I was watching Veritasium's latest video The Biggest Myth In Education (great watch) and it got me thinking about the role of hands-on work, diagrams, etc. in mathematics education.
A summary of the video: in education there is the VARK theory (Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, and Kinesthetic) which says that individuals have different modes of learning and that they learn best when the instruction matches their preferred mode. The video explains that there is, in fact, no data to back up that theory and gives some different theories of why people say they learn better visually. Basically if you already believe yourself to be a visual learn
I have an old pc which I've been using almost exclusively for gaming:
GPU: Geforce GTX 650 Ti
CPU: I5 661
PSU: I think about 500W (I don't have access to the pc to check atm)
RAM: 8 GB
At first i had thought I would just replace the GPU with a GTX 960/970 but I'm not sure the CPU would be able to fully utilize this.
I'm thinking of somewhere between $500 and $800 CAD (should be roughly $300 to $500 USD). The low end being i3 + mobo + 960 and the high end being i5 + mobo + 970. (I'm more comfortable with Intel + NVidia but if you have any other suggestions I would appreciate them).
Does this sound OK? Would just the 960 suffice (no CPU upgrade)? I am hoping for this to last ano
The standard textbooks (e.g. James Stewart) marketed to first year students cost over $200 (CAD, your currency may vary). With the wealth of free online resources on the subject I question where these expensive textbooks fit into the picture. Even if students want a physical text, there are plenty of used books which are far less expensive. Also, I seriously doubt that even a quarter of classes are buying these books if they don't have to for assignments. Thoughts? How much are these textbooks actually worth?