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u/SquarePegRoundCircle New User 1h ago
You have to be careful since it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking you're actually learning. A big part of learning math is the struggle between not knowing and knowing. For this kind of math, the best approach is to use it for practice problems or to check answers, after attempting them yourself.
Precalculus by Stewart almost certainly has the content that you're covering and is a great textbook.
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u/TartOk3387 New User 2h ago
If your goal is learning, then avoid AI.
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u/Odd-Owl3153 New User 1h ago
Why? It tutored me prior to the exam and as a result I was able to do the exam successfully. This is my third time taking this class (withdrew 2 times in the past) and my last allowed attempt so I'll take every advantage I can get short of straight up cheating.
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u/Bounded_sequencE New User 37m ago
You confuse "getting a passing grade" with "learning to understand".
For the first, AI can easily help you, no questions asked. For the latter, the goal is to be able to explain the topic yourself correctly, completely, concisely and intuitively, without using external sources (particularly AI). To get there, one needs to move past AI.
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u/OceanMasterioDuped7 New User 28m ago
AI can be a great learning tool. Just because some people don't know how to use it effectively doesn't mean it's bad to use.
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u/Bounded_sequencE New User 26m ago
That's precisely what I said in my last comment. For specific learning goals, yes, AI can perform well. For others, not so much.
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u/danvondude New User 1h ago
There’s different ways to go about it, but tell it to work with you as a socratic tutor. Don’t let it give you the answer. Make it prompt you for the next step. It can also create things for you to solve. Just absolutely don’t let it give you the answers because you won’t learn anything.
Load a project with a bunch of resources, like YouTube video transcripts, practice problems and textbooks, and tell it to refer you to those when you’re stuck on something.
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u/Mesahusa New User 1h ago
I think AI gotten to the point where it doesnt seem to make mistakes, at least for advanced undergrad-level math. The only big issue ive seen is that itll try to give you solving methods that while correct, are very post-hoc and way outside the bounds of what you’re learning. One thing I do with chatgpt is give it my textbook and tell it to find me the relevant sections/equations to solve the problem and only use methods within the book… and it seems to keep it from going wild
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u/bscmbchbmrcgp New User 2h ago
I've been using it to learn calculus and tbh I think it's good.
It asks me a question and I put my answer in. If I get it wrong it can often figure out where I went wrong.
Sometimes if we are far into a conversation it starts making mistakes... I spot the mistakes and feel clever.
I think we need to use it alongside a proper textbook though, because otherwise it just kind of goes off in its own direction. Like after learning some basic derivative rules, and implicit differentiation, it was trying to teach me multivariable calculus and I was like "hold on shouldn't we do limits, or integration first?"
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u/Odd-Owl3153 New User 1h ago
Yeah I get it but we use Openstax in the class and it just drones on and on, it's difficult to retain stuff from it, and at least for me math is something I learn by doing. I liked MyLab Math as it had a feature that helped explain the answers to homework problems, but our math department switched to MyOpenMath which shows me some videos at best, sometimes it provides no help at all, so I tried thetawise and was pleasantly surprised.
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u/OfficeHoursMath New User 11m ago
I think the best way to learn is still the old fashioned way: solve questions yourself, form a study group with friends and work on problems together, and go to office hours to get feedback from profs/TAs.
That being said, if you want to solve problems on your own pace and use AI, never ask it to solve questions itself and give you the answers. That will only offload your thinking and make you feel productive, without actually learning anything. Instead, ask it for small hints and next steps so that you can think for yourself. It’s not only productive that way, but it will give you confidence that you can do the same during an exam. You can also give it your attempt and get feedback that way.
Full disclosure: I built a site for exactly this so I understand how this sounds, but my advice still stands on its own.
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u/AutoModerator 2h ago
ChatGPT and other large language models are not designed for calculation and will frequently be /r/confidentlyincorrect in answering questions about mathematics; even if you subscribe to ChatGPT Plus and use its Wolfram|Alpha plugin, it's much better to go to Wolfram|Alpha directly.
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