Hi ,
There's a famous story from 18th century mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss's early school days that goes something like this.
One day, Gauss's maths teacher asked the class to
sum the numbers from 1 to 100, expecting them to do it the hard way. Gauss, however, immediately recognised this was just the sum of 50 pairs, each totalling 101, and got the correct answer right away - much to his teacher's surprise (and annoyance).
Gauss's teacher's aim in setting this task was to keep the class quiet for half an hour or so. The teacher didn't care about the
result. He just cared about the time and effort required to get there.
More than two centuries on, our education system still prioritises work over results. This is a necessary evil of the assessment process. Students need to show their working to demonstrate they understand what they have learned.
Yet, in doing so, students are implicitly taught to undervalue results - a lesson students often fail to unlearn once they graduate.
In a maths exam, the final numeric answer to a problem is often worth virtually nothing. But in the real world, the final answer is everything.
Here's the thing...
Data science is all about solving problems and the most important part is the final result.
Show your working by all means (because
auditability is good) but don't mistake working for what really counts.
Talk again soon,
Dr Genevieve Hayes.
p.s. Good luck to all the Australian
teachers and students returning to school over the next few weeks.
