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$\begingroup$ "you depart from the algebra to state the middle step in prose, which makes it longer and more amorphous than it needs to be" Are you referring to the two sentences beginning with "Now an essential point..."? I wonder if you have any idea how many students will fail to understand if you just do the algebra without that verbal part? $\endgroup$– Michael HardyCommented Sep 18, 2023 at 19:18
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$\begingroup$ Yes, that is what I'm referring to. Personally, I think a simple postscript remark on the step is enough here. Normally I would write a proof for other professional mathematicians/statisticians, but for students, it is good for them to have to grapple with understanding steps like this and a simple postscript stating the essence of the step tells them what to look at. $\endgroup$– BenCommented Sep 19, 2023 at 3:38
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$\begingroup$ At best that depends heavily on what sort of student you're talking about. $\endgroup$– Michael HardyCommented Sep 19, 2023 at 22:44
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$\begingroup$ Are you under an impression that students will know that they do not know something without having it pointed out to them? Most of the time it doesn't work that way. $\endgroup$– Michael HardyCommented Sep 22, 2023 at 0:10
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$\begingroup$ I encourage students to go through working like this and ensure that they understand each step of the working; the operative test being, could they explain what the step did and why it is valid? Now, the student might look at the step (plus the accompanying postscript) and see why the term pulled out is a constant, and why it is okay to pull a constant out of an expectation, and be confident that they can explain this. Alternatively, the student might not understand why the pulled out term is a constant (or some other problem), in which case this ought to spur them to investigate further. $\endgroup$– BenCommented Sep 22, 2023 at 1:33
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