Brewing Storm

Yesterday a student got in touch with a very important issue about math class. Student was very upset about the worksheet from math class.

So we got ahold of the worksheet. It was in the instructor's usual style which, admitedly, is somewhat peculiar. It was all word problems. Some of the problems have some extra information that isn't needed in the problem. Others are multi-step. The scenarios were kind of unusual. Nothing that touched on any hot-button issues, but not what I would have picked for a group of people who I didn't know. Especially since many of these people may already have some negative feelings towards the field of mathematics.

I get back in touch with student to ask what the student's concern was about the worksheet.

Student explains that "everyone" was upset about the worksheet because the problems are not like the one-step, well-defined ones in the book. Student doesn't even mention the weird scenarios in questionable taste. Student agrees to meet with me to explain more about the concerns and suggests that we meet after the first exam in math class.

I happen to know that the problems on the exam are very similar to the problems on the worksheet.