A quick posting over lunch.
Probably because all of us have been involved with education for so many years, all feel we have insight and expertise in the area and complain about many of its problems. Our solutions may or may not be clueful. I've spent time in groups worried about STEM education and specifically worry about issues of scientific and numeric literacy. I certainly don't have any prescription for changing the world and the deeper I go the dumber I feel. I've seen several ideas that I thought brilliant crash and burn.
Last night I came across some comments on an email list and was reminded of some notes I scribbled somewhere over Kansas a few years ago. I'm copying it here in an attempt to spark thought and comment. It is left completely unedited and very rough for a purpose.
o with that here are some scattered thoughts about education in no particular order. Feel free to comment or start a conversation. These are only meant to trigger thought.
what is training vs education?
training is a commodity
education gives an advantage
hierarchy
looking it up
solving problems
creatively solving problems
discovering problems and solving creatively
basic understanding --
ask people why it is hotter in the Summer than the Winter, give them a single wire, a lamp and a battery and ask them to make a light, the difference between power and energy, what a standard deviation is - many college grads can't handle those questions
unit analysis in the sciences E != mc3 is obvious
what is necessary for critical thinking?
what do you learn - really learn?
the difference betwen basic and professional skills -- huge topic
teaching techniques:
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we pretend people learn what we say or what we write - silly us
lessons of Randy Olson
learning by copying, reading through a text without thinking or being unengaged in a lecture is too shallow to be called learning
how much meditation and wrestling with ideas is necessary?
people don’t think like how we draw on the blackboard
get out of the business of training. . stop lecturing, stop writing textbooks
derivations don’t give insight ... equations explain to those who understand, they are very beautiful if you do understand. They are still essential, but the order of learning is wrong.
understand phenomenon first
it has to be fun
pencil and paper is crippled compared to playing. ..
how is careful observation encouraged?
how are high quality questions encouraged?
skepticism is healthy, denial of evidence is dangerous and hubric
abstracting in the mind is not easy, physical and computer models help a lot
give barely possible team projects and see how they do - interaction with peers and mentors is critical
visceral understanding - doing something might influence if you actually do it
human component often missing (sometimes seen in sports)
mentors are very important for education -- do things with mentors
phd is really trade school with some creativity mixed in ... real education)
WWW as a copy machine is the wrong notion - unlimited access to information as a base, but don't make it the end ... wikipedia should not be a final destination, but a beginning
highly produced may be necessary (good eats teaching about cooking)
movie production vs textbooks
$50M vs $50k ... but impact of a movie usually small compared to a textbook
textbooks are done wrong... work with animator ... rich animation can be a teaching tool
animation, interactive learning, time feedback should be short, mentoring is a two person skill
no finals - realize when learning has happened... in-person oral tests whenever the time seems right
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I was always impressed by the depth Feynman understood the world. He basically rederived a large amount of physics and math for himself in his own somewhat unique fashion and was able to describe aspects of nature with amazing clarity to non-scientists. I've tried that sort of explanation and find it extremely difficult. An astronomer I know is well-known to the general public and famous for his apperances on The Colbert Report. He spends nearly a full week in preparation so as not to fail. This sort of thing came naturally to Feynman.
Since the death of Steve Jobs I've heard the term STEAM edcation - STEM (science, technology, engineerng and math) plus an A for (the) arts.
I like that...
Posted by: steve | 10/07/2011 at 12:15 PM