A big thing for me that came from this lesson is to make sure that the students will understand how what they are learning will be used in their future careers or endeavors. When I look back at my schooling, I don't recall a lot of practical application, but learning things to complete a project or graded assignment. I remember back to even in high school, when I first started losing interest in one of my previously favorite subjects: math. Taking an advanced class in elementary functions I started struggling a bit. Before then I did math for fun, but this started being more difficult, so I asked the instructor how we will ever apply this stuff? Why are we learning this? What does it accomplish? I have never forgotten his response. He go very flustered, as he had no real answer, and after stuttering and stammering, he blurted out, "For the aesthetics!" I thought, "that's it?" And from then on I struggled even more, and never really proceeded further in any advanced math. Looking back on it, I always thought of what a crime that was for an instructor to crush me like that. I hope never to do that, so I always want to give students a real goal of applying what they are learning.
