this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
258 points (96.7% liked)

Science Memes

19865 readers
1574 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] marcos@lemmy.world 48 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If you are talking about school curriculum, nearly the entire population will keep not learning it as long as it doesn't have some practical application so people can understand WTF the teacher is talking about.

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Citation needed.

Seriously, though, that's not what the research is showing. Peter Liljedahl's research, for example, supports that a very effective way to teach mathematics is by having students actually think about math, instead of just passively receiving info dumps (as is common in most traditional math classes). See Building Thinking Classrooms for details but, in short, it's a method of getting students playing with math concepts for almost the entire class time every day.

No "practical applications" needed. Counterintuitive, but it's a highly effective practice.

What's core to practical applications working is student motivation, and practical applications are one way to induce motivation. But it's often not the best option, especially for inherently abstract skills.

[–] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 38 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Having practical applications for higher math makes that shit stick like glue when otherwise it would get forgotten immediately after the test.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Apparently knowing people learn differently and that mathematicians are a tiny minority is neoliberal...

[–] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Welcome to the Fediverse, I guess.

[–] nomy@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 day ago

I use Arch btw.

As the experts say: "Use it or lose it."

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They're getting downvoted because there's a lot of esoterical people demanding that we learn stuff either for the joy of it (which many are not at all having btw) or because it "purifies character" or sth.

Practical applications are felt like an impurity to that.