> > There's so much to learning where the sharp bits of math are; proofs are the razor-thin path through the briar patch.
As a student representative for my undergraduate mathematics course, I got really pissed off at lecturers for exactly this reason: they'd write out a perfect correct proof on the whiteboard, but wouldn't explain where it had come from or how people had arrived at the solution. We were left to figure that out on our own.
They then complained that students were rote-learning for exams, rather than coming to a full understanding of the material. I'm not sure what they were expecting, given that that's exactly how they were teaching it.
My discrete mathematics professor was like that. He would regurgitate a proof onto the whiteboard. Then he'd do it a few more times with proofs of other things.
He has an identical twin brother, who is also a math professor at the same college. The regular professor was out for a day, and his brother came in to teach the class. His teaching style was completely different. "Ok, we need to prove X. Where should we start?" and would sit on the table and look at us with an inquisitive look on his face. Then learning happened.
Everyone's mind was blown. Most people didn't realize it was a different person. Then on Thursday it was back to same-old same-old.
My math teacher used to only have a tiny piece of paper with the thing he had to talk about during the lecture; since we had to prove everything we learned during this class, more often than once he couldn't remember how to prove some thing and usually happily sent a student to the blackboard to think together about how to prove the proposition. I thought that was a great way of teaching maths.
If you're taking a class with proofs, you're being prepared for research. Doing your own research into, and reverse engineering, proofs is an important skill.
Proofs in math journals are given 'as-is' and you learn the intuition through social means and discussions.
i think general math courses would benefit from teaching that skill _at all_. you'd be hard pressed to find people who took that lesson away from a course.
As a student representative for my undergraduate mathematics course, I got really pissed off at lecturers for exactly this reason: they'd write out a perfect correct proof on the whiteboard, but wouldn't explain where it had come from or how people had arrived at the solution. We were left to figure that out on our own.
They then complained that students were rote-learning for exams, rather than coming to a full understanding of the material. I'm not sure what they were expecting, given that that's exactly how they were teaching it.