts programs
any more, where science and math are given equal emphasis to literature,
history, etc.) are now preferable to become STEM teachers than people with
STEM degrees.
Part of it is because there are now ten people with humanities degrees for
each job opening requiring them, but there are upwards of two STEM jobs for
each person with such a degree, so people with humanities degrees are
simply cheaper to hire. It's even worse in education, where recruiting
people with STEM degrees is very difficult due to competition from
commercial organizations, especially high-cost-of-living metro areas.
Educational administrators almost all have humanities degrees now, as the
old-timers who have STEM degrees and come up through the system are
retiring as part of the continuing expansion of the number of Boomers
leaving the workforce. It's become a perfect storm, and that's not a Good
Thing.
We now return the rest of you to your Life, already in progress ...
All the Best,
Jim KJ7JHE
7:20 p.m.
Jim,
THANK YOU
You are taking it further than most of the high schools were 20 years ago.
It was incredibly rewarding when I could assist an epiphany, such as that
arithmetic could be done IN binary/hex/octal, WITHOUT conversion to
decimal/arithmetic/conversion back!
California mandated "Computer Literacy" in the Community College system.
But, they didn't DEFINE it! It was left to college administators to make
THAT decision. Not even the curriculum committee could have input. The
administator would typically define computer literacy as being about half
of what they knew. And we had a guy who would write a memo about room
change for a meeting in WordPervert, print it out, scan it, and attach the
JPG to an email with subject of FYI and content of "See Attached". Half
of wht he knew wasn't even enough for the remedial job training for the
digital sweatshop.
Then, ten years ago, California also added a mandate for "Information
Competency". Again undefined. The state even permitted the schools to
declare that they already had suitable courses or even that "Information
Competency is adequately covered, diffused throughout the curriculum". I
created a course outline for a single semester lower division
undergraduate (community college) course introducing Information Science.
I never got a chance to teach it :-( Our administration declared that
topics such as Precision, Recall, Relevance, Bandwidth, File structures,
information representations, Search Engine Optimization, computer/internet
ethics, internet economics, internet history, etc. were inappropriate
below grad school level. (If THEY didn't know it, then there was no
reason to permit teaching it, even though they permitted Chemistry and
Calculus)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
On Mon, 12 Oct 2020, Jim Manley via cctalk wrote:
Cindy - if he can't find any other alternative,
please feel free to forward
his contact info to me, or send my e-mail address to him (a Reply To will
expose it), cc: me.
The rest of this is background for those who may be curious about the state
of our educational system from someone on the inside - those with lives may
return to them now.
In the olden days, before CS was offered Pretty Much Everywhere, discrete
math courses were often disguised by titles such as Finite Automata and
State Machines and offered in Science or Engineering departments, while
courses on Predicate Calculus, and Number Theory (e.g., Groups, Fields, and
Rings) were typically required to be taken in Math departments.
Some requirements have been gradually sliding down into earlier grades, to
the point where Number Theory is now taught in small bites (pun fully
intended) starting in middle schools as early as 5th grade (beginning the
hierarchy with Whole numbers). Eventually, a number type or two,
properties, identities, etc., are added, potentially up through Real
numbers in high school, depending on whether Physics and/or Advanced
Electronics is going to be taken.
Some states are mandating CS fundamentals in every grade, from K through 12
(Virginia has come up with one of the best I've seen, as it includes
sample lesson and unit plans in addition to the curriculum requirements).
CS in K - 12 may sound ridiculous, but the sooner you can expose kids to
the most basic concepts, it's much more likely they'll be able to continue
the progression. I've taught binary math to kindergartners using pennies.
They don't know that a penny is 1/100th of a dollar, because they can't
understand what either of those concepts are, but they do know that pennies
are shiny (I go to the bank to get rolls of new ones) and they see that
others who are older use them to buy things.
I just use pennies to represent ones, and absence of pennies as zeroes in
binary, usually in egg cartons to immediately show the organization of
bits, and making more obvious where the absences are. Kids learn how to
read and say binary numbers (e.g., 10 isn't "ten", it's
"one-zero", and
they haven't learned decimal ten yet anyway, which is a good thing). It's
much easier to teach binary math first, and higher-order number
representations later, than the other way around.
Then, we go through the four rules for binary addition - zero plus zero
equals zero, zero plus one equals one, one plus zero equals one, and one
plus one equals zero and carry a one to the left. It's easy for the kids
to learn this by handling the pennies and moving them between egg carton
depressions in accordance with those rules. In later grades,
multiplication by two by moving each penny one space to the left is
likewise a piece of cake, as well as division by two by moving each penny
to the right.
When kids learn a concept, they get to keep the pennies used in that day's
lesson, and kids will do lots of things to become shiny penny hoarders.
That includes stealing other kids' pennies, whereupon, when, not if caught,
we make a detour into computing ethics, which is one of the sets of
concepts required to be covered in every CS course!
BTW, one of the reasons that we have to get girls exposed to STEM in a
friendly way as early as possible is because peer pressure against them
excelling in STEM starts around the fourth grade. I've actually overheard
conversations among girls that young that go something like this: "Oh, you
don't want to be too good at math and science because then you'll make the
boys not like you because you're smarter. Then, they won't ask you out on
dates, you won't get married, and you'll never have kids and grandkids." I
am not making this up, and there are geographic/ethnic groups that
reinforce this in spades - girls are supposed to get married after high
school, have kids, and raise a family ... period.
Based on what I've observed going on in K - 12 STEM in most states, I'm
seriously wondering who will be keeping the lights on, let alone the rest
of our infrastructure running, when I'm at the age where getting my
favorite flavor of pudding will be the high point of my day. People with
humanities degrees (almost no universities offer true liberal arts programs
any more, where science and math are given equal emphasis to literature,
history, etc.) are now preferable to become STEM teachers than people with
STEM degrees.
Part of it is because there are now ten people with humanities degrees for
each job opening requiring them, but there are upwards of two STEM jobs for
each person with such a degree, so people with humanities degrees are
simply cheaper to hire. It's even worse in education, where recruiting
people with STEM degrees is very difficult due to competition from
commercial organizations, especially high-cost-of-living metro areas.
Educational administrators almost all have humanities degrees now, as the
old-timers who have STEM degrees and come up through the system are
retiring as part of the continuing expansion of the number of Boomers
leaving the workforce. It's become a perfect storm, and that's not a Good
Thing.
We now return the rest of you to your Life, already in progress ...
All the Best,
Jim KJ7JHE
6:07 p.m.
Hey Cindy
Just to add to the good suggestions already given here I?d suggest looking on Craigs List.
Typically there are some good (starving) grad students that do tutoring on the side.
Kirk
Sent from my iPad
On Oct 12, 2020, at 8:14 AM, Cindy Croxton via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
?If anyone has spare time, and is familiar with discrete mathematics, I have a friend who
is a young college kid and desperately needs a tutor. His prof just says to read the book,
and take online quizzes. He is failing. If you can help, please email me. He is in
Delaware.
--
Cindy Croxton
Electronics Plus
1613 Water Street
Kerrville, TX 78028
830-370-3239 direct
1352
days inactive
1353
days old
12 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
bill.gunshannon＠hotmail.com -
billdegnan＠gmail.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dkelvey＠hotmail.com -
ggs＠shiresoft.com -
jim.manley＠gmail.com -
kirkbdavis＠me.com -
sales＠elecplus.com -
tdk.knight＠gmail.com -
wrcooke＠wrcooke.net