Math symbols are intimidating. They’re not familiar and people often forget what they mean. For students trying to learn math, it would be beneficial if we used more words instead of symbols.
What’s more intuitive to you?
A.
An average of numbers = (the sum of all the numbers ) / ( how many numbers there are)
B.
Notice: I did use some math symbols in A!
Yes, one could say A is very wordy and B is straight to the point. However, many students won’t even understand what the latter means because they haven’t even fully retained the semantics of the symbols. Why not focus on understanding things conceptually (focusing more on words) and gradually slowly bring symbols into play.
What do you think? Is it coddling to use lots of words? or more engaging teaching?
