Math... thou art a confusing jerk...

Post Reply New Topic

I am in a rudimentary (aka no credit) math course. This is really, really sad. Especially since the math is lower level math than the course I was taking 2, 3 years ago (which was a college algebra course.)

Math Class is essentially a battle between my boredom, and my Ritalin. And Ritalin gets his ass kicked every time, even with reinforcements from caffeine.

I just don't do this abstract math: factoring, trinomials, perfect cubes. I just can't focus, and I already have a 70 in the class, brought lower by daily quizzes.

I'm worried. I don't want my aid taken away, I don't have time for a tutor.

Only thing I can recommend is to approach from a different angle, which is easier said than done. I've really only started taking to numbers now that they're included in things like route summarization and network design.

I find it easier to learn math when I don't have to listen to a teacher talk for four hours a week.
I was getting high F's and low D's on the tests in a calculus II course (I had always gotten low A's and high B's in math courses up until then). I dropped out and taught myself math and now I know differential equations (the highest math course offered at most community colleges, well, the ones that offer higher math courses anyway, I've been to one that didn't offer any higher math courses except for maybe calculus during the summertime).
Teachers don't teach things in a way that is comprehensible to autistics. The curriculum is designed to pound the knowledge into NEUROTYPICALS that don't want to learn anything. If you want to learn math, you need to OBSESS over it and cut out all other distractions...
But if it's such a low level course, it's probably hard to obsess over. ADHD people have an easier time focusing on more complicated topics that can fully capture their interest. I might suggest dropping the course, studying on your own and then retaking the placement exam and hopefully passing into college algebra or higher.

I kind of go with CosmicKitten89, that the class is not enough to keep your interest.

But there may be another way, and that is to multitask. Yes, by all means, arc across the material and study on your own. And during class time, follow the lecture in a casual, off-hand manner as you do something else. Now, you probably want to be polite and be discreet. Leafing through a book is probably too obvious. But you could keep a half-page of notes from another class next to the notes you're taking for this math class. And/or you could jot down notes for a story or song or paper you're working on while you casually follow the lecture.

In a college math class, you are expected to have read the material and practiced the examples ahead of time. You're not supposed to sit down in lecture and see the material for the first time. The people who do best, NT or otherwise, are those who came prepared. College professors are not teachers, they are there to guide you, clear up misunderstandings, and answer your questions.

In other words, if you're sitting in class furiously writing down notes, you're doing it wrong.

If you're casually sitting back and absorbing the lecture with ease, you're doing it right.

I agree that this is ideal. But then the question becomes what should a person do when it's not working out this well.

You also mentioned daily quizzes... that's a problem.

I'm going to use a calculus analogy here, hopefully it isn't too hard to follow: see, neurotypicals tend to have a steady, perhaps approximately linear learning curve (depending on how you quantify knowledge/learning...) and daily assignments are required to reinforce that.
Autistics, on the other hand, or at least some anyway, have a learning curve that is almost flat, until you hit a point in time where it all clicks and the curve SHOOTS UP. The height that you reach at the end will probably be higher than that of the steady learners, but as far as grades go, if they go with daily assignments, then they grade you roughly on the area UNDER the curve (this is called integration in calculus). If the knee of the learning curve comes too late for you, then guess who's going to have a greater area under the curve?

This I believe is why I did poorly in classes that test too soon in the semester and require you to turn in homework - too many graded assignments to keep up with, and worrying about turning them in negates much of the educational value with stress that keeps it from sticking in your mind, thus prolonging the flatness of the curve - that is not to say homework assignments are useless; quite the contrary, but they should be worked on at your own leisure and out of self-motivation and because you want to learn the material, not because you want to get a good grade on it.

On the other hand, in the class where I was graded only on the tests, I took it easy all semester and did no homework (only because I already knew almost all of the material, I tried to do the homework though but I just couldn't concentrate) and I got the highest or second highest grade on all the tests and an A in the class (the teacher was an easy grader though; most of the class would have failed if he didn't grade on such a generous curve)

One thing that disability services should do is allow you to have more relaxed deadlines, or to just be graded on the test. Most students actually like getting a homework grade because it's easy points and easier for them than scoring well on the test.

CosmicKitten89, I like much of what you say about homework. I'd only add that for you, me, Asperger96, for all of us, we can learn in way different ways and medium-scale experiments can be a very good thing.

For example, Temple Grandin said persons on the spectrum tend to have one of three preferred intellectual styles, with some overlap of course:

1) abstract thinking,

2) story / narrative thinking, or

3) visual thinking.

This should be taken with a grain of salt, but I think there's a lot to it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgEAhMEgGOQ <--- and see about 20 minutes into it