Added: a few years ago, I had a student who had finished a biology degree from a highly rated college. He was taking courses where I worked to strengthen his applications to PhD programs. He was a very bright guy and learned very quickly. But he had trouble with fractions in a formula we were using. He had found a book that listed the same formula, but instead of multiplying by, say, 3/4, as I had been teaching, the new source said you should divide by 4/3. I had to teach him that dividing by a fraction was the same as multiplying by its inverse. Turned out the whole class benefited from that discussion and I ended up giving a quick lecture on dividing with fractions.
I'm a biologist. I know that lack of mathematical skill among undergraduate biology students (including majors) has been a serious concern for a while now. I attended a conference on biology education a couple years ago and was in a mathematics session. Most of the people in my group taught mathematics, and they said that part of the problem stems from the biology teachers not knowing a lot of math and/or not incorporating it into their classes.
ETA: Another one of my students who had finished her degree was a math tutor at a local highly rated high school. She took the job expecting to tutor trig and calculus and suchlike, and was very frustrated when she ended up teaching a lot of her students how to do long division and other elementary-level skills.
Last edited by Val; 06/06/12 02:08 PM. Reason: More detail added
