This is probably the only forum where I can ask this question and not come off appearing a little nuts. Is there a downside to over-verbalizing math?
DS10 is taking an onine algebra course through his school district and also has a live teacher (also provided by district) checking his progress one day a week. Perhaps I am rather old-fashioned but I feel more comfortable with step-by-step math equations as a method of showing your work. For DS, he is able to answer the mutliple-choice questions mentally so almost never writes anything down unless he is required to for an "essay" question. There are many essay questions, including "show your work" type questions and "explain" type questions as well as projects. I check his progress online every so often and what I have noticed is that he tends to verbalize most of his essays, sometimes even the "show your work" questions. When I questioned DS, he responds that "essays" imply words so he feels that he must use a lot of words rather than just write equations step-by-step. I am a bit skeptical of his approach even though his essay answers tend to be well-written and fairly succinct and get 100%.
The bottom line is that I feel he is not getting enough practice writing his work step-by-step and it might become an issue later. However, it appears that neither his online instructor nor his once-a-week teacher is concerned. Maybe I am nuts. With my older DS in Algebra, I was once accused of expecting him to learn how to built a car from the grounds up rather than just learning how to drive the damn car. Math is its own language and the fact that he can look at a math problem and verbalize the solutions so easily may be a good thing. I am comforted when I think of it kind of as being bilingual, where your brain naturally thinks in both languages without translation. However, I am concerned that it may result in DS having trouble consistently writing step-by-step solutions down the line. I also find the language of mathematics beautiful by itself without the clutter of words, no matter how accurate and necessary for purposes such as teaching.
Last edited by Quantum2003; 11/21/13 03:30 PM.
