very raw thoughts on education

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:

___________________

 

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

 

 _______

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.

 

 

Comments

[steve]

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...