wbralick@afit-ab.arpa (William A. Bralick) (12/15/88)
For a possible solution to these problems, I suggest Adler's
Paideia proposal. However, be prepared for some extensive
complaints from people (students) who believe that they should
be allowed to have electives during K-12. The notion that
students know what they should be taught, how they should be
taught, or what the standards should be is, of course, ludicrous.
Of course another problem is the ubiquitous living-room
monoculoid (couch-potato generator (you know, tee-vee)).
Our tee-vee is on a wheeled cart (with the vee-cee-argh)
in a closet. When we become aware that, say, the Nutcracker
ballet is scheduled, we wheel out the ol' boob toob and
enjoy the performance. When the performance is finished,
we wheel the thing back into the closet. Since instituting
our monoculoid storage policy, my family and I enjoy evenings
of games, music, conversation, reading, etc.
Bob Heinlein believed that tee-vee is more harmful than all
other drugs in this society. I think I agree. Members of the
A.S.P.P.B.D. (the American Society for the Prevention of
Premature Brain Death) "just say no" to tee vee!
--
Will Bralick : wbralick@afit-ab.arpa | If we desire to defeat the enemy,
Air Force Institute of Technology, | we must proportion our efforts to
| his powers of resistance.
with disclaimer; use disclaimer; | - Carl von Clauswitzdykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (12/15/88)
In article <776@afit-ab.arpa> wbralick@blackbird.afit.af.mil (William A. Bralick) writes: >For a possible solution to these problems, I suggest Adler's >Paideia proposal. However, be prepared for some extensive >complaints from people (students) who believe that they should >be allowed to have electives during K-12. The notion that >students know what they should be taught, how they should be >taught, or what the standards should be is, of course, ludicrous. I'm not familiar with "Adler's Paideia proposal," but I find your last statement completely insupportable. I had originally written a much longer response, but let me just paraphrase myself by saying that the attitude displayed above disgusts me. I counter your snide remark about K-12 students with my own equally unsupported claim: a curriculum that is blind to the needs and wants of the students is blind to everything education is about. I have no data to support this, but I have no doubt that if I'd been taught under your ideal school system, I'd be loading trucks or something instead of filling out grad school applications. A good curriculum should adapt to the students, and part of that involves teaching what the students want to learn and how they want it to be taught, at least some of the time. As a former K-12 student (inclusive), I feel justified in saying that your attitude toward students disgusts me. I might also add that due to the incompetence of certain individuals at certain schools I have attended (most notably high school), most of what I learned was outside of the classroom. And due to the more competent teaching I'm experiencing now, the trend is reversed. And I should note that the students are not remarkably different, nor the class size. But now all my classes are elective, and most of them are seminars or similarly structured. And more anecdotal pseudo-evidence - my most memorable pre-5th grade memory of school involved an activity which I engaged in during unstructured time, and which has by all surface measures had a tremendous effect on my current interests and skills. It was not part of any standard curriculum. That was by far one of my best years in terms of personal development. -Dan p.s. i'm hoping someone else will take on your remarks about television
mrk@wuphys.UUCP (Mark R. Kaufmann) (12/16/88)
In article <4893@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes: >I might also add that due to the incompetence of certain individuals at certain >schools I have attended (most notably high school), most of what I learned >was outside of the classroom. And due to the more competent teaching >I'm experiencing now, the trend is reversed. And I should note that the >students are not remarkably different, nor the class size. But now all my >classes are elective, and most of them are seminars or similarly structured. > -Dan >p.s. i'm hoping someone else will take on your remarks about television I don't know which kind of high school or college you attended; I attended public schools in K-12 and a private university from then on. My experience is that the students were VERY different in the two cases. The major difference I see between these is that in the first case there was a lot of, for lack of a better phrase, "dead weight." That is, there were many students for whom school literally was a day care center, and who simply refused to advance their minds in any way whatsoever, and not only that, insisted on repeatedly disrupting the classroom so that even those who wanted to learn were sometimes hindered. The way I see it, a teacher simply cannot conduct a course when there are both "geniuses" and "dead weight" in the same classroom. What is called for, in my opinion, is segregation of students from day one according to their ability AND WILLINGNESS (VERY important) to learn. The latter seems much easier to guage than the former, though. Those who are able, willing, and ready to learn should not have to be dragged down by those who simply need a babysitter during the day. My classes were segregated in grades 1-3 (somehow--I didn't pay much attention to the methods used at the time!). But teaching children who were able and willing to learn in separate classrooms and at a faster speed than those who were either unable or unwilling (or both) then became unfashionable and "elitist," and from then on, except for _ADVANCED_ elective classes in high school, there was almost always "dead weight" in my classes--and of course, the rate of learning was determined by the slowest student(s) in the classroom. Comments/criticisms? ======================================= Mark R. Kaufmann UUCP: ...!uunet!wucs1!wucfua!wuphys!mrk wuphys!mrk@uunet.uu.net Internet: mrk@wuphys.wustl.edu =======================================
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (12/16/88)
in article <4893@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) says: > Xref: killer comp.edu:1766 sci.math:5138 sci.physics:5354 > In article <776@afit-ab.arpa> wbralick@blackbird.afit.af.mil (William A. Bralick) writes: >>For a possible solution to these problems, I suggest Adler's >>Paideia proposal. However, be prepared for some extensive >>complaints from people (students) who believe that they should >>be allowed to have electives during K-12. The notion that >>students know what they should be taught, how they should be >>taught, or what the standards should be is, of course, ludicrous. > disgusts me. I counter your snide remark about K-12 students with my own > equally unsupported claim: a curriculum that is blind to the needs and wants > of the students is blind to everything education is about. In general, in K-12, the "wants" of the students are totally opposite the "needs" of the student. I don't know about your school, but at ordinary public schools like the ones I attended, most kids were there because they had to be, not because they wanted to be... if they had their "wants", they wouldn't be there at ALL. > school applications. A good curriculum should adapt to the students, and part > of that involves teaching what the students want to learn and how they want it > to be taught, at least some of the time. As a former K-12 student (inclusive), > I feel justified in saying that your attitude toward students > disgusts me. A good curriculum should adapt to the students, in that if a student wants to do/learn things beyond the minimum requirements, he/she should be encouraged in such ventures. But most of them DON'T want to be taught, and DON'T want to learn! You obviously attended very exceptional schools, if your classmates didn't, for the most part, feel that way. I remember, painfully, my immature years in my early teens, and some of the things I did in those days. If I'd had total charge of my life and education, I'd have screwed up even worse than I did. Childhood and adolescence, by definition, mean that you don't have adequate information to make an informed decision. Believe it or not, a substantial portion of the population isn't the sort of self-directed high achiever that you proclaim yourself to be. For many kids today, the parents come in at 6pm, say "hi, kid", flop exhaustedly into the couch in front of the tee-vee, and don't say another word till the 10 o'clock news (at which time they say, "g'night, kid"). Is that any way to impart the importance of education? What kind of education does it take to be a recliner rutabaga? How are the kids going to have enough information to make an informed decision about their education? > p.s. i'm hoping someone else will take on your remarks about television I just did. Makes it harder for the parents to come home from an exhausting day at work and turn off their brain, if there's no television around. Heck, they might even notice that their kids are alive, for a change. I run a computer bulletin board for a local computer club, of which about 50% of the users are kids under 17. These are mostly bright, fairly intelligent youngsters, some of whom are better conversationalists than the average USENETter. I get the distinct impression, from various conversations I've had, that for the most part their parents growled "Here, get out of my hair", threw money at them, and that's how they got their computer and modem. Their kids are a nuisance, excess baggage, something that clutters the house and occasionally interrupts their TV viewing while they're winding down from a long day at work and can't the ingrate bastard kids stay in their room or go out to play and just LEAVE US ALONE..... And we're not just talking poor kids in ghettos, here. We're talking about, e.g., wife a nurse, father a middle manager, large $100,000 house (down here, a standard 3-bedroom 2-bath sells for $40,000), bought his kid a Fiero for his 16'th birthday, bought her kid $5,000 worth of Amiga 2000 and accessories..... and I've been over to his house fairly often, and even when they're home, they rarely talk to him! No, television isn't solely responsible for the destruction of the family (and thus the cause of many of our educational problems... "why should I care what I do in school, if my parents don't?")... but as a mass Novocain to numb the mind, it certainly doesn't help. I shudder to think of what would have happened to the last kid above, if he hadn't been bit by the computer bug and convinced (by me) that the only way he could take it to the logical conclusion was to do well in math and study CS in college (he just finished his first semester at the University of New Orleans). -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 >> In Hell they run VMS. > No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (12/16/88)
In article <608@wuphys.UUCP> mrk@wuphys.UUCP (Mark R. Kaufmann) writes: >... >The major difference I see between these is that in the first case >there was a lot of, for lack of a better phrase, "dead weight." [description of what dead weight is] >The way I see it, a teacher simply cannot conduct a course when >there are both "geniuses" and "dead weight" in the same classroom. >What is called for, in my opinion, is segregation of students from day one >according to their ability AND WILLINGNESS (VERY important) to learn. >The latter seems much easier to guage than the former, though. >Those who are able, willing, and ready to learn should not have to be >dragged down by those who simply need a babysitter during the day. >My classes were segregated in grades 1-3 (somehow--I didn't pay much >attention to the methods used at the time!). >But teaching children who were able and willing to learn in separate classrooms >and at a faster speed than those who were either unable or unwilling (or both) >then became unfashionable and "elitist," and from then on, except for >_ADVANCED_ elective classes in high school, there was almost always >"dead weight" in my classes--and of course, the rate of learning >was determined by the slowest student(s) in the classroom. Comments/criticisms? I agree with the spirit of your message, and some of the specifics. I do think, though, that it's not as simple as apptitude and willingness-to-learn scales - there are also individual differences. Someone who seems to be dead weight might actually be better characterized among the geniuses, but is violently in disaccord with the educational strategy. People can't only be taught according to their level, but should also be taught in the way that's best suited to them. Much easier said than done! I've spent a lot of time held back by dead weight, and I find it extremely frustrating that people would find the idea of separate tracks unfashionable and/or elitist. These are the sorts of people who know nothing about education but are running huge educational systems. Or are senators. Or whatever. On the one hand, there are tons of reasons why the ideal system is unattainable and why wholesale changes would be logistically impossible. But people are unwilling even to make the small changes that would help alleviate the problem. I don't think I should start to go into this right now. It's just too tangled an issue. But I think that to even approximate a reasonable educational system, as opposed to what's in place in the united states right now, the entire thing would have to be gutted and rebuilt. As things stand, almost no one is getting the education they deserve, except for that tiny percentage of the population just above the average (I think this is the sector that most teachers teach to, but I might be mistaken). -Dan
yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) (12/17/88)
In article <6435@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes: >in article <4893@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) says: >> Xref: killer comp.edu:1766 sci.math:5138 sci.physics:5354 >> In article <776@afit-ab.arpa> wbralick@blackbird.afit.af.mil (William A. Bralick) writes: >>>For a possible solution to these problems, I suggest Adler's >>>Paideia proposal. However, be prepared for some extensive >>>complaints from people (students) who believe that they should >>>be allowed to have electives during K-12. Allowed to have electives??? I think the best solution would be 100% electives. >>>The notion that students know what they should be taught, how they should be >>>taught, or what the standards should be is, of course, ludicrous. The notion that public school teachers know what students should be taught, how they should be taught, or what the standards should be is, of course, even more ludicrous. >In general, in K-12, the "wants" of the students are totally opposite >the "needs" of the student. I don't know about your school, but at >ordinary public schools like the ones I attended, most kids were there >because they had to be, not because they wanted to be... if they had >their "wants", they wouldn't be there at ALL. >But most of them DON'T want to >be taught, and DON'T want to learn! You're right. But the reason why many students hate school is because they are being held against their will for 7 (or more) hours a day, 9 (or more) months a year, being forcefed material toward which they feel absolutely no interest. Imagine that the government decided that there was a desperate shortage of accountants and decided to draft *you* to spend to the next 13 years of your life studying accounting 7 hours a day, 9 months a year, with homework due every day. (If you like accounting, then substitute something that bores you to tears.) On the other hand, it is obvious that very young children have an intense desire to learn (as well as to play). They are always asking questions, "Why is the sky blue?", "What is thunder?", "What makes the car go?", etc. The solution is to tap this natural curiousity and allow the child to pursue these interests wherever they take him or her. Of course, many older children have already been ruined by the educational system, and it may be more difficult, if not impossible, to show them that learning is something that can be done for pleasure and not just to please teachers/parents or in order to get a job. >I shudder >to think of what would have happened to the last kid above, if he >hadn't been bit by the computer bug and convinced (by me) that the >only way he could take it to the logical conclusion was to do well in >math and study CS in college (he just finished his first semester at >the University of New Orleans). This is *exactly* my point. What captured this kid's imagination was not the material he was forced to learn in school, but the discovery that there was some field (computers) that he *enjoyed* and wanted to pursue for his *own* reasons. >Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg > Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 > >> In Hell they run VMS. > > No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k. _______________________________________________________________________________ Brian Yamauchi University of Rochester yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu Computer Science Department _______________________________________________________________________________
c60a-2by@web-2a.berkeley.edu (Oliver Juang) (12/17/88)
In article <608@wuphys.UUCP> mrk@wuphys.UUCP (Mark R. Kaufmann) writes: >I don't know which kind of high school or college you attended; I >attended public schools in K-12 and a private university from then on. >My experience is that the students were VERY different in the two cases. >The major difference I see between these is that in the first case >there was a lot of, for lack of a better phrase, "dead weight." >That is, there were many students for whom school literally >was a day care center, and who simply refused to advance their minds >in any way whatsoever, and not only that, insisted on repeatedly disrupting >the classroom so that even those who wanted to learn were sometimes hindered. >The way I see it, a teacher simply cannot conduct a course when >there are both "geniuses" and "dead weight" in the same classroom. >What is called for, in my opinion, is segregation of students from day one >according to their ability AND WILLINGNESS (VERY important) to learn. >The latter seems much easier to guage than the former, though. >Those who are able, willing, and ready to learn should not have to be >dragged down by those who simply need a babysitter during the day. >My classes were segregated in grades 1-3 (somehow--I didn't pay much >attention to the methods used at the time!). >But teaching children who were able and willing to learn in separate classrooms >and at a faster speed than those who were either unable or unwilling (or both) >then became unfashionable and "elitist," and from then on, except for >_ADVANCED_ elective classes in high school, there was almost always >"dead weight" in my classes--and of course, the rate of learning >was determined by the slowest student(s) in the classroom. Comments/criticisms? >======================================= >Mark R. Kaufmann >UUCP: ...!uunet!wucs1!wucfua!wuphys!mrk > wuphys!mrk@uunet.uu.net >Internet: mrk@wuphys.wustl.edu >======================================= Unfortunately, although I agree with the idea of segregating the "dead weight" from the "geniuses", there are quite a few problems with making this happen effectively in real life. Especially with regards as to which people are "dead weight", or "geniuses". How do you propose to distinguish them? Their grades? (what if a previous teacher graded unfairly) IQ tests? (I'm sure IQ test have been discussed before on this newsgroup, but I'm new to it) Finances of parents? Nationality? The letter their name begins with? Also, what happens when you have someone who would be considered a "genius", except that he/she is "learning disabled (or whatever the popular term is now)", or can't read English, or was sick the day of the evaluation, etc. I should perhaps note that I went to a public schools system where K-5 was students mixed at random and in 6th they started "honors" courses. In high school they had different "tracks" or some such word in which they recommended (did I spell that right? Shows my education, I guess) different courses. It also had "competency" tests which you had to pass to graduate. (questions like "which way do you cut with a knife" "a. left" "b. right" "c. towards you" "d. away from you"). Well, anyway this is getting long so I'll end it here. Flame me if you wish, but send e-mail as I figure people want to read only follow-ups with something to say to everyone. Oh, perhaps a disclaimer: My views do not represent the University of California at Berkeley. The posters on my wall have an entirely different subject matter. Address: c60a-2by@web.berkeley.edu <-- this is arpanet, I think, but I'm new to this stuff.
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (12/17/88)
[I've done some editing to keep the below short] In article <6435@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes: >in article <4893@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) says: >> In article <776@afit-ab.arpa> wbralick@blackbird.afit.af.mil (William A. Bralick) writes: >>>Paideia proposal. However, be prepared for some extensive >>>complaints from people (students) who believe that they should >>>be allowed to have electives during K-12. The notion that >>>students know what they should be taught, how they should be >>>taught, or what the standards should be is, of course, ludicrous. >> disgusts me. I counter your snide remark about K-12 students with my own >> equally unsupported claim: a curriculum that is blind to the needs and wants >> of the students is blind to everything education is about. >In general, in K-12, the "wants" of the students are totally opposite >the "needs" of the student. I don't know about your school, but at >ordinary public schools like the ones I attended, most kids were there >because they had to be, not because they wanted to be... if they had >their "wants", they wouldn't be there at ALL. Granted, but the original poster wasn't talking about what the students want in general, he was writing about curriculum and teaching methods, specifically referring to a proposal which apparently would eliminate electives. As far as I'm concerned, if some students want to take extra math/science, and some want to take extra humanities, they should be allowed to do so. This doesn't rule out the possibility of a core curriculum. >>school applications. A good curriculum should adapt to the students, and part >>of that involves teaching what the students want to learn and how they want it >>to be taught, at least some of the time. >A good curriculum should adapt to the students, in that if a student >wants to do/learn things beyond the minimum requirements, he/she >should be encouraged in such ventures. But most of them DON'T want to >be taught, and DON'T want to learn! You obviously attended very >exceptional schools, if your classmates didn't, for the most part, >feel that way. As it happens, I did attend unusual schools, but that's besides the point. I don't see why only exceptional students should be allowed to choose between electives. I think it's important to do some custom fitting for all students. Just because, as you say, some students don't want to learn, it doesn't mean that they should have a fixed curriculum jammed down their throats. >I remember, painfully, my immature years in my early teens, and some >of the things I did in those days. If I'd had total charge of my life >and education, I'd have screwed up even worse than I did. Childhood >and adolescence, by definition, mean that you don't have adequate >information to make an informed decision. Believe it or not, a >substantial portion of the population isn't the sort of self-directed >high achiever that you proclaim yourself to be. >...How are the kids going to have enough >information to make an informed decision about their education? Wait, who's talking about total charge of education? I just think that students should have *SOME* control over, at the very least, the curriculum. And, to respond to the broad comments made by the original poster, I think that high achievers should have control over how they are taught, too, since they actually care. Besides, I don't think that administrators are making any better decisions right now than even the least intelligent student would make if the system were shifted so that students had more control over curriculum. In other words, I think they're at worse than chance. Which means they aren't just doing a bad job, they're being actively stupid. >[description of tv abuse] While I agree that many people in a sense abuse television (i.e. use it as a drug), I think that what was objectionable in the original posting was the idea that the television was the cause of the problem. I don't think that's the case. I think it just makes it easier for the problem to develop. I have a television, and I don't have to lock it in the closet to prevent myself from turning into a vegetable. In addition, the original poster made strong suggestions that the only acceptable use of television was for traditional and conventionally accepted cultural spectacles. The example was the nutcracker, but I assume it generalizes (to taste) to things like operas, documentaries about the holocaust (not mini-series), and on rare occasions political events. -Dan
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (12/17/88)
In article <18412@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> c60a-2by@web-2a.berkeley.edu (Oliver Juang) writes: >Unfortunately, although I agree with the idea of segregating the "dead >weight" from the "geniuses", there are quite a few problems with making this >happen effectively in real life. Especially with regards as to which people >are "dead weight", or "geniuses". How do you propose to distinguish them? >Their grades? (what if a previous teacher graded unfairly) >IQ tests? (I'm sure IQ test have been discussed before on this newsgroup, >but I'm new to it) >Finances of parents? >Nationality? >The letter their name begins with? I agree somewhat, but I think that even if some are left behind unfairly, it's better to give some people the advantage of the sort of education they deserve than to not give it to anyone because you can't give it to everyone. Of course the problem is that the two types of errors (advancing dead weight and holding back geniuses) may outweigh the hits and correct rejections. But I don't think so. I think the real problem is that to some extent, having high aptitude students skip a grade or whatever isn't going to solve the problem. They'll still be higher aptitude, they'll just have a little more material to make up. They need faster paced learning, not learning at a higher level. This sort of implies that more wholesale changes would be necessary. -Dan
w-colinp@microsoft.UUCP (Colin Plumb) (12/17/88)
In article <1988Dec16.153701.8316@cs.rochester.edu> yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes: >On the other hand, it is obvious that very young children have an >intense desire to learn (as well as to play). They are always asking >questions, "Why is the sky blue?", "What is thunder?", "What makes the >car go?", etc. The solution is to tap this natural curiousity and >allow the child to pursue these interests wherever they take him or >her. I try to make a point of answering these questions. I remember one time my.. lessee now... stepfather's brother's daughter's son asked me how a T.V. worked. A bit over three hours later, we'd covered rods & cones, additive & subtractive colours (although I really wish I had samples of vyan and magenta), wave theory of light, a bit about flickering and motion blur, and touched on a host of other topics. I found it fun, and I'm told John asked when I'd be around many times the next day. It can be difficult to express it in terms they already understand, but if you're only trying to teach one person, it's pretty easy. >Of course, many older children have already been ruined by the >educational system, and it may be more difficult, if not impossible, >to show them that learning is something that can be done for pleasure >and not just to please teachers/parents or in order to get a job. Learning, I've found, frequently != classes. Certainly, I've learned a good deal, some of it (e.g. French) even useful, but even more just by talking to people and reading whatever came my way. I didn't learn how to parse from my langauge theory course. Consider that you learn an average of 8 words a day (how many words do you know? A thousand days is 3 years) through your teens. Would you attribute this to a class? -- -Colin (uunet!microsof!w-colinp)
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (12/18/88)
The problem with letting students decide what they should study is that
there are those who are not open-minded enough to explore areas that are
suggested to them. My students say, "I like electronics. Why do I have
to take English or a Humanities elective?" I haven't found an answer
that satisfies them because they already aren't interested.
--
Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334
1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800c60a-2by@e260-2b.berkeley.edu (Oliver Juang) (12/18/88)
In article <4936@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes: > >I agree somewhat, but I think that even if some are left behind unfairly, it's >better to give some people the advantage of the sort of education they deserve >than to not give it to anyone because you can't give it to everyone. Of course >the problem is that the two types of errors (advancing dead weight and >holding back geniuses) may outweigh the hits and correct rejections. But I >don't think so. I think the real problem is that to some extent, having >high aptitude students skip a grade or whatever isn't going to solve the >problem. They'll still be higher aptitude, they'll just have a little more >material to make up. They need faster paced learning, not learning at a higher >level. This sort of implies that more wholesale changes would be necessary. > > -Dan I still don't know about segregations, but I definitely am _against_ "skipping" grades. The students may have the aptitude, but what about the emotional maturity? I really don't think a thirteen-year-old should be put in a classroom with eighteen-year-olds. He/she would be eaten alive. No, this is not a hypothetical case, I knew a kid like that in high school. I think "skipping" grades should be based also on emotional/social maturity, not just intellectual. Let me tell you, (oh well, I'm gonna tell you anyway), it is a real pain to have to play games to get into a movie, or a disco, bar, etc. when you are underage and _all_ your friends are not. Also, "learn at your own pace" can have quite a few difficulties in implementation. (yes I went thru that too). What method are you going to use to individualize the instruction each student receives (yes, we can use computers, but I thought we were talking about "public" schools, and many "public" schools can't even afford books). One more argument against "honors" courses. Of course, having your child in an "honors" course is/was a very desirable thing. Twenty years ago they implemented the "honors" program at my high school, with a limit of I think _two_ honors courses to be taken at the same time. Of course, mommy and daddy want their child to be "better" and take more than one honors course. Then the students complain because taking all honors courses means that they have too much homework. The level of instruction in the "honors" courses falls. The requirements become almost non-existent (teacher recommendation or parent "permission" (gee, I think the kid really wants to take the course. I'll let her). So what happens? Now the school is beginning an "Advanced Placement" course/track/whatever. Care to take bets on the quality of that course in a decade or so? End of rambling. Disclaimer: What did I say? I don't know. My views do not necessarily represent those of the University. In fact, the posters on my wall have an entirely different subject. Mail me at c60a-2by@web.berkeley.edu <-- ARPANET?
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (12/19/88)
In article <97@microsoft.UUCP> w-colinp@microsoft.UUCP (Colin Plumb) writes:
=Learning, I've found, frequently != classes.
Dear me! Who ever said that ALL learning takes place through classes?
Certainly, no reputable educator did. There are certain things that
people will need to know (whether they can understand the need at the
time or not), and some of those things are most efficiently learned in a
formal setting. There's no question that bright people can learn lots
of things by themselves. However, most people find that their time is
spent more effectively in the company of a person who understands how to
teach them what they are to learn.
--
Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334
1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) (12/19/88)
In article <499@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: > >The problem with letting students decide what they should study is that >there are those who are not open-minded enough to explore areas that are >suggested to them. My students say, "I like electronics. Why do I have >to take English or a Humanities elective?" I haven't found an answer >that satisfies them because they already aren't interested. > >-- >Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh >Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334 >1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG >Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800 This is true, but is it necessarily a problem? When I was an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon I knew many CS & engineering students who hated humanities and social science. They were forced to take one humanities / social science / fine arts course each semester and the only thing they tended to learn was that they hated it. Personally, I took more than the required number of these courses. I took the courses which looked interesting to me, including courses which had nothing to do with my major (applied math / computer science) -- courses such as Filmmaking I & II and Fiction Writing. If we had been given *more* freedom in selection of courses -- in particular if the number of required math courses were reduced slightly, I probably would have taken courses that were both more diverse (philosophy, music composition) and more specialized (computer vision, advanced AI) and more diverse and more specialized (interactive fiction, computer animation). In my opinion, the most important thing is not that students take the courses that are suggested to them, but that they feel free to take whatever courses interest them. It was amusing that whenever I told other students that I was taking a filmmaking course I would get one of two reactions -- either "Neat!" or "But, but, but you're a computer science major! Why are you taking a film course?" _______________________________________________________________________________ Brian Yamauchi University of Rochester yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu Computer Science Department _______________________________________________________________________________
bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) (12/19/88)
>>The way I see it, a teacher simply cannot conduct a course when >>there are both "geniuses" and "dead weight" in the same classroom. Without getting too deeply into the current discussion, I think I must object to the label "dead weight". They AREN'T "dead weight", they're the ones who learn the most slowly. They're the ones who need the *best* teaching. The "geniuses" may benefit more from good teaching, but they don't need it -- they'll learn without being taught, they'll learn even in the face of active opposition. The academically weak students may grow up to be societal "dead weight". Society needs to teach them as well as possible, as young as possible, precisely to avoid this -- so that they grow up to be useful, contributing members of society, not written-off "dead weight".
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (12/19/88)
In article <499@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >The problem with letting students decide what they should study is that >there are those who are not open-minded enough to explore areas that are >suggested to them. My students say, "I like electronics. Why do I have >to take English or a Humanities elective?" I haven't found an answer >that satisfies them because they already aren't interested. But why not give them a core curriculum supplemented heavily with electives? If this starts at seventh grade, then students will be able to get exposure to many different areas, and still concentrate on the ones that interest them. I think that by the time someone reaches college, they should be able to make most if not all of these decisions themselves. And if by that point, someone still doesn't want to take humanities, then there's no reason they should have to take more than a bare minimum. Your students have either had bad experiences with humanities in the past or are genuinely not interested. It's no use forcing them, because they're already mostly past the point where under normal circumstances they might change their minds. You could also (in principle) follow them around after they've left school, trying to force them to read great literature, but you're past the point of diminishing returns. -Dan
jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) (12/20/88)
I'm sorry, but I can't agree. By that reasoning, the master flute class that I once saw Jean-Pierre Rampal teach should have had me on stage--I can't play the flute worth a hoot--instead of the cream of the crop that was up there with him. Geniuses, after all, can take care of themselves, right? I grew up in schools that seemed to share that notion, and the main thing I learned was how not to study. College was a definite awakening. I hope that schools disabuse themselves of the notion that they don't have to do anything special for the gifted, or can just ignore them in favor of trying to teach the least able. James Jones
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (12/20/88)
In article <4951@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes:
=But why not give them a core curriculum supplemented heavily with electives?
=If this starts at seventh grade, then students will be able to get exposure to
=many different areas, and still concentrate on the ones that interest them.
I agree, but it the decision is not in my hands. Besides, by the 7th
grade, they have already learned to hate what ever school subjects they
will probably hate for the rest of their lives. It's got to start
sooner, with learning encouraged. However, that will require a new kind
of elementary school teacher, and a new kind of salary schedule so that
intellectually-oriented people go into elemenary ed. I doubt whether
many school districts have the resources to support that.
=I think that by the time someone reaches college, they should be able to
=make most if not all of these decisions themselves.
Well, there are lots of "shoulds" that just haven't happened.
--
Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334
1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (12/20/88)
Our rn barfed on trying to reply to this message from Oliver Juang, so I'm responding sort of manually. He writes: > I still don't know about segregations, but I definitely am _against_ >"skipping" grades. The students may have the aptitude, but what about the >emotional maturity? I really don't think a thirteen-year-old should be put >in a classroom with eighteen-year-olds. He/she would be eaten alive. No, >this is not a hypothetical case, I knew a kid like that in high school. I >think "skipping" grades should be based also on emotional/social maturity, >not just intellectual. Let me tell you, (oh well, I'm gonna tell you >anyway), it is a real pain to have to play games to get into a movie, or a >disco, bar, etc. when you are underage and _all_ your friends are not. Look, no one's arguing that there aren't problems with this, and anyone who voluntarily skips 5 grades is either extremely naive, or just plain deserves whatever social difficulties they have. The majority of people who skip grades, I suspect, skip two or fewer. I think the real problem with skipping grades is that first of all, the higher grade won't be taught at a faster pace or a more appropriate intellectual level, just the material will be more advances. So it'll take a little longer to catch up, and then there will be all the same problems over again. And in addition, skipping grades implies a sort of package deal, where a grade is skipped in all classes. Just because someone is a high achiever in one area, it doesn't necessarily mean it's the best thing for them to skip a year of every subject. I don't have any really brilliant ideas about what the best compromise would be, but I don't think the right thing is to force people to sit through years of "education" that isn't really educating them. > One more argument against "honors" courses. Of course, having your >child in an "honors" course is/was a very desirable thing. Twenty years ago >they implemented the "honors" program at my high school, with a limit of I >think _two_ honors courses to be taken at the same time. Of course, >mommy and daddy want their child to be "better" and take more than one >honors course. Then the students complain because taking all honors courses >means that they have too much homework. The level of instruction in the >"honors" courses falls. The requirements become almost non-existent >(teacher recommendation or parent "permission" (gee, I think the kid really >wants to take the course. I'll let her). So what happens? Now the school >is beginning an "Advanced Placement" course/track/whatever. Care to take >bets on the quality of that course in a decade or so? This is a problem with parents and schools and administrators, not with honors courses. The problems you mention are due to two things, as I see it: 1) people are in these courses who don't belong there, due to parental and administrative screw-ups; and 2) these courses are being taught like shit, because the teachers apperently feel that higher level material must mean more work for the students. If things were being done right, students would be there because they were smart enough, not because they whined enough, and the courses would correspondingly be taught at a higher level, with the same or comparable amount of work. -Dan
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (12/20/88)
in article <15895@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) says: >>>The way I see it, a teacher simply cannot conduct a course when >>>there are both "geniuses" and "dead weight" in the same classroom. > the ones who learn the most slowly. They're the ones who need the > *best* teaching. The "geniuses" may benefit more from good teaching, > but they don't need it -- they'll learn without being taught, they'll > learn even in the face of active opposition. BULLSH*T. The more intelligent students may be capable of learning on their own, but they very much still need to be taught. The content of teaching however, can be much different when you have intelligent motivated students. Such students are capable of learning the details on their own; they need FRAMEWORK, a "overview" if you will, of where a topic fits in the subject, its relative importance, things of those sort. Whereas with people who are not motivated, or who have difficulty learning, the teacher MUST spend time going over the details, making sure that they understand everything necessary to go on to the next level. The end result is that in a class where the two are mixed, either concepts pass over the head of the poorer students, or the better ones are bored and frustrated. As for the "they'll learn without being taught, they'll learn even in the face of active opposition", then why haven't we had a black Nobel Prize winner in Physics? Are you saying it's because blacks are inherently stupid? I think it's obvious, myself -- blacks traditionally have faced active opposition to education, and have been taught very poorly or not at all. Bright students, average students, and poor achievers all have different needs, and all require different teaching styles. Putting all three together in the same classroom is a recipe for disaster. -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 Netter A: In Hell they run VMS. Netter B: No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (12/20/88)
In article <877@mcrware.UUCP>, jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) writes: < I'm sorry, but I can't agree. By that reasoning, the master flute class that < I once saw Jean-Pierre Rampal teach should have had me on stage--I can't play < the flute worth a hoot--instead of the cream of the crop that was up there < with him. Geniuses, after all, can take care of themselves, right? > I grew up in schools that seemed to share that notion, and the main thing I > learned was how not to study. College was a definite awakening. > > I hope that schools disabuse themselves of the notion that they don't have > to do anything special for the gifted, or can just ignore them in favor of > trying to teach the least able. If they cannot do something for the gifted, and many of them are in this position, at least get them out of the class and provide an opportunity for them to study by themselves. Possibly in the humanities, the so-called enrichment programs make sense (but I doubt it); in mathematics and the sciences, only advancement at a very rapid pace makes any sense. But even doing nothing but getting them out of the stupid classes is better than what is being done now. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (12/20/88)
In article <15895@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante) writes: >>>The way I see it, a teacher simply cannot conduct a course when >>>there are both "geniuses" and "dead weight" in the same classroom. >Without getting too deeply into the current discussion, I think I must >object to the label "dead weight". They AREN'T "dead weight", they're >the ones who learn the most slowly. They're the ones who need the >*best* teaching. The "geniuses" may benefit more from good teaching, >but they don't need it -- they'll learn without being taught, they'll >learn even in the face of active opposition. I agree completely! Bright students are a pleasure to teach. They generally are interested in the course and ask challenging questions. They do not just sit there and stare at you, waiting for words of wisdom. But it is the not so bright students who are the real challenge of teaching. If you can reach them and show them the path to improvement, then and only then are you *really* a teacher. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826
shankar@src.honeywell.COM (Son of Knuth) (12/21/88)
In article <4956@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes: >Look, no one's arguing that there aren't problems with this, and anyone who >voluntarily skips 5 grades is either extremely naive, or just plain deserves >whatever social difficulties they have. The majority of people who skip >grades, I suspect, skip two or fewer. The majority of skipped grades are at the elementary school level, and the kids typically have minimal (if any) involvement in deciding whether to skip a grade or not at this age. Even if the kids were involved in the decision, a 7 year old is hardly able to make a decent decision.
nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber) (12/21/88)
[followups to comp.edu] In article <502@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >However, most people find that their time is >spent more effectively in the company of a person who understands how to >teach them what they are to learn. Yes, but the intersection of those people and my college professors yields a very small set indeed! Professors are not usually hired based on their teaching ability; they are hired on their research ability. Assuming that their job is *teaching*, what is their degree in? Usually in the field that they are going to teach. It is like hiring a mechanic to design an auto factory, or a librarian as a head publisher (this is not intended as a put-down of mechanics or librarians; I'm just trying to point out that the job is mismatched.). Seems absurd, doesn't it? It is not even a necessary condition, let alone a sufficient condition, to know the material in order to teach it. If you look at professional videotapes made for teaching, you will notice that most of the good ones have actors, not professors, doing the teaching (you can usually tell the difference on technical terms). -- NEVIN ":-)" LIBER AT&T Bell Laboratories nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (312) 979-4751
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (12/21/88)
In article <9238@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: >It is not even a necessary condition, let alone a sufficient condition, >to know the material in order to teach it. If you look at professional >videotapes made for teaching, you will notice that most of the good >ones have actors, not professors, doing the teaching (you can usually >tell the difference on technical terms). It sounds to me like you've confused teaching with lecturing, and even then I think you're on shaky ground. Actors can't answer questions about the material, find alternate ways to describe tricky concepts, address specific student problems, etc. And as lecturers, unless they have someone around who actually knows the material, they won't know how to pronounce certain phrases, or how to do whatever it is that good lecturers do with intonation and hand gestures (or whatever) to imply things like causal relationships, etc. I've been to plenty of lectures that I know no actor could reasonably be expected to give without significant familiarity with the material. -Dan
bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) (12/21/88)
It appears I overstated my feelings, and (so far) two people have picked up on the throwaway and ignored my real thesis. I certainly do not advocate ignoring bright children. By all means give them the best teaching possible. (I can even speak from experience; I had both extremes in grade school and high school, and I like the good teaching a lot more.) But the not-so-bright child IS _NOT_ DEAD WOOD!!!!! Quite aside from the ethical implications of branding somebody at such an early stage, what I was trying to say was that we harm ourselves, as a (technological) society, by ignoring and trashing these people with such an attitude. I heartily agree that different kinds of teaching are required for different kinds of students. But when you call someone "deadwood" you imply that the appropriate teaching for this student is nothing more than daycare. When such a student is treated this way, you end up with an adult that will always need daycare. U.S. industry isn't suffering because its scientists are second-rate -- it's in trouble because its blue-collar workers can't keep up with the technology they should be using. -- -- bob, mon (bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu) -- RAMontante, Computer Science Dept., Indiana University, Bloomington -- "In this position, the skier is flying in a complete stall..."
bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) (12/22/88)
In article <9238@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: >[followups to comp.edu] > >In article <502@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: > >>However, most people find that their time is >>spent more effectively in the company of a person who understands how to >>teach them what they are to learn. > [...] >It is not even a necessary condition, let alone a sufficient condition, >to know the material in order to teach it. If you look at professional >videotapes made for teaching, you will notice that most of the good >ones have actors, not professors, doing the teaching (you can usually >tell the difference on technical terms). You can tell in a more obvious way. One never asks questions of a videotape (except the ones my boss shows in his classes, and then he's standing there to answer), and the information being taught in higher-level courses changes almost too rapidly for the professors who have the degrees and can understand how the new information changes the interpretation of all the old information. The depth of understanding of the person who answers the questions is proportional (I daresay more than directly, more like exponentially) to the resultant understanding of the person who asks them. Ob. Physics Lecture: There are millions of good souls in the primary schools of this nation who teach and truly believe that Ben Franklin discovered electricity. I can't advocate replacing them all with physicists, but could they all handle the change in their teaching of the subject in the way a physicist would? --Blair "And I bet it's AFTRA rules that keep the professors out of the videotapes."
nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber) (12/22/88)
In article <4992@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes: >In article <9238@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: >>It is not even a necessary condition, let alone a sufficient condition, >>to know the material in order to teach it. If you look at professional >>videotapes made for teaching, you will notice that most of the good >>ones have actors, not professors, doing the teaching (you can usually >>tell the difference on technical terms). >It sounds to me like you've confused teaching with lecturing, I think you are right. Unfortunately, that experience comes from being stuck with many professors who lecture, not teach. And this is from a "we are rated in the top five" university. >Actors can't answer questions about the material, Neither could many of my professors. >[other stuff that good teachers/lecturers do deleted] I agree with you that there is no substitute for a great teacher (or a great lecturer, for the matter). Unfortunately, most of my college professors failed to meet these criterion. Maybe I got more than my fair share of bad teachers (I don't think so, though. Many of my friends around the country feel the same way); I don't know. It got to the point where I was picking electives based on who was teaching the course and not based on the subject, because I got tired of wasting my time (I tried to take my best professors more than once). By senior year undergrad, I kept wishing that they would publish the list of the bottom 25% of the teachers than the top 25%, because I really wanted to know who to AVOID. If full-time grad school is anything like this, it isn't worth it. There are much better ways to get a better education. There are very few schools that still want to teach people, and the intersection of those schools and the "top ten" schools is very close to the empty set. Sorry for the rambling, -- NEVIN ":-)" LIBER AT&T Bell Laboratories nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (312) 979-4751
dc@gcm (Dave Caswell) (12/22/88)
> the ones who learn the most slowly. They're the ones who need the > *best* teaching. The "geniuses" may benefit more from good teaching, > but they don't need it -- they'll learn without being taught, they'll > learn even in the face of active opposition. That is an interesting comment. Personally I haven't noticed any great correlation between intelligence and motivation. Some of the smartest students haven't accomplished a thing and wouldn't study if you forced them. On the other hand, people who have just average intelligence sometimes study and do very well. -- Dave Caswell Greenwich Capital Markets uunet!philabs!gcm!dc
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (12/22/88)
In article <9249@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: >In article <4992@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes: >>>[original quotation] >>It sounds to me like you've confused teaching with lecturing, > >I think you are right. Unfortunately, that experience comes from being >stuck with many professors who lecture, not teach. And this is from a >"we are rated in the top five" university. > >>Actors can't answer questions about the material, > >Neither could many of my professors. Whoa! I certainly hope your school isn't rated in the top five for long, if the professors can't answer questions about the material! Well, then again, I should qualify this. I count "I don't know" and "let me ask someone about that" as legitimate answers. I hope the point you're making is just that the professors were lousy teachers, not that they didn't know the material. But then again, as I've said in other postings, I don't think that professors should always be expected to know everything about everything, even if it is part of the course material. It's often impossible, as in survey or introductory courses. >I agree with you that there is no substitute for a great teacher (or >a great lecturer, for the matter). Unfortunately, most of my college >professors failed to meet these criterion. Maybe I got more than my >fair share of bad teachers (I don't think so, though. Many of my >friends around the country feel the same way); I don't know. It got to >the point where I was picking electives based on who was teaching the >course and not based on the subject, because I got tired of wasting my >time (I tried to take my best professors more than once). By senior >year undergrad, I kept wishing that they would publish the list of the >bottom 25% of the teachers than the top 25%, because I really wanted >to know who to AVOID. I don't know, I think that a good teacher is a good thing to have, and it's definitely true that a bad teacher can hamper learning (or that a good teacher can improve it, whatever). But there are other factors that I think go into learning. The quality of the other students, the size of the course, and the quality of the readings come to mind as important factors. Well, the last one is really covered under teaching, but... One professor I've had teach several if my courses, I've noticed, varies from terrible to fantastic depending on these factors. This isn't just day-to-day fluctuation, this is entire semester observations. I guess that incompetent teaching is a problem, but some teachers are, you might say, driven to incompetence by external factors. I've had extremely good luck, I think, in getting good teaching and advising. Now while it is probably true that princeton is exceptional among big name schools in terms of attention to education (despite the fact that many princeton undergrads might dispute this, I think it is certainly true), I've noticed another factor that I think is telling. I'm in a very small department. Many of my courses have been seminar sized (10-20) or smaller. The students taking the courses have been taking them not usually to fulfil requirements (or they would be much more crowded) or anything like that, but rather because they're interested. This is probably not as true in other departments, where I'm sure it's much more common to find people from unrelated areas taking upper level courses. I don't think the result of getting good teaching is just luck. While I'm sure that natural teaching ability is rare and to be valued, I think that a lot of the problem lies in these uncontrollable external factors such as class size and the interest of the students. [note that the preceding has been a caricature to some extent - I don't want to offend anyone in popular departments] -Dan
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (12/22/88)
in article <15954@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) says: > U.S. industry isn't suffering because its scientists are second-rate -- > it's in trouble because its blue-collar workers can't keep up with the > technology they should be using. I tend to disagree. Blue-collar workers in, say, Taiwan, recieve little more training than our average U.S. high school graduate, academic-wise. They're tested in the 7th grade or so for entry into the upper level, and if they don't pass, they're placed in a technical school to teach them a skill instead of placed on the high track. You might draw the conclusion that the U.S. needs a better system of technical schools for teaching blue-collar skills, but that's another issue altogether. U.S. industry is more likely in trouble because of management short-sightedness, and modern takeover wizards who turn investment in modernization into debt on leverage buyouts. Not to mention business and engineering schools which fail to mention that businesses are in business to BUILD things, not just to "manage personel" or "create moby hacks"... good production engineering, commonplace in Japan, is a rarity here. True, U.S. industry isn't suffering because its scientists are second-rate. But that's just because it imports its scientists from overseas, just like its VCRs and color TVs. -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 Netter A: In Hell they run VMS. Netter B: No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.
duncan@geppetto.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) (12/22/88)
In article <9249@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: >In article <4992@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes: >>In article <9238@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: [discussion of videotaped instruction, lecturing vs 'teaching', and answering questions] If we agree that there are few good lecturers and question answerers around, I suggest that the viedotape technology may be one way to address the problem. A good videotape could substitute for lecturing very nicely and would alleviate a good deal of the effort many instructors face in preparing such lectures. The tape could be accompanied by a person present to pause the tape and answer the questions which may arise. I have watched some TV educational shows. Some have been very boring, but others have been taught by people who were VERY good. Indeed the possibilities with a good videotape are impressive, bringing to bear much valuable A-V tech- nology that an individual teacher would be hard-pressed to do live. Perhaps it is time American education take advantage of the excellence around us by capturing more of it on film/video. Much needs to be conveyed by lec- ture, so why not use the best lecture technology available and concentrate the effort on improving the question-answering ability and classroom technique of those who do teach? Speaking only for myself, of course, I am... Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan) (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ 08854) (201-699-3910 (w) 201-463-3683 (h))
brianm@sco.COM (Brian Moffet) (12/23/88)
In article <6498@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes:
-in article <15895@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) says:
->>>The way I see it, a teacher simply cannot conduct a course when
->>>there are both "geniuses" and "dead weight" in the same classroom.
-
-level. The end result is that in a class where the two are mixed,
-either concepts pass over the head of the poorer students, or the
-better ones are bored and frustrated.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is very important. Many really intelligent people
have a common learning disability of "short attention span"
because they were bored. Until these people find something
they are really interested in, they have a hard time learning
it (if it is not trivial).
brian moffet
--
Brian Moffet {uunet,decvax!microsoft,ucscc}!sco!brianm
-or- ...sco!alar!brian
"Evil Geniuses for a better tomorrow!" My fish and company have policies.
I have opinions.pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (12/23/88)
In article <5186@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: =In article <15895@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante) writes: =>>>The way I see it, a teacher simply cannot conduct a course when =>>>there are both "geniuses" and "dead weight" in the same classroom. = =>Without getting too deeply into the current discussion, I think I must =>object to the label "dead weight". They AREN'T "dead weight", they're =>the ones who learn the most slowly. They're the ones who need the =>*best* teaching. = [some stuff omitted] =But it is the not so bright students who are the real challenge of teaching. =If you can reach them and show them the path to improvement, then and only =then are you *really* a teacher. Forgive me for injecting my favorite personal anecdote about teaching and learning, but having been a practitioner for 30 years and a seeker for even more, I have a view on teaching and learning that I want to share with you. When I was a graduate student at (large eastern state university), I was required to pass a reading exam in each of two foreign languages. French was a snap (after all, I had a year of French in high school!), but when it came to German, I decided to sign up for the grad student reading course. After about 6 weeks, I was so confused that I could no longer identify nouns! So I dropped it. About a year later, my dissertation adviser started to make noises about the German exam, so I signed up for the same course with the same instructor, fearing a repeat of the previous year's debacle. Well, I was finished after 6 weeks but this time it was with a paper that said "distinguished translation!!". I have no idea ho wthe transistion from "dummy" to "genius" took place, but it did. Since that time, I've discussed this with a number of psychologists, and the concensus is "readiness": if Johnny is "ready" to learn, Johnny will learn. And the converse is true. The first course I ever taught (I was a GTA at the time) was called "Holsberg's mystery hour" by the students. Ten years later, my course ratings were so high as to embarrass me. A fellow from an exclusive provate school called me "the best he's ever seen". But, I have always wondered if my students actually learned any better with me than with someone else. I doubt if I ruined the careers of those sophs who took EM Theory with me, and I doubt if the guy with the praise knows a lot more about analog computers than someone in another instructor's course. So, here's my philosophy of teaching: 1. Don't get in the way. Let learners learn; don't turn them off; don't put obstacles -- physical or psychological -- in their way. 2. Help those who want help, but don't get discouraged if it doesn't take. 3. Try to get those who are having trouble but who don't want help to get motivated. But remember that they are probably just not ready. Sorry to take up so much space. I hope someone gets something from this posting. Happy holidays, Pete -- Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334 1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800
mrk@wuphys.UUCP (Mark R. Kaufmann) (12/23/88)
In article <15895@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante) writes: >In article <somewhere, sometime> I write: >>The way I see it, a teacher simply cannot conduct a course when >>there are both "geniuses" and "dead weight" in the same classroom. > >Without getting too deeply into the current discussion, I think I must >object to the label "dead weight". They AREN'T "dead weight", they're >the ones who learn the most slowly. They're the ones who need the >*best* teaching. I must insist that there were many children (I shouldn't use the word "students"--I would be insulting anyone who has ever been interested in learning anything) in all of the required "core" classes and almost all of the introductory-level elective classes at my "modern, high-quality" suburban public high "school" (and elementary "school") which were indeed nothing more than dead weight in the classroom. I am not speaking of children who are willing to learn but are not particularly able, but rather of children who, for whatever reasons, are NOT WILLING to learn, regardless of whether or not they are able. In my experience, their ONLY contributions to the classroom were negative, in the form of disrupting it with their behavior. Only at the level of ADVANCED elective courses were the true students actually schooled in a reasonably effective manner, because there was no longer any dead weight to hold the class back. >The "geniuses" may benefit more from good teaching, >but they don't need it -- they'll learn without being taught, they'll >learn even in the face of active opposition. Here is where I disagree most strongly. It is just one more case of the deserving paying penalties for the non-deserving, while the non-deserving are treated to a country club, thereby reinforcing their behavior. If I'm not mistaken, you are essentially stating that an intelligent child whose parents do not possess the wealth to send him or her to a finer private school should not enjoy the privilege (or is it a right?) of being educated at anything approaching his or her own level. The bright students should be dumped into the gutter and forgotten while our tax-supported schools try to resurrect children who are already YEARS behind in their studies and make worthwhile, contributing individuals (maybe even Nobel laureates :-) ) out of them. Horseshit. The "geniuses" may not be the ones who NEED teaching the most, but clearly they are the ones who DESERVE it the most, and clearly they will be the ones who will CONTRIBUTE the most if they are ever allowed to receive it! >The academically weak students may grow up to be societal "dead weight".... To clarify again, my biggest concern is not academically weak students, but rather totally incorrigible individuals who refuse to be taught anything, anytime. Of COURSE any student who is willing to learn should have all the help it is possible to give, within realistic constraints. The best way to do that, as I see it, is to group the children according to their ability to learn, as perceived in kindergarten or first grade. In the public elementary school I attended, there were enough students to fill four classrooms, and there were four levels from brightest to slowest. Sure, even then, not every student gets the attention he should receive in an IDEAL situation, but it sure seems better than lumping all children together without any regard to their abilities or willingnesses to learn (much as one's stomach churns up its contents without regard to their characteristics). If some errors are made in placement, then some students may be short-changed. Should avoiding this possibility be so important that no bright students are educated at a speed reasonably close to their level? (No!) And of course, such placements should be flexible--a child could move up or down as the individual circumstances warranted. Someone mentioned the fact that he experienced peer pressures NOT to do well in school. Whew, was that ever the case during most of my public school education! I was looked upon as some kind of undesirable freak, not only by peers, but also by some "teachers"! With bright students separated out, I think this problem would disappear. As far as the absolutely incorrigible individuals who positively refuse to behave in such a manner as to facilitate any learning at all (or don't you believe that such a person can exist?), I think they should literally be placed into a playroom, and not one additional dollar of public resources should be wasted on them. (For that matter, contracting out to a commercial day-care center may actually be cheaper than the present attempts to teach them something.) >Society needs to teach them as well as possible, as young as possible, >precisely to avoid this--so that they grow up to be useful, >contributing members of society, not written-off "dead weight". Well, if you substitute the word "Individuals" for the word "Society" then I agree 100%. ("Society" can never do anything to anyone. Only individuals can. I'm being picky, I guess.) Just segregate from them the students who can and will learn faster. My whole point is, it seems ludicrous to allow children who are unwilling to learn to hinder or actually drag down those who are willing to learn (and worse, those who are both able and willing to learn quickly); yet, it seems to be the standard procedure! And then some people wonder why even brighter students aren't motivated, aren't prepared for college, etc.! Sorry this has been so long. It didn't start out that way. NOTE the "followup-to" line (comp.edu only)! ======================================= Mark R. Kaufmann UUCP: ...!uunet!wucs1!wucfua!wuphys!mrk wuphys!mrk@uunet.uu.net Internet: mrk@wuphys.wustl.edu =======================================
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (12/23/88)
In article <9238@ihlpb.ATT.COM>, nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber) writes: > In article <502@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: > > >However, most people find that their time is > >spent more effectively in the company of a person who understands how to > >teach them what they are to learn. > > Yes, but the intersection of those people and my college professors > yields a very small set indeed! Professors are not usually hired based > on their teaching ability; they are hired on their research ability. Teaching should be done by those who UNDERSTAND the subject. Generally researchers have such understanding, else they would not be able to do research. It is possible to have scholars who are not very good at research who have such understanding. Unfortunately, it is rare. Teaching means presenting the WHY, not the HOW. It is very difficult to teach the why to students who are not research caliber who already know the how. It is harder than if they had not been taught the mechanics. At least this is the situation in mathematics and statistics, and from my student days, in other fields as well. ...................... > It is not even a necessary condition, let alone a sufficient condition, > to know the material in order to teach it. If you look at professional > videotapes made for teaching, you will notice that most of the good > ones have actors, not professors, doing the teaching (you can usually > tell the difference on technical terms). Baloney. It is not sufficient, agreed. But an actor can only present what the professor explicitly includes. A lecture is one of the worst ways of teaching; many give the same lectures time after time. If that is what they do, videotape it the first time and replay it; and an actor can do it better. A lecture has been defined as material going from the lecturer's notes to the auditors' notes, without passing through the minds of either. I once made the mistake of asking a question with such a lecturer. He could not teach, he could only present. Too many students want such garbage. We should not oblige them. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)
marek@ucrmath.EDU (Marek Chrobak) (12/26/88)
In article <1077@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: > >Teaching means presenting the WHY, not the HOW. It is very difficult to teach >the why to students who are not research caliber who already know the how. >A lecture has been defined as material going from the lecturer's notes to >the auditors' notes, without passing through the minds of either. I once >made the mistake of asking a question with such a lecturer. He could not >teach, he could only present. Too many students want such garbage. We >should not oblige them. >-- >Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 How true and how sad. I have once tried to do something with this habit of "xeroxing" a lecture, by following very closely a textbook, so that the students do not have to take too much notes, and may have more time to think in class. Once they noted that I follow the book, half of them stopped to come to class at all. In the other half this xeroxing habit was yet stronger than I thought, they were still copying every word I said. What I find quite irritiating, is when the students at the beginning of a course, ask whether I will do proofs. I remember the first time it happened to me, I simply did not understand the question. How can one teach math without proofs at all? Mathematics is more in proofs than theorems. But what the math education here seems to accomplish is to reverse this completely. Math is taught as a set of magic rules, which have to be followed with precision and veneration. Of course, this is all "true", because the professors say so. And it's in the book, anyway. They would not lie in print would they? The students know that the proofs, these scary complicated things, exist somewhere but they are just some technical and messy explanations of what everybody knows anyway, so why to bother at all. They not just don't understand the proofs, they do not even feel the NEED of a proof. In Herman's terms, the question WHY does not cross their mind. They just want to know HOW. It would be silly to blame the students for this. This is the way they have been taught in school, it's no wonder this is what they expect from college. My daughter is in the second grade now. All math she has been taught so far is addition and subtraction, for numbers smaller than 100 of course. This is already a year and a half of addition and subtraction. She is studying also from second-grade textbooks we received from Poland. At her age children there have already some understanding of elementary notions in set theory: sets and operations on sets. In the second grade, they are already taugth solving linear equations. Arithmetic is taught on a way, it's derived, in a way, from sets, and is regarded rather as a necessary tool, not the goal. Every exercise in a book is a real pearl, requires a little bit of thinking, just enough for a kid, but also enough to live a trace and teach something. And still, this is all entertaining enough, so that even if it's not really fun, it's surely less boring that hundreds of additions and subtractions. I wonder what will they cover in her school later this year, will they teach numbers greater than 100, or start multiplication? Marek
bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) (12/27/88)
I don't really want to keep this up, but... First of all, let me say that I have been thinking more of elementary school students than college students. By the time they're in college, I assume they're there because they've decided they want to be educated (not always correct, I realize). Second, Mark Kaufmann reads his straw men into what I write... > [...] >If I'm not mistaken, you are essentially stating that an intelligent >child whose parents do not possess the wealth to send him or her to >a finer private school should not enjoy the privilege (or is it a right?) >of being educated at anything approaching his or her own level. GADS! NO! You are utterly mistaken. >The bright students should be dumped into the gutter and forgotten >while our tax-supported schools try to resurrect children who are >already YEARS behind in their studies and make worthwhile, contributing >individuals (maybe even Nobel laureates :-) ) out of them. I'm not talking about Nobel laureates, nor am I trying to dump anybody (ANYBODY!) into the gutter. Since we as a society have decided to send all the children to school, we as a society ought to do it right. Adults who can't read are enough trouble; adults who actively resent anyone who can lead to a permanently burdensome "lower class" and a next generation that won't want to read either. An under-educated bright student may be more of a lost opportunity, but she or he is also a lot less of a drain on society as an adult. (N.B. I talk about "society" educating students because the U.S. educational system is mostly the work of groups, generally trying to represent what they perceive as the will of their community.) >Horseshit. You said it -- all of it. Not me. None of what I said was meant to imply that good students should receive any less than the best education they can, which is certainly a very different education from what weak students need. But we sow the seeds of our own destruction if we assume that the weak students should be written off as "dead weight" and dumped in the gutter just because they'll nver be Nobel laureates. Quite aside from their putative worth as human beings, they are part of our society, and likely to become part of the most troublesome part of our society; the earlier and better we deal with them, the less troublesome they will be. (I also happen to think they have some innate rights as human beings, but I'm not prepared to defend that attitude in this forum.) I had a few years of good schooling (and they were a joy, and they included some time in a public system), and some years of miserable schooling. I might be a much better person if my high school had taught me something, but I'm not a drain on society, and my freshman classmate who couldn't multiply but could and did get pregnant did add to the welfare rolls. I survived high school and went to college anyway. She didn't survive grade school in any useful sense. >Sorry this has been so long. It didn't start out that way. Ditto. I just wanted to take some words back out of my mouth that I didn't put there originally. -- -- bob, mon (bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu) -- RAMontante, Computer Science Dept., Indiana University, Bloomington -- "In this position, the skier is flying in a complete stall..."
dph@faline.bellcore.com (Daniel P. Heyman) (12/29/88)
In article <605@ucrmath.EDU>, marek@ucrmath.EDU (Marek Chrobak) writes: > In article <1077@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: > > > >Teaching means presenting the WHY, not the HOW. It is very difficult to teach > >the why to students who are not research caliber who already know the how. > > > How true and how sad. I have once tried to do something with > this habit of "xeroxing" a lecture, by following very closely > a textbook, so that the students do not have to take too > much notes, and may have more time to think in class. Once they > noted that I follow the book, half of them stopped to come to > class at all. In the other half this xeroxing habit was yet > stronger than I thought, they were still copying every word > I said. > My advisor in graduate school tried handing out lecture notes prior to giving the lecture. He told the students they had notes of everything we was going to write on the board, so they should concentrate on the why and not the how, and to stop him if they didn't understand the why of a step. After a few classes he became completley frustrated when he looked up and saw everyone ( I was not in this class) copying from the board. He gave up before the term was over. I tried the same thing with preprints of a book I was writing. The results were about the same. My theory is that students got used to taking notes, got good grades by doing so, and won't change something they don't regard as broke. Another aspect is: copying is easy, thinking about what's going on is hard, and one takes the path of least resistance. My way of taking notes was to write down the theorem and key steps in the proof, with comments on the why of certain steps. For homework I would fill in the manipulations; I usually felt that I understood the proof because I did it myself with hints from class. Dan Heyman ...!bellcore!dph
wendyt@pyrps5 (Wendy Thrash) (12/29/88)
In article <2141@faline.bellcore.com> dph@faline.bellcore.com (Daniel P. Heyman) writes: >My advisor in graduate school tried handing out lecture notes >prior to giving the lecture. He told the students they had notes >of everything we was going to write on the board, so they should >concentrate on the why and not the how, and to stop him if they >didn't understand the why of a step. After a few classes he became >completley frustrated when he looked up and saw everyone ( I was >not in this class) copying from the board. He gave up before >the term was over. Taking notes during class need not be a rote activity. I have found over the years that I learn much more when I take notes, even if I never look at the notes again. I do not, mind you, merely copy down what is said or written by the instructor, but do some editing in the process, correcting his/her mistakes, etc. I appreciate the discipline of note-taking; it's just too easy to space out otherwise. A professor who can't accept that this is the way I learn is perhaps a bit too wise for his/her students' good.
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (12/29/88)
in article <605@ucrmath.EDU>, marek@ucrmath.EDU (Marek Chrobak) says: > Xref: killer comp.edu:1858 sci.math:5231 sci.physics:5475 > a proof. In Herman's terms, the question WHY does not cross > their mind. They just want to know HOW. > > It would be silly to blame the students for this. This is the > way they have been taught in school, it's no wonder this is > what they expect from college. [ describes Polish elementary school math curriculum, where they start at the bottom, with sets, and go on up from there] Sounds like you're blaming the teachers. You shouldn't. They're doing the best they can, with what little knowledge they have. Blame college curriculums which do not include any "Basics of Mathematics" courses, only tons of courses in equation manipulation (Algebra, Trig, and sometimes Calculus if they're preparing for a career in science education). I have always been uncomfortable with "black boxes", the kind of kid who tore apart alarm clocks and lawnmower engines to see how they worked, but whenever I asked my elementary teachers "why", all they could do is shrug and say "because the book says so." > this is all entertaining enough, so that even if it's > not really fun, it's surely less boring that hundreds of additions > and subtractions. I wonder what will they cover in her school later > this year, will they teach numbers greater than 100, or start > multiplication? They should start teaching her basic multiplication at the end of the 2nd grade, if her curriculum is anywhere near the one I endured. Then, during the 3rd grade, they'll make her memorize the multiplication table, and work yet more arithmetic problems. In the fourth grade they'll introduce division, and "fractions".... Is it any wonder why your typical bright and impatient student hates "math"? It's BORING! -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 Netter A: In Hell they run VMS. Netter B: No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (12/29/88)
in article <2141@faline.bellcore.com>, dph@faline.bellcore.com (Daniel P. Heyman) says: >> In article <1077@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: >> > >> >Teaching means presenting the WHY, not the HOW. It is very difficult to teach >> >the why to students who are not research caliber who already know the how. > The results were about the same. My theory is that students got > used to taking notes, got good grades by doing so, and won't change > something they don't regard as broke. Another aspect is: copying is > easy, thinking about what's going on is hard, and one takes the path > of least resistance. More probably, the students didn't trust the instructor to keep to his word (about the "why" part, that is). The majority of instructors at the freshman and sophomore levels in college give tests that are basically fancy games of Trivial Pursuit. If you understand the principles, but don't memorize the correct trivia (equations, etc.), you don't get the grade. So students get in the habit of taking notes, basically an aid for memorizing the trivia. Even when you give out lecture notes, they'll still scribble in their notebook... after all, they're not doing it for informational purposes, they're doing it as a method of rote memorization of trivia. It has nothing to do with whether or not the student wants to think about the subject matter of the course. In practice, I've found that the people who DON'T think about the subject matter get lousy grades no matter what they do on the memorization front (because they don't have a framework for applying their aquired trivia). On the other hand, the converse sometimes occurs... people not memorizing the right trivia for an exam, and getting lousy grades... which is why many students are fanatical about memorizing trivia, because it seems to be the only way to make a good grade in college (maybe Mr. Rubin et. al. dispute that, but possibly that's because they're rather exceptional individuals... some people remember important trivia rather easily, without making any heroic efforts, but most don't). > My way of taking notes was to write down the theorem and key steps > in the proof, with comments on the why of certain steps. For homework > I would fill in the manipulations; I usually felt that I understood > the proof because I did it myself with hints from class. Looking back at my college career, I have a number of regrets, a major one among them that I never did reach critical mass in mathematics. It was always a rather difficult subject for me, mostly because for the most part I was thrashing about in murky waters with no idea of the relevance of what was on the test to mathematics as a whole. I wish I'd had a class that dealt with the fundamentals of mathematics, with the "why" of how the whole thing works... a possible format would be as a sort of "math history" course, about how the various branches of modern mathematics came into existence, e.g. how XYZ was trying to solve ABC problems mathematically and came up with branch I of mathematics, by saying "gee, what if I did this?"... Again, it's Mr. Rubin's "why" vs "how" dichotomy. Such a course would concentrate on principles, and in future courses you'd cover the "how" of various branches in depth. Instead, the first course the typical college student takes is Algebra (for non-engineers) or Calculus (for engineers), both of which are almost entirely "how" oriented, concentrating upon the mechanical manipulation of symbols with little attention to the "why". -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 Netter A: In Hell they run VMS. Netter B: No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (12/29/88)
In article <52767@pyramid.pyramid.com> wendyt@pyrps5.UUCP (Wendy Thrash) writes: >Taking notes during class need not be a rote activity. I have found over >the years that I learn much more when I take notes, even if I never look >at the notes again. I do not, mind you, merely copy down what is said >or written by the instructor, but do some editing in the process, correcting >his/her mistakes, etc. I appreciate the discipline of note-taking; it's >just too easy to space out otherwise. A professor who can't accept that >this is the way I learn is perhaps a bit too wise for his/her students' good. That's interesting. I only rarely take notes (largely because I haven't had a class in a long time which really required it), but I've noticed that when I do, I almost never look back at them. Occasionally if there's going to be a test, I may skim them briefly before realizing they won't help much. I wonder (this is a pseudo-survey - post comments) how many people take notes and then toss them like this. There's an interesting experiment or two (I don't feel like looking up refs right now, but if anyone's really interested I can get them) that show that memory for the details of a text is much better if some sort of deep manipulation is required (relying on semantics), such as re-phrasing a sentence, as opposed to surface manipulations, such as re-ordering words, which only rely on, at best, syntax. I haven't done the experiment justice, but you get the idea. I wonder, though, if this only gets you a certain degree of comprehension, not the whole shebang. You wouldn't expect to understand a lecture just because you understood all of the sentences in it, but you would expect to retain certain key concepts better. So it might be an even subtler problem. -Dan
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (12/29/88)
In article <2141@faline.bellcore.com> dph@faline.bellcore.com (Daniel P. Heyman) writes: [several examples of attempts to end "xeroxing" a lecture by students in their notes deleted] >The results were about the same. My theory is that students got >used to taking notes, got good grades by doing so, and won't change >something they don't regard as broke. Another aspect is: copying is >easy, thinking about what's going on is hard, and one takes the path >of least resistance. Good point! Many of the study habits and methods of learning are established by the time a student reaches the collegiate level. Unfortunately, I doubt there are very many secondary and elementary schools where why is stressed over how or the study of facts. I can recall my first semester of freshman calculous, where the instructor would spend 45 minutes in the lecture doing nothing but writing on the board and the class would do nothing but copy that information down on their notebooks. The guy never once turned around and faced the class to discuss something. He never let up with the chalk, filling one blackboard after another. The joke going around was that the TA sitting in the back of the room should have been following him along the black boards that covered the wall with an eraser, so that we could "learn" more in less time! I only recall experiencing extreme pain in my hand after that lecture every time. Fortunately, the person we had in the smaller group sessions tried hard to explain things. I think that the only way to discourage straight "xeroxing" of information is to try to encourage discussion and questions in the class. Just don't lecture, but try to establish a dialogue with the class. This is much more difficult for an instructor who can look bad if a question can not be answered. Somehow, the students must start to think. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826
sher@sunybcs.uucp (David Sher) (12/30/88)
In the past when I was on the other side and taking courses (rather than
giving them) I took notes on the courses with harder material. If a
lecture of an easy course was hard I started taking notes (if necessary on
the backs of envelopes). Since I didn't want to take my attention from
the instructor I didn't look down to see what I was writing. As you might
expect the result was utter garbage, not recognizable as english. It didn't
matter, I remembered better when I wrote it down legibly or illegibly.
-David Sher
ARPA: sher@cs.buffalo.edu BITNET: sher@sunybcs
UUCP: {rutgers,ames,boulder,decvax}!sunybcs!shermatloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) (12/30/88)
In article <2141@faline.bellcore.com> dph@faline.bellcore.com (Daniel P. Heyman) writes: >In article <605@ucrmath.EDU>, marek@ucrmath.EDU (Marek Chrobak) writes: >> In article <1077@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: *> How true and how sad. I have once tried to do something with *> this habit of "xeroxing" a lecture, by following very closely *> a textbook, so that the students do not have to take too *> much notes, and may have more time to think in class. Once they *> noted that I follow the book, half of them stopped to come to *> class at all. In the other half this xeroxing habit was yet *> stronger than I thought, they were still copying every word *> I said. >My advisor in graduate school tried handing out lecture notes >prior to giving the lecture. He told the students they had notes >of everything we was going to write on the board, so they should >concentrate on the why and not the how, and to stop him if they >didn't understand the why of a step. After a few classes he became >completley frustrated when he looked up and saw everyone ( I was >not in this class) copying from the board. He gave up before >the term was over. I'm surprised that both of you said this. I've been doing this for several years, and the students really like it. In several of the courses I teach, I keep the lecture notes in troff files. [Maybe you guys just Xeroxed **handwritten** stuff? That might explain the problem. :-) ] I print them and sell them as a "textbook" for the course through the bookstore. I have the students bring the printed notes to class, and I "lecture" by going through the notes, not word-by-word (and certainly NOT copying the pages to the blackboard), but rather by discussing the notes in a very informal, conversational manner. I rarely write anything on the blackboard, so there is nothing to copy down. So the students are free to concentrate on listening to what I'm saying, and to think about it and ask questions. They do NOT spend their class time writing, though they do occasionally annotate the margins of their printed notes with additional clarifications, remarks, etc. The students DO like this approach. They automatically get an accurate copy of the notes, and they are more free to think about what I'm saying and ask questions. True, *some* students will use this as an opportunity to skip class, but so what? They are the losers, because they miss the extra, spur-of-the-moment comments I make, the answers to questions raised during the lectures, etc. And of course, from my point of view, it is a tremendous time-saver. I don't have to prepare lectures! I do make minor modifications to the notes each time I teach the course, but it's a lot easier to slightly modify a file than to write out entire lectures by hand. "Try it, you'll like it!" :-) Norm
dph@faline.bellcore.com (Daniel P. Heyman) (12/30/88)
In article <5237@pdn.UUCP>, reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: > > I think that the only way to discourage straight "xeroxing" of > information is to try to encourage discussion and questions in the class. > Just don't lecture, but try to establish a dialogue with the class. This > is much more difficult for an instructor who can look bad if a question > can not be answered. Somehow, the students must start to think. > From an instructors point of view, a class is most interesting when the students get involved. Nothing is more boring than standing in front of a class and lecturing to a bunch of scribes. This is "negative feedback" in the sense that when your best efforts to excite the class go unrewarded, you tend to put less effort into preparing lectures. An instructor need not look bad if he can't answer a question. Some questions require a lot of thought or additional research to answer. I found it exciting when a student asked about something I hadn't considered. This would force me to think about it, and then we both learned something. I even observed a student ask a question that lead to a joint paper with the professor. This is "positive feedback" that benefits everyone. Dan Heyman
nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber) (12/31/88)
[followups to comp.edu ONLY. Note: I know that this probably belongs in soc.college, but I feel that trying to move the discussion there now would only create more net traffic. If this discussion fragments, the subtopics should be directed to their appropriate newsgroup (note the singular); otherwise, it is probably best to let the discussion die out here.] In article <1077@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: >Teaching should be done by those who UNDERSTAND the subject. I disagree (in part, anyway). Teaching should be done by those who can CONVEY the material to others. I have had professors who I am sure understood the subject they were trying to teach, but they could not convey that understanding to others. (I felt sorry for some of my professors with this problem; the result was that the students would sit in other sections of the class to learn the material. But when it comes to my own education, I tend to be selfish.) -- NEVIN ":-)" LIBER AT&T Bell Laboratories nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (312) 979-4751
danielg@earl.med.unc.edu (Daniel Gene Sinclair) (12/31/88)
Xeroxed notes are quite helpful if they are used correctly ; here are two
instances of *incorrect* use:
1. They contain ALL of the class material
If the prof goes through the information verbatim, so
that the student needs only to bring the notes and his trusty
hi-liter, you can expect absenteeism, as well as a boring lecture.
I have been to lectures where the prof literally read the notes
aloud, stopping to ask for questions occaisonally - :-(. This
shows an obvious lack of zeal for the profession.
One person posted that he 'conversationally' covered the notes so
that the students could spend time trying to understand the notes
instead of merely being sure to 'get it all down.' IMHO this is a
highly commendable method, but perhaps not the best - the 'losers'
who decide to cut (let's blow it off, he's not going to cover
anything outside of the notes) need to be considered: what
incentive can we give them to come, while maintaining the
effective method of xeoroxed notes plus discussion? I mean, it's
easy to just blow them off as jerks, but the sad fact is that most
young men and women come to college with little self-discipline
and character. Do we want them to make it, or would we rather not
bother? I'll address this later.
2. They contain HALF of the class material
This is not as bad as the first, but worthy of brief mention. It
is a pain to have to juggle xeroxed notes and handwritten notes,
trying to figure out which notes go with which - I usually just
recopied everything into one set of notes and put the others
aside. Xeroxed notes ought to be supplementary (a small % of the
total or optional) or the large portion of the class material.
While attending NCSU in Raleigh, I had what I consider to be my best
instructor (though not my favorite material, invertebrate zo.) He used
prefab notes in the following way:
The notes included almost all of the written material, but little or
none of the necessary diagrams. During class, he would *very* quickly
rewrite the wriiten notes on an overhead (with a long sheet of that
plastic stuff which he contiually rolled - pens in one hand, roller in
the other) and then he would draw in the diagrams in color. We had
color pens (you know, the fat bic pens with red, orange, green, blue,
black :-) ) and followed along (we used color to tell the mesoderms
from the ectoderms, etc.) There was plenty of space for our diagrams
to be drawn in, and if we had any extra written stuff, that could be
inlcuded.
This may not work for a class like history (OK, here's Henry VIII's
large belly) but it could surely be implemented in courses such as
chemistry, botany, biolgy, genetics (leave room for them to draw Punet
squares, do calculations), etc. This approach also lends impetus to
those who would rather sleep in.
I would like to further emphasize this method by listing it's
advantages (at the risk of repeating myself :-) )
1. it allows the prof and student to cover more material without
having to wait for the students to 'catch up'
2. it allows the students to try to understand the material in
prof is not around to answer questions (will this be on the
test?).
3. it gives the late sleeper motivation to go to class, since he
might miss something important. I think that this is good
since most students are not used to consistent, hard work (ie.
no character - keep the flames to yourself ! ). College ought
to be a place where leaders are wrought, not just brought (made
that up myself! :-) Of course, colleges ought to be a place
where our future leaders are taught proper morals and motives
(what a drag to be motivated by selfish ambition), but we'll
have to take that one up with the ACLU ;-).
OK, you got my $0.02.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- USENET : danielg@med.unc.edu Daniel G. Sinclair
BITNET : danielg@unc.bitnet Rsch. Tech. II
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/03/89)
A fairly popular scheme based on handing out lecture notes is called
"partial notes". The instructor prepares lecture notes as usual but
then deletes about 50% of what's there, leaving empty space. This permits the
student to take some notes but not all, and encourages preparation so
that the student will know what's in the notes. Pretty useful in a wide
variety of courses.
--
Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334
1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800cd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Clarence K. Din) (01/03/89)
In article <3468@cs.Buffalo.EDU> sher@wolf.UUCP (David Sher) writes: >In the past when I was on the other side and taking courses (rather than >giving them) I took notes on the courses with harder material. If a >lecture of an easy course was hard I started taking notes (if necessary on >the backs of envelopes). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >-David Sher Sounds like something I did for a couple of "gut" courses. I would get my paycheck at the beginning of the week, write my notes down on the envelope it came in, then cash in the check on Fridays. While waiting in line, I would review my notes for the past week. Clarence
verma@mahimahi.cs.ucla.edu (Rodent of Darkness) (01/04/89)
In article <6578@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes: >table, and work yet more arithmetic problems. In the fourth grade >they'll introduce division, and "fractions".... Speaking of division and "fractions" once had a teacher who said that division and fractions had nothing to do with each other. To this day I have no idea as to why she said this. ---TS
bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) (01/04/89)
In article <541@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: > >A fairly popular scheme based on handing out lecture notes is called >"partial notes". The instructor prepares lecture notes as usual but >then deletes about 50% of what's there, leaving empty space. This >permits the student to take some notes but not all, and encourages >preparation so that the student will know what's in the notes. Pretty >useful in a wide variety of courses. A more popular scheme is called "partial lectures." The instructor prepares copious and confusing notes, then gives a lecture that only manages to cover half of what is in the notes. However, the student is responsible at exam-time for "all of the material," and so spends valuable time reading what is no doubt not understandable without comment from the professor. Manic students (I spent a semester and a summer as one, so I know) will add library time investigating the mysteries of the notes. The professor, of course, expects all students in _his_ course to be of the manic type. This has happened in more courses than I can name. --Blair "Although Bioelectromechanics oozes to mind..."
duncan@geppetto.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) (01/04/89)
In article <2145@faline.bellcore.com> dph@faline.bellcore.com (Daniel P. Heyman) writes: > >An instructor need not look bad if he can't answer a question. Some >questions require a lot of thought or additional research to answer. What do people think about the issue of teachers not being able to answer student questions? I think the 'image' of a teacher -- which students even seem to want to maintain -- is that teachers have the answers. Indeed, if they don't have them, why are they up there talking -- get somebody in who does! (And for a student to have the answer when the teacher does not is often a real shock.) I think this is most prevalent in more introductory courses where the an- swers (and questions) are assumed to be elementary, e.g., anyone who stands up in front of a class better know the answer. I think this tends to maintain the level of some introductory classes as rather low to be sure this occurs. (I do not suggest teachers/students do this consciously; it seems to be part of the culture of adademic relationships in many cases.) Also, the time and grading system involved in 15 week (or less) courses -- college or a public school semester that's slightly longer -- make it hard to get very involved in anything that doesn't have a fairly clear, easily found answer. (My own experience is that pursuing a question too much in a class situation is often not appreciated by those students who expect 'to get through the material'. This is more the case when tests are NOT admin- istered or developed by the teacher but by a department -- in an understandable effort to be 'fair' across the board.) I have tried starting out a class by reversing the idea I will have all the answers and expecting the students to dig for more of them -- even when I DID have the answers. It was very disconcerting for many students who expected me to be supplying them with answers regularly. (I was NOT purposely dense nor did I put the main burden on them. However, I DID expect them to have read the material assigned and lectured based on their questions. I saw this as trying to answer REAL questions, borne of their actual study of and thought about the material.) What techniques do people use to produce an atmosphere where questions that do not have immediate answers get asked and pursued? Speaking only for myself, of course, I am... Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan) (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ 08854) (201-699-3910 (w) 201-463-3683 (h))
devlin@csli.STANFORD.EDU (Keith Devlin) (01/04/89)
In article <19252@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> verma@mahimahi.cs.ucla.edu (Rodent of Darkness) writes: [stuff deleted] > > Speaking of division and "fractions" once had a teacher who > said that division and fractions had nothing to do with each > other. To this day I have no idea as to why she said this. > > ---TS Presumably to distinguish between x/y written to denote division from x/y written to denote a certain rational number. The point being that you cannot formally define rational numbers as the result of dividing one integer by another - there has to BE an appropriate rational number to provide the "answer". It boils down to a question of what arithmetic operations can be carried out in various number systems, and how a richer system can be defined from a simpler one. Saying that division and fractions have "nothing" to do with each other is thus a bit overstretched, but the point intended (presumably) seems valid enough.
mccombt@rpics (Todd McComb) (01/04/89)
[] In article <5053@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Daniel Yaron Kimberg writes: >In article <52767@pyramid.pyramid.com> Wendy Thrash writes: >>Taking notes during class need not be a rote activity. [etc.] >That's interesting. I only rarely take notes (largely because I haven't had >a class in a long time which really required it), but I've noticed that when >I do, I almost never look back at them. Occasionally if there's going to be >a test, I may skim them briefly before realizing they won't help much. I >wonder (this is a pseudo-survey - post comments) how many people take notes >and then toss them like this. I've never taken notes in my life. I don't bring paper to class, etc. I just sit there and listen to the lecture. I've done this from elementary school into graduate school, and frankly at this stage I couldn't take notes even if I wanted to do it. I would have no idea how to go about taking them, and I really would be afraid of not catching all that was said. So much for my pseudo-survey response. I think that one thing this discussion has shown more than anything else is that different people want to be taught in different ways. I cannot even stand the thought of taking notes, and have always wondered why the "typical student" routine has been propagated so deeply. I am sure some people are helped by taking copious notes, but I know that I for one would be harmed. The same is probably true for many of the other topics that have come up in this recent education debate. To be honest, I would be horrified if I were confronted with educational situations which some of the posters seem to prefer. I also don't think that memorization of trivia is in any way necessary to be successful in school. I've had experience in engineering and mathematics, and must say that I never "memorized" anything, and certainly not for the sake of having "memorized" it. I think too many people bite on the information that is propagated around campuses: that is, that the typical student crams for tests and copies notes verbatim. Maybe the typical student does do those things, but I would assert that it is harmful for many people. (The word "typical" above, is more a joke than anything.) --todd -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The way I feel is the way I am. Todd McComb mccombt@cs.rpi.edu -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
duncan@geppetto.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) (01/04/89)
In article <1828@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes: > >A more popular scheme is called "partial lectures." The instructor >prepares copious and confusing notes, then gives a lecture that only >manages to cover half of what is in the notes. However, the student >is responsible at exam-time for "all of the material," and so spends >valuable time reading what is no doubt not understandable without >comment from the professor. Manic students (I spent a semester and a >summer as one, so I know) will add library time investigating the >mysteries of the notes. The professor, of course, expects all students >in _his_ course to be of the manic type. In "the real world" (of computer software development) this whole process is often known as developing specifications and getting requirements! Sounds like great training for aspiring programmers :-). Speaking only for myself, of course, I am... Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan) (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ 08854) (201-699-3910 (w) 201-463-3683 (h))
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (01/04/89)
In article <13160@bellcore.bellcore.com> duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) writes: >What techniques do people use to produce an atmosphere where questions that do >not have immediate answers get asked and pursued? Hmmm, I never thought about it. I have only taught in the evenings, so the make up of the class is a bit different. Most students are part time and work. They are a bit more serious about the course than the average full time student. Perhaps this is because they need a good grade to get reimbursed for the course or they are paying their own way. In any event, in an average class (30->35 students) I think there are more people who would ask such questions than in a day time class. Perhaps part of the reason is that often many who teach at night also work during the day in industry. Often a professor is looked upon in awe by the average undergrad. One thing I have tried at times is to relate the course content to something in everyday life that the students may have some contact with. This will give them some sort of reference point for discussion. This is not always possible and probably can not apply to anything but the most elementary courses. However, this is where they may need it the most. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (01/05/89)
In article <1828@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes: >In article <541@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >>"partial notes". The instructor prepares lecture notes as usual but >>then deletes about 50% of what's there, leaving empty space. This >>permits the student to take some notes but not all, and encourages >>preparation so that the student will know what's in the notes. Pretty >[humorous reply about "partial lectures"] For anyone who's interested, I think rather than speculate on this or that personal theory of notes, it would be good to check out the literature. The latest issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology has a paper on the subject, comparing several different types of handed-out notes, and I'm sure there are good pointers to more work. The gist of the paper seemed to be (I haven't read it) that full notes are bad, partial notes are better, and matrix notes are the best. Partial notes aren't notes with half the material deleted, they're notes with shortened descriptions, i.e. about 6-10 words per topic, I think. Matrix notes, apparently, consist of a table in which all of the cells represent the topics, and they're somewhat more brief than the partial notes. In any case, they were apparently the best in terms of facilitating transfer learning, or something like that. Anyone who's interested should take a look, because this is just blathering based on a short perusal. -Dan
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (01/05/89)
In article <13160@bellcore.bellcore.com> duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) writes: >What techniques do people use to produce an atmosphere where questions that do >not have immediate answers get asked and pursued? I've had a few classes in which professors responded to questions which didn't have easy answers by saying something like, "Gee, that sounds like a good paper topic to me!" Well, not exactly like that, but you get the idea. Incidentally, a professor in an introductory course I once took at one point during a class (as opposed to the larger lectures) asked a particular student in the class, whom he knew had done research in a certain area, if she knew the answer to a particular question. As far as I can tell, no one had their confidence in the professor remarkably shaken. -Dan
sjh@gauss.math.purdue.edu (Steve Holmes) (01/05/89)
I have always been bothered by this note-taking business. I was never a really good student anyway and whenver I tried to 'do better' by taking better notes (i.e. more) I actually got less of the material. I couldn't keep up with the lecturer and I missed what was being said while I was writing. It took me a long time to realize this and I was actually almost out of school when I finally did. And the notes were almost worthless to use for review. Now (back in school again) I write down just the essentials and listen to and try to think about the lecture. But I still do take some notes. The notes I take now are much more valuable at review time.
nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather) (01/05/89)
In article <56@rpi.edu>, mccombt@rpics (Todd McComb) writes: > > I've never taken notes in my life. I don't bring paper to class, etc. > I just sit there and listen to the lecture. > Excellent, if it works for you. It's what I recommend to students who take copious notes and fail tests. They're so busy trying to get down every word they totally miss the sense of the lecture -- and have no idea what is important and what is not. Tape recorders do about as well. (I usually have a forrest of minirecorders in front of me as soon as the word spreads that I don't mind.) > [...] the > typical student crams for tests and copies notes verbatim. ... and forgets most of the course on the way out of the exam room. Do students really believe they've received "an education" when all they've done is memorize facts to pass a course, and then forget them? Curiously, it seems that many do ... -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
milgram@paideia.uchicago.edu (Michele Sara Milgram) (01/05/89)
Some people just claimed that they don't/didn't take notes in classes. I think that's fine for them. Even when I am interested in a lecture, I often find it hard to keep my attention on it, unless I take notes (I sometimes take notes for non-class lectures). In classes with active discussions I only jot down references people mention which I might want to look up, as the active engagement of a discussion keeps my mind from wandering. -- Michele Milgram milgram@paideia.uchicago.edu
duncan@geppetto.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) (01/05/89)
In article <5268@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: > I have only taught in the evenings, >so the make up of the class is a bit different. My experiences are from full-time 4-year college (English) and evening or weekend classes at community college (computer science). > Most students are part time >and work. They are a bit more serious about the course than the average >full time student. I will echo this in either teaching case above. Those who have come back to school after being away were more conscientious -- no 'smarter,' but they cared more and worked harder. > Perhaps this is because they need a good grade to get >reimbursed for the course or they are paying their own way. This seemed to be true also; however, in the community college case, I had people from industry who's reason for a good grade (an A or nothing) was that their boss didn't consider a community college course somehow respectable and only an A meant anything. (In my case, the regular faculty and program at the community college -- Mercer County in NJ -- were quite good and prepared folks for the real world -- or to go on to a four-year school. Some of the best workers we had -- at a former job -- were from Mercer County. The Master's folks hired were often perfectionistic theorists who had a tough time engineer- ing a product.) > In any event, >in an average class (30->35 students) I think there are more people who >would ask such questions than in a day time class. Perhaps part of the >reason is that often many who teach at night also work during the day in >industry. I think this is the issue: the older student with some work experience just has a different attitude about working, studying, showing enthusiasm for a class. For example, one full-time student who was in a night class told me they "knew how to program" and were just taking this course to get another programming language requirement. Well, they thought they were hot stuff and handed in the 8 projects two weeks after I handed them all out. Four of the eight were absolutely wrong -- these were simple problems in BASIC (yes, I have taught BASIC!). Other full-time people with recent language and programming classes had a similar attitude while the more humble working folks (even with programming experience) took their time and didn't try to 'show off.' > Often a professor is looked upon in awe by the average undergrad. I don't think it's awe so much. In the experiences I had, there was this ex- pectation that I (and others) were there to dispense what the student needed to get throughm get the grade, and move on with the program. If we deviated from that expectation, there was everything from mild shock to hostility (and the latter often from the hotshots like I describe above who seemed to be look- ing for a 'gut' course). >-- >George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation And just so this won't sound like a total slam at students, I must point out that I had good and bad ones just like there were times when I was a good or bad instructor. But what made things bearable was when we (the student and I) accepted this fact. I found poorer students VERY UNWILLING to deal with the unexpected in a course and try to work it out. They paid their money; they wanted their grade; the instructors owed it to them to be sure they got the grade. What seemed to be the biggest problem was suggesting study habits to people who clearly had problems. It was almost trated like an invasion of privacy to suggest that students try writing a paper or a program or preparing for a test according to some scheme that included doing these things in stages, ahead of time. Everyone can write English and anyone can program seemed to be the view of many in undergraduate composition and introductory CS. Speaking only for myself, of course, I am... Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan) (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ 08854) (201-699-3910 (w) 201-463-3683 (h))
bnick@aucis.UUCP (Bill Nickless) (01/06/89)
In article <56@rpi.edu>, mccombt@rpics (Todd McComb) writes: > I also don't think that memorization of trivia is in any way necessary > to be successful in school. I've had experience in engineering and > mathematics, and must say that I never "memorized" anything, and certainly > not for the sake of having "memorized" it. I think too many people bite > on the information that is propagated around campuses: that is, that the > typical student crams for tests and copies notes verbatim. Maybe the > typical student does do those things, but I would assert that it is harmful > for many people. (The word "typical" above, is more a joke than anything.) I find it very difficult to memorize ANYTHING by rote. However, I can remember concepts and processes and relations. But more than that, I can find where to look things up in reference materials and know how to use them. The honors classes I have taken have been easier for me because they did not require a sit-down test where you spout forth rote knowledge the teacher presented once or twice in a sterile list. Rather, they required analyses or creative renderings of information we found ourselves as students! True, it required time and effort, but not wasteful memorization. The information memorized for in-class tests is forgotten as soon as it is no longer required. Mental skills of interpretation and research, however, are useful in later life. I would much rather spend 6 or 8 hours on a take-home calculus test, interpreting a word-problem and using 3 or 4 different methods and processes to estimate, approximate, calculate, and verify an answer than to walk out of a one hour test and remember five minutes later (remember, the "typical" test is done without reference works!) how to do one of the 25 point problems on a 100 point tests, or what that critical date was in the French revolution. -- William (Bill) Kirk Nickless Andrews University 305 Meier Computer and Information Science Department Berrien Springs, MI 49104 UNIX Support Group (616) 471-6515 or (616) 471-3422 ...!uunet!cucstud!aucis!bnick
gds@spam.istc.sri.com (Greg Skinner) (01/06/89)
Regarding note taking: I admit I was a copious note taker, but that was because I occasionally needed to refer back to the notes to refresh my memory about what was said about a problem. I didn't just copy from the board -- I tried to write down what the lecturer was saying. Occasionally this information was more important than what was on the board. I was thinking of videotaping lectures. When taking a class in signals and systems, reviewing videotaped lectures and problem solving sessions helped me immensely on the final? What experience have other people had with videotaped lectures? If the lectures are not being videotaped, do you think any of the lecturers would mind if students brought their own videotaping equipment? At the very least, audiotaping classes is of great benefit, which I intend to do. --gregbo
johng@cavs.syd.dwt.oz (John Gardner) (01/06/89)
In article <541@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: > >A fairly popular scheme based on handing out lecture notes is called >"partial notes". The instructor prepares lecture notes as usual but >then deletes about 50% of what's there, leaving empty space. This permits the >student to take some notes but not all, and encourages preparation so >that the student will know what's in the notes. Pretty useful in a wide >variety of courses. You have got to be kidding. The one course at uni that did that was the greatest nightmare for me. You'd be sitting there waiting for the keyword, be distracted for a second and miss, it waste more time till you realise you missed the keyword, waste more time trying to cath up, and all in for each time you slipped you could 5-6 keywords and end up with very incomplete notes. You can't prepare off them as they are missing the keywords, it makes no sense until you fill in the blanks. My experience is that this system served to discourage any interest in the course. My favourite course gave out complete notes, allowing me to prepare ect. As a final note that year was the first and last time they gave out incomplete notes, and had a failure rate of over 55%! Thank god I got a restricted pass. /*****************************************************************************/ Division Of Wool Technology - Where the programmers have something better to do than think up funny lines. PHONE : (02) 436 3438 ACSnet : johng@cavs.dwt.oz JARNET : johng%cavs.dwt.oz@uk.ac.ukc EARN : johng%cavs.dwt.oz@uk.ac.rl.earn ARPA : johng%cavs.dwt.oz@uunet.UU.NET UUCP : ..!uunet!munnari!cavs.dwt.oz.au!johng What's a disclaimer ? /*****************************************************************************/
nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber) (01/06/89)
In article <13160@bellcore.bellcore.com> duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) writes: >What do people think about the issue of teachers not being able to answer >student questions? I think the 'image' of a teacher -- which students even >seem to want to maintain -- is that teachers have the answers. Indeed, if >they don't have them, why are they up there talking -- get somebody in who >does! I expect from my teachers the same sorts of things they expect from me. If they expect me to memorize the book for a test, I expect them to know the book inside and out. If they are more reasonable, I don't really mind it they can't answer a question right away. I find that my good teachers are usually interested in trying to find the answer to a question that they don't know right off the bat. -- _ __ NEVIN ":-)" LIBER nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (312) 979-4751 IH 4F-410 ' ) ) "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, / / _ , __o ____ briefed, debriefed or numbered! My life is my own!" / (_</_\/ <__/ / <_ As far as I know, these are NOT the opinions of AT&T.
nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber) (01/06/89)
In article <9252@ut-emx.UUCP> nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes: >Do students really believe they've received "an education" when all >they've done is memorize facts to pass a course, and then forget them? >Curiously, it seems that many do ... Well, considering that this is one way to get good benchmarks, er, I mean grades, and that most of the world only looks at the grades and not the person (not all grad schools bother to interview, for instance), why should they believe anything else? The measure of education is the GPA; the rest is considered a side-effect. Note: I don't believe that a GPA should be the measure of an education, but I've seen how grad schools accept students and how companies hire, and the truth of the matter is that grades are too important. Too many students would rather get a good grade than a good education, since it is easier to use the grade to get a "foot in the door". -- _ __ NEVIN ":-)" LIBER nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (312) 979-4751 IH 4F-410 ' ) ) "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, / / _ , __o ____ briefed, debriefed or numbered! My life is my own!" / (_</_\/ <__/ / <_ As far as I know, these are NOT the opinions of AT&T.
nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber) (01/06/89)
In article <5268@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: > Hmmm, I never thought about it. I have only taught in the evenings, >so the make up of the class is a bit different. Most students are part time >and work. They are a bit more serious about the course than the average >full time student. Perhaps this is because they need a good grade to get >reimbursed for the course or they are paying their own way. In any event, >in an average class (30->35 students) I think there are more people who >would ask such questions than in a day time class. Perhaps part of the >reason is that often many who teach at night also work during the day in >industry. Often a professor is looked upon in awe by the average undergrad. Some other points (from a part-time student who is debating on whether or not to go full-time): I get to very carefully choose my courses and professors. I could not do this being full-time, since I had to keep at least 16 hours of classes (not as a school rule, but I wanted to "escape" in 4 years :-)), scheduling only good & interesting classes with good profs was an impossibility. I can easily schedule one class without having a conflict; it is much more difficult to schedule (or even find) 4 or 5 good ones offered in the same semester without having a conflict. It is much easier to keep up in one class than in four or five. I have enough friends who are stressed out every semester because they had 4 projects due on the 15th week of class, and they needed all the class material up to the 12th week to even get started. -- _ __ NEVIN ":-)" LIBER nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (312) 979-4751 IH 4F-410 ' ) ) "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, / / _ , __o ____ briefed, debriefed or numbered! My life is my own!" / (_</_\/ <__/ / <_ As far as I know, these are NOT the opinions of AT&T.
gds@spam.istc.sri.com (Greg Skinner) (01/06/89)
In article <9343@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: >Well, considering that this is one way to get good benchmarks, er, I >mean grades, and that most of the world only looks at the grades and not >the person (not all grad schools bother to interview, for instance), why >should they believe anything else? The measure of education is the >GPA; the rest is considered a side-effect. Grades are important to grad schools, but not solely. Other factors are important, such as GREs (yuck), recommendations, and your own personal statements. Also, there is nothing stopping you (general) from requesting an interview -- it might even be to your advantage. A friend of mine went to ask some questions about a graduate department from a department head before applying. She was accepted. The acceptance letter bore the handwritten initials of the department head. Would you want to go to a college that didn't want to talk to you? That might be an indication of what they'll do with you when you are admitted. Keep in mind that it is the most prestigious colleges and companies that can discriminate on the basis of grades or whatever, because they get so many applicants. I've checked into a number of small colleges that have entrance requirements even I can fulfill. :-) Seriously, though, these places have faculty that got their degrees at the same schools where the faculty at the prestigious schools got their degrees. The difference seems to lie in the amount of money the prestigious schools get for research, and the nature of the research done. >Note: I don't believe that a GPA should be the measure of an education, >but I've seen how grad schools accept students and how companies hire, >and the truth of the matter is that grades are too important. Too many >students would rather get a good grade than a good education, since it >is easier to use the grade to get a "foot in the door". Perhaps the trouble we are seeing with the education system now is due to the fact that people are seeking to be "qualified" rather than "educated". --gregbo
duncan@geppetto.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) (01/06/89)
In article <9342@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: > >I expect from my teachers the same sorts of things they expect from me. >If they expect me to memorize the book for a test, I expect them to know >the book inside and out. If they are more reasonable, I don't really >mind it they can't answer a question right away. I find that my good >teachers are usually interested in trying to find the answer to a >question that they don't know right off the bat. Agreed...fair is fair. I was thinking more along the lines of things that the book (whatever text is being used for whatever class) doesn't cover and that may take research on *someone's* part to clarify. I have not had lots of pos- itive experiences setting up the expectation that more than just what is in the book is important to the subject matter of the course. (And holding people responsible in any way for such material when it is presented in class was not accepted very graciously, to say the least. In the two cases I am thinking of, some people were not in class when we discussed the answer to the question and it provoked some good ideas. I asked about it on a test and two people went to the department head complaining.) Speaking only for myself, of course, I am... Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan) (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ 08854) (201-699-3910 (w) 201-463-3683 (h))
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/07/89)
In article <1828@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes: =In article <541@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: =>A fairly popular scheme based on handing out lecture notes is called =>"partial notes". The instructor prepares lecture notes as usual but =A more popular scheme is called "partial lectures." The instructor =prepares copious and confusing notes, then gives a lecture that only =manages to cover half of what is in the notes. However, the student An even more popular scheme is called "the research model". The instructor doesn't prepare at all, rambles through a lecture about his/her research, and tells the student "If you don't understand what's in the text, you're not smart enough to be at this university." -- Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334 1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/07/89)
In article <1828@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes: =In article <541@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: => =>A fairly popular scheme based on handing out lecture notes is called =>"partial notes". The instructor prepares lecture notes as usual but = =A more popular scheme is called "partial lectures." The instructor =prepares copious and confusing notes, then gives a lecture that only A truly unique method -- used only in graduate school in my experience -- is for the professor to copy the textbook onto the blackboard, reading aloud as he writes. This is a method of teaching?? -- Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334 1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/07/89)
In article <5129@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes: =In article <1828@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes: =>In article <541@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: =>>"partial notes". The instructor prepares lecture notes as usual but =better, and matrix notes are the best. Partial notes aren't notes with half =the material deleted, they're notes with shortened descriptions, i.e. about =6-10 words per topic, I think. Matrix notes, apparently, consist of a table Drat it, Mabel! They've gone and changed the name! -- Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334 1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/07/89)
<sigh> If we could only getthem to read the text BEFORE they came to
class! Then notes could be taken on what they didn't understand when
they read it, and they would actually learn a lot more.
--
Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334
1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/07/89)
In article <13201@bellcore.bellcore.com> duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) writes:
=only an A meant anything. (In my case, the regular faculty and program at the
=community college -- Mercer County in NJ -- were quite good and prepared folks
=for the real world -- or to go on to a four-year school. Some of the best
=workers we had -- at a former job -- were from Mercer County. The Master's
Gee, THANKS, Scott. <blush, blush>
--
Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334
1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) (01/07/89)
In article <541@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >A fairly popular scheme based on handing out lecture notes is called >"partial notes". The instructor prepares lecture notes as usual but >then deletes about 50% of what's there, leaving empty space. This permits the >student to take some notes but not all, and encourages preparation so >that the student will know what's in the notes. Pretty useful in a wide >variety of courses. Maybe I'm totally confused, but I cannot see any good purpose to this at all. Having prepared lecture notes, why not hand them out? If 50% notes will help the student, surely 100% will help more, and why ever would a teacher NOT want to help the pupils? Likewise, if the student feels attending the lecture will help, she'll attend. If just reading the notes is as good, why force her to waste time in the lecture - students typically are VERY pressed for time. Moreover, by giving out as much prepared information as possible, you encourage the students selectively to come to you only when they NEED direct personal help, either in a lecture or tutorial - and that is surely one of the things a teacher should encourage, teachers also typically being pressed for time.
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (01/07/89)
In article <9343@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: >mean grades, and that most of the world only looks at the grades and not >the person (not all grad schools bother to interview, for instance), why >should they believe anything else? The measure of education is the >GPA; the rest is considered a side-effect. It would be a good thing to note at this point that interviews would worsen the admissions process. There is a considerable body of published literature which indicates fairly unequivocally that interviews at best add noise to the admissions data. I personally prefer interviews because I do well on them, but they are not an indicator of future performance. If anyone wants references, ask me next week when I'll have time. -Dan
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (01/07/89)
In article <556@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: ><sigh> If we could only getthem to read the text BEFORE they came to >class! Then notes could be taken on what they didn't understand when >they read it, and they would actually learn a lot more. I guess, maybe, but it works the other way, too. The textbook would make a lot more sense (since it's such a lousy book) if the professor touched on a few of the major points in lecture first. I'm not arguing either side, actually. But I wish more professors had a little more sense (and were willing to tell the class) about the readings. For instance, telling the class that something is extremely important, or that something is going to be tremendously confusing because the author can't write for his life, or that something is considered a classic, but that the back half of the paper is redundant, or that it's not always necessary to read through certain parts of papers...these are the sorts of things that would make life easier for students. Usually it takes about four years to get it all figured out. On the other hand, to save time and effort, the original authors could provide these things with their works. ("Preface. I am a very famous researcher. This book represents one of my most important works. Although at the time I wrote this, I couldn't write to save my life, the ideas are very important. For best results, read as much as you can take, making sure you hit at least one of the chapters of hand-waving (5, 12, and 17) and then find yourself a well written review article. Thank you.") -Dan
m87_jan_c@tdb.uu.se (Jan Carlsson) (01/07/89)
In article <6579@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>, elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes: >It has nothing to do with whether or not the student wants to think >about the subject matter of the course. In practice, I've found that >the people who DON'T think about the subject matter get lousy grades >no matter what they do on the memorization front (because they don't >have a framework for applying their aquired trivia). On the other >hand, the converse sometimes occurs... people not memorizing the right >trivia for an exam, and getting lousy grades... Allow the students to use any aid during the examination,exept talking. I really mean any,including books,notes,handbooks,calculators...etc. Why? Because that's what they are supposed to do when they get a job. (I guess the labour market for living handbooks is VERY limited :=) This will make memorizing trivia as meaningless as it is outside the university. The questions will,of course,be different from what one is used to, and definitly not easier but to my opinion more fair. Projects during the course could be a part of the examination, a well done project (by one or more students) could give something like 20% of the necessary points of the examination as a bonus. If the examination paper contains som questions specially written for each group,then each member will have a motivation for taking an active part in the work,even if the dont realise what is best for them selves without that.
m87_jan_c@tdb.uu.se (Jan Carlsson) (01/07/89)
In article <5053@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>, dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes: >That's interesting. I only rarely take notes (largely because I haven't had >a class in a long time which really required it), but I've noticed that when >I do, I almost never look back at them. Occasionally if there's going to be >a test, I may skim them briefly before realizing they won't help much. I >wonder (this is a pseudo-survey - post comments) how many people take notes >and then toss them like this. I do. The only time I find my notes useful is when the stuff isn't mentioned in the book(s). If I try to limit the notes to what is absolutely nessecery,then it works, but if I mix it up with examples ,(besides they are often more or less identical to the ones in the book),then the whole thing ends up in a mess. Sometimes i wonder whether the teachers expects you to write down everything on the blackboard or not ?
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/08/89)
In article <8125@aw.sei.cmu.edu> firth@bd.sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:
=Maybe I'm totally confused, but I cannot see any good purpose to this
The idea is to relieve the student of the need to take complete notes on
the lecture but to encourage him/her to write certain "important"
things. Come from the old Chinese proverb: I hear and I forget; I see
and I remeber; I do and I understand. In my experience, it's "I write
and I remember."
=Likewise, if the student feels attending the lecture will help, she'll
=attend.
Never understood why a student wouldn't come to class. A class meeting
has as its goal making learning easier.
--
Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334
1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/08/89)
In article <5191@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes:
=actually. But I wish more professors had a little more sense (and were
=willing to tell the class) about the readings. For instance, telling the
=class that something is extremely important,
It all depends on the college. Some profs have no concept of teaching
being anything except the presentation of material, so "everything" is important.
= or that something is going to
=be tremendously confusing because the author can't write for his life,
Maybe the prof has forgotten how confused he was when he learned the
material. Maybe the writing doesn't confuse him
= or
=that something is considered a classic, but that the back half of the paper
=is redundant, or that it's not always necessary to read through certain
=parts of papers
Think of it as an apprenticeship: "I had to read crap like that to get
where I am, and you do, too!"
=("Preface. I am a very famous
=researcher. This book represents one of my most important works. Although
=at the time I wrote this, I couldn't write to save my life, the ideas are very
=important. For best results, read as much as you can take, making sure you
=hit at least one of the chapters of hand-waving (5, 12, and 17) and then find
=yourself a well written review article. Thank you.")
Silly. For one, he doesn't know that he can't write to save his life;
he writes the same way as the authors he's read! Second, publishers
couldn't tolerate that level of honesty.
Look, everyone says "To learn C, you read K&R", right? Well, K&R is
*not* the right book for say 90% of the people who want to learn C.
Should every C programmer read K&R? Yup; it's a classic. :-)
The job of the college-level teacher is to help students learn, not to
make their lives easier or better, or to train them for jobs.
--
Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334
1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (01/09/89)
In article <559@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >In article <5191@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes: >=("Preface. I am a very famous...[middle deleted] >=yourself a well written review article. Thank you.") > >Silly. For one, he doesn't know that he can't write to save his life; >he writes the same way as the authors he's read! Second, publishers >couldn't tolerate that level of honesty. True, but that was supposed to be a joke. I realize no one is going to tell readers his/her book stinks in the introduction. >The job of the college-level teacher is to help students learn, not to >make their lives easier or better, or to train them for jobs. Right, but a lot of professors confuse these two, and decide that their job is not to make learning easier or better. The message chain was on readings, so I thought I'd note some of the ways in which professors have made readings easier for me in the past. Becuase no matter what you're not going to be able to get a room full of students to zip through 50 pages of extremely dense material a night. [dense: material such that 50 pages takes much more than a night to read] But if the important parts are only about 10 pages and some diagrams... -Dan
nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather) (01/09/89)
In article <559@mccc.UUCP>, pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: > > The job of the college-level teacher is to help students learn, not to > make their lives easier or better, or to train them for jobs. > I think this is the job of any teacher, at any level from kindergarden up. Jobs are usually not discussed until college, but if teachers can teach students how to learn things they need to know, either by attending class, doing their own studies, asking knowledgable people question, etc., they've done their job. If a student believes learning is primarily memorizing facts, then the *teacher* has failed. Our present educational system works far too much like an adversary process: I'll tell you things in a lecture, then give you a test to see if you retained anything. This is only a tiny fraction of the learning process, and not a very important one at that. Hearing is not experiencing. If you know the theory of flight through and through, I don't want to fly with you until you've worked with a real airplane for a while. -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
m87_jan_c@tdb.uu.se (Jan Carlsson) (01/09/89)
In article <13201@bellcore.bellcore.com>, duncan@geppetto.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) writes: > >I think this is the issue: the older student with some work experience just >has a different attitude about working, studying, showing enthusiasm for a >class. > I agree with this and the reasons you mentioned,but I want to add one. The older student is (mostly) studying something that she/he has a real interest in.Since a lot of people have the idea that you must go to the university to "become someting",they just "carry on" to the university ,and if they dont qualify for the education they selected as "no:1",then they try with "no:2",and so on. May I suggest som year of working experience for everyone before going to the university? According to my experience one year at work will add two years to the process of maturing,(at least).
m87_jan_c@tdb.uu.se (Jan Carlsson) (01/09/89)
In article <589@cavs.syd.dwt.oz>, johng@cavs.syd.dwt.oz (John Gardner) writes: > >In article <541@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >> >>A fairly popular scheme based on handing out lecture notes is called >>"partial notes". The instructor prepares lecture notes as usual but >>then deletes about 50% of what's there, leaving empty space. This permits the >>student to take some notes but not all, and encourages preparation so >>that the student will know what's in the notes. Pretty useful in a wide >>variety of courses. > >You have got to be kidding. The one course at uni that did that was the >greatest nightmare for me. Excuse me,but you arn't kidding both of you,are you ? I find it hard to belive that adults are supposed to do something like that ,("uni" means university,dosen't it ?). But I have no experience of the US education system so I may have got something wrong ?
shankar@src.honeywell.COM (Son of Knuth) (01/09/89)
In article <556@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: ><sigh> If we could only getthem to read the text BEFORE they came to >class! Then notes could be taken on what they didn't understand when >they read it, and they would actually learn a lot more. If we [students] could only get them [profs] to not lecture by going through the text page by page, then maybe we would read the material before going to class. What's the point of reading something that you know is going to be repeated when you go to class. Catch-22.
fritz@unocss.UUCP (Sharon O'Neil) (01/09/89)
I personally find it very difficult to follow along with a lecture unless I take notes and I do take copious notes -- which by some twist of fate are even legible. I do not "mindlessly" copy down information given by the professor. For me, for some reason, active listening is enhanced by taking notes. However, I don't believe it is enough to simply take notes. I review each days set of notes every night. I keep separate color pens handy to write down my own impressions or questions I might have. I also think that it should be remembered that, while, for some disciplines notes may be beneficial, in other courses they may be a hindrance. In some courses it is essential to get general ideas, in which notes may prove to be of little conseuence. In other courses, it is essential to tie together many seemingly unrelated ideas, in which case notes can prove invaluable. In one individual course, that "trivia" may seem inconsequential. Over the course of an entire semester notes may allow the individual student to go back and tie ideas together more efficiently. The mistake that most students make is that they expect the professor to give them all the information in the lecture and that everything that they need to know is in the notes. The university is viewed by many as an assembly line. Most students do not view their education in a broad sense and instead view each course as self-contained. Critical thinking also comes from applying something learned in one course to another. I keep notes and have used information in one course in a seemingly unrelated course. It is possible to draw connections between a foreign language class and a physics class. -- ---------------------------------+-------------------------------------------- Sharon O'Neil | Internet: oneil%zeus@fergvax.unl.edu Who reads these, anyway? | Bitnet: oneil@unoma1 Univ of Nebraska - Lincoln | "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
kathryn@arcturus.UUCP (Kathryn Fielding) (01/10/89)
In article <558@mccc.UUCP>, pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: > Never understood why a student wouldn't come to class. A class meeting > has as its goal making learning easier. Well, off the top of my head, I can think of a few reasons why students might feel that it is not worthwhile going to class: 1) A professor who reads the text verbatim and only works examples in the book, even when asked to do others by the students. 2) An instructor who fails to answer questions. If I spend several hours trying to solve a problem, and approach the instructor for guidance, I expect something a little more enlightening than "It's intuitively obvious" or "I'll get back to you" and when asked again, repeats the response. 3) An instructor who's English communication skills are so poor that the class (including the TA) is unable to understand him. These example are all drawn from personal experience, and involve instructors from three different universities. Kathryn Fielding kathryn@arcturus.UUCP ..!sun!sunkist!arcturus!kathryn ..!hplabs!felix!arcturus!kathryn My opinions are exclusively mine!
nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather) (01/11/89)
In article <608@unocss.UUCP>, fritz@unocss.UUCP (Sharon O'Neil) writes: > [...] The university is viewed by many as an > assembly line. For "many" read "most system administrators", particularly at state schools where a department is rewarded by the number of students they teach, not by the quality of the teaching, or the time spent with students. This attitude encourages large, impersonal classes and (dare I say it?) multiple-choice tests as the only practical testing method. In my view, quality suffers, as does enthusiasm for teaching. Profs need feedback too, and an occasional word from students that they are doing a good job (if they are). -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
del@hou2d.UUCP (D.LEASURE) (01/11/89)
In article <8125@aw.sei.cmu.edu>, firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes: > Having prepared lecture notes, why not hand them out? If 50% > notes will help the student, surely 100% will help more, and why ever > would a teacher NOT want to help the pupils? Dr. J. McNaughton of Expert Knowledge Systems does an exercise in his knowledge acquisition class to show the ineffectiveness of note taking. He has the students take notes from a tape of an actual interview with an expert. His experience is that only 20% of the topics listed by the expert are accurately identified and that only 30% of the details recorded for each topic are correct, giving an overall correctness rating of 6% for notetaking. The knowledge acquisition atmosphere is generally more hostile to the interviewer than the classroom environment to the student, since professors are supposed to prepare the material for teachability, but the lesson is still that there just isn't time to pay attention and take notes in most situations, especially when individual interaction is not allowed. By all means, supply the notes. Do it ahead of time so that the students have a chance to come to class prepared to ask questions on the notes and to better anticipate the flow of the lecture. Most students don't attend classes to be held in suspense, they do it to learn what's being taught. > Likewise, if the student feels attending the lecture will help, she'll > attend. If just reading the notes is as good, why force her to waste > time in the lecture - students typically are VERY pressed for time. The notes give the opportunity to interact at the lecture. Always go to class, the notes are never as good. Give feedback to the lecturer if the lectures don't surpass the value of the notes. -- David E. Leasure - AT&T Bell Laboratories - (201) 615-4169 hou2d!del del@hou2d.att.com leasure@paul.rutgers.edu
matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) (01/11/89)
In article <3350@arcturus> kathryn@arcturus.UUCP (Kathryn Fielding) writes: >3) An instructor who's English communication skills are so poor that the > class (including the TA) is unable to understand him. In my experience, the problem is not really with the person's ENGLISH as it is with his/her GENERAL communication skills. In other words, I think that most foreigners who are poor teachers in English would also be poor teachers in their native language. I do have some direct confirmation of this. For example, we had a TA from China whose student evaluations quite consistently gave him very low ratings, and they blamed his poor English for his teaching problems. Yet his English in fact was fairly good; even our secretaries were surprised to hear that the students felt that the TA's English was bad enough to impair his teaching. So I visited a couple of his class sessions, and found that he was making the classical mistakes of a poor teacher -- talking into the board, being poorly prepared, pitching his explanations at a level much higher than that of the students, not pausing for questions from the students, etc. -- all things that had nothing to do with his English. I pointed these things out to him, and the next quarter, his student teaching evaluations were very good -- and NO ONE complained about his English, even though of course his English had not changed at all. Norm
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (01/11/89)
In article <18958@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes: >In my experience, the problem is not really with the person's ENGLISH >as it is with his/her GENERAL communication skills. In other words, >I think that most foreigners who are poor teachers in English would >also be poor teachers in their native language. [description of problem and solution deleted] Another factor may the cultural differences between students and the instructor. In many countries the instructor lectures and the students hang on every word, paying maximum attention. However, I think that the American students are more likely to stop an instructor and ask questions that may put them on the spot or require them to try another explaination. For some instructors this is a difficult thing to get used to. None the less, there are too many foreign instructors out there who *do* have very poor english skills. In fact, there are many foreign students who enter US universities without adequate english skills as well. I know that some universities are really pressed for help, but something needs to be done to get these people to a level of english that does not inhibit others or themselves. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/11/89)
In article <14508@srcsip.UUCP> shankar@haarlem.UUCP (Son of Knuth) writes: =In article <556@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: =><sigh> If we could only getthem to read the text BEFORE they came to =>class! Then notes could be taken on what they didn't understand when =>they read it, and they would actually learn a lot more. = =If we [students] could only get them [profs] to not lecture by going =through the text page by page, then maybe we would read the material =before going to class. What's the point of reading something that you =know is going to be repeated when you go to class. = =Catch-22. Exactly! So what's the better route? Assume that students will read assigned material, or not? In a community college where we are trying to convert non-learners to learners, we can't afford to punish for failure to read (e.g., pop quizzes on the assigned reading). So how can we encourage students to do the reading? In a positive way? Pete -- Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334 1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (01/11/89)
In article <3350@arcturus> kathryn@arcturus.UUCP (Kathryn Fielding) writes: =In article <558@mccc.UUCP>, pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: => Never understood why a student wouldn't come to class. A class meeting => has as its goal making learning easier. = =Well, off the top of my head, I can think of a few reasons why students =might feel that it is not worthwhile going to class: = =1) A professor who reads the text verbatim and only works examples in the = book, even when asked to do others by the students. = =2) An instructor who fails to answer questions. If I spend several hours trying = to solve a problem, and approach the instructor for guidance, I expect = something a little more enlightening than "It's intuitively obvious" or = "I'll get back to you" and when asked again, repeats the response. = =3) An instructor who's English communication skills are so poor that the = class (including the TA) is unable to understand him. = =These example are all drawn from personal experience, and involve instructors =from three different universities. Good points, KF! I guess I forget that there are *bad* instructors out there. -- Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh Mercer College CompuServe: 70240,334 1200 Old Trenton Road GEnie: PJHOLSBERG Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800
gal@atux01.UUCP (G. Levine) (01/12/89)
In article <9343@ihlpb.ATT.COM>, nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber) writes: > In article <9252@ut-emx.UUCP> nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes: > most of the world only looks at the grades and not > the person (not all grad schools bother to interview, for instance), why > should they believe anything else? The measure of education is the > GPA; the rest is considered a side-effect. > > Note: I don't believe that a GPA should be the measure of an education, > but I've seen how grad schools accept students and how companies hire, > and the truth of the matter is that grades are too important. Too many > students would rather get a good grade than a good education, since it > is easier to use the grade to get a "foot in the door". Boy are you ever right! I recently attended a lecture by an educator bemoaning this very fact! He said, as an example, that if someone is studying to be a surgeon, let's let him fool around with an erector set, see how good he is taking things apart and putting them together; check out his bedside manner, too! There are many different forms of learning and knowledge, but all we seem to care about today is book-learning (i.e., what were your grades?). gary -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Juanita? Barn. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (01/12/89)
In article <2334@hou2d.UUCP> del@hou2d.UUCP (D.LEASURE) writes: >Dr. J. McNaughton of Expert Knowledge Systems does an exercise in >his knowledge acquisition class to show the ineffectiveness of note >taking. He has the students take notes from a tape of an actual >interview with an expert. His experience is that only 20% of the >topics listed by the expert are accurately identified and that only >30% of the details recorded for each topic are correct, giving an >overall correctness rating of 6% for notetaking. I don't get the point of this. Were they supposed to be recording the information? Or taking notes? It would seem to me that 6% is a reasonable amount of a lecture to have faithfully recorded, depending on the lecture (or interview, whatever), and depending on the student's interest. Maybe it's a little high. -Dan
gordon@eecea.eece.ksu.edu (Dwight Gordon) (01/12/89)
In article <8125@aw.sei.cmu.edu>, firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes: > Having prepared lecture notes, why not hand them out? If 50% > notes will help the student, surely 100% will help more, and why ever > would a teacher NOT want to help the pupils? Question 1 - Is it really helping them prepare for their jobs of the future? Who will summarize for them on the job in this fashion? (No sarcasm is intended here. I'm very seriously considering posting my notes for one of my courses. My reservation is that I may be defeating part of the purpose of the course. Former students suggested posting my notes - I really don't care either way. I just would like to do the best I can for my students.) Comments please. More fundamentally - Question 2 - Are we (as educators) attempting to teach the students the information itself, or how to learn (or, perhaps, how to teach themselves)? Comments please. One of my courses has no text. There is no one book that covers the material sufficiently well to warrant my requiring the students to purchase it. Their notes are their lifeline. One of the best things I heard from the students with regard to their preparation for my hourly examinations is that several went to the library in search of some books in order to find some additional references. (This is especially gratifying considering that we have an awful library. :-) Dwight W. Gordon | 913-532-5600 | gordon@eecea.eece.ksu.edu Electrical & Computer Engineering Department | dwgordon@ksuvm.bitnet Kansas State University - Durland Hall | rutgers!ksuvax1!eecea!gordon Manhattan, KS 66506 | {pyramid,ucsd}!ncr-sd!ncrwic!ksuvax1!eecea!gordon
lvc@cbnews.ATT.COM (Lawrence V. Cipriani) (01/12/89)
In article <5314@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: > None the less, there are too many foreign instructors out there who >*do* have very poor english skills. In fact, there are many foreign students >who enter US universities without adequate english skills as well. I know >that some universities are really pressed for help, but something needs to >be done to get these people to a level of english that does not inhibit >others or themselves. It is a state law in Ohio that teachers at a state university have to pass an English competency exam of some sort. This law came into being when a relative of a legislator complained that he or she could not understand their instructor. The exam might be limited to only non-citizens, I don't remember. That hardly seems fair to me, I've had American instructors with lousy English. Also, on the end of quarter teacher evaluations that students fill out, one of the questions is "Do you think the instructor has adequate skills in English" or something like that. I suppose if a lot of students complain, something is done about it. It's hard to say exactly what effect if any these measures have, but my guess is that it probably improves matters. -- Larry Cipriani, AT&T Network Systems, Columbus OH, Path: att!cbnews!lvc Domain: lvc@cbnews.ATT.COM
vkr@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao) (01/13/89)
In article <3062@cbnews.ATT.COM> lvc@cbnews.ATT.COM (Lawrence V. Cipriani) writes: >[...]Also, on the end of quarter teacher evaluations that students fill out, >one of the questions is "Do you think the instructor has adequate skills in >English" The trouble with that question is that most students are simply incabable of evaluating anybody's English (or Amerish :-) skills. They confuse command of language with having the local accent. I refuse to have anybody who cannot write a correct sentence in the comments field evaluating anybody's English skills. -- It is the man not the method that Nath solves the problem. vkr@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu -Poincare. (614)-366-9341
matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) (01/13/89)
In article <5314@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: >In article <18958@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes: >>In my experience, the problem is not really with the person's ENGLISH >>as it is with his/her GENERAL communication skills. In other words, >>I think that most foreigners who are poor teachers in English would >>also be poor teachers in their native language. * None the less, there are too many foreign instructors out there who **do* have very poor english skills. In fact, there are many foreign students *who enter US universities without adequate english skills as well. I know *that some universities are really pressed for help, but something needs to *be done to get these people to a level of english that does not inhibit *others or themselves. I think that by implication you were also referring to foreign-born engineers in U.S. companies, where they have even worse communication problems. I agree. But again, I feel that it is much more a matter of GENERAL communication skills than a matter of accent, grammar and vocabulary. Most foreign (East Asian) engineers do very much need to improve on the latter aspects, but they need EVEN MORE to improve non-language specific communication skills. Unfortunately, they tend to do neither. I once took a survey of Chinese students in my CS program, and found that during their school years in their own countries (Taiwan, Hong Kong, China), they didn't pay much attention to their language courses, even their CHINESE courses; they put most of their effort into their technical courses instead. I know that high schools in Hong Kong tend to have separate "majors" for "arts" students versus "science" students, and the latter usually don't place a high value on languages/communication. In light of the foreign students' immigration goal which I have mentioned, it is ironic that they don't place more emphasis on improving their English. Good English would certainly enhance their job/immigration prospects very strongly. Norm
kolb@handel.colostate.edu. (Denny Kolb) (01/13/89)
In article <533@eecea.eece.ksu.edu> gordon@eecea.UUCP (Dwight Gordon) writes: > >Question 1 - Is it really helping them prepare for their jobs of the >future? Who will summarize for them on the job in this fashion? >(No sarcasm is intended here. I'm very seriously considering posting my >notes for one of my courses. My reservation is that I may be defeating >part of the purpose of the course. Former students suggested posting my >notes - I really don't care either way. I just would like to do the best >I can for my students.) Comments please. Depends, corporations routinely offer in house classes for their employees to familiarize them with new topics; however, in a great many cases one is required to do the legwork one-self. A suggestion, at least for CS type classes, would be to at least publish the example programs that are used in class, with plenty of room around them for marginal comments. Instead of handing out the notes, how about including just a summary of what is covered? Additionally, include study questions, which would possibly get the students to think a little about the material, and not try for simple rote memorization. Hopefully, this would all be done in such a way that students would realize that they still need to listen in class to get all of the details. > >More fundamentally - >Question 2 - Are we (as educators) attempting to teach the students the >information itself, or how to learn (or, perhaps, how to teach themselves)? >Comments please. How to learn! People are seldom hired, especialy new college graduates, exclusively for what they DO know, but rather for what they CAN learn. The more the students are encouraged to learn for themselves, the more valuable they will be to any prospective employer, and the farther, and faster they will advance in their career. This is partly the reason why graduates with an MS are more valuable to prospective employers; the whole point to an MS degree, IMHO is to learn how to teach yourself. Regards, Denny
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (01/13/89)
In article <978@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> kolb@handel.colostate.edu..UUCP (Denny Kolb) writes: >[responding to: should students be taught facts, or how to learn?] > How to learn! People are seldom hired, especialy new college graduates, > exclusively for what they DO know, but rather for what they CAN learn. The > more the students are encouraged to learn for themselves, the more valuable > they will be to any prospective employer, and the farther, and faster they > will advance in their career. This is partly the reason why graduates with > an MS are more valuable to prospective employers; the whole point to an MS > degree, IMHO is to learn how to teach yourself. Well, depends on what level of work you're talking about. If you look at help wanted sections, at least in low tech areas, all they care about is what you know, and how long you've known it. (That's not the sort of jobs MS's get anyhow.) But besides that, I think the real issue isn't whether to teach facts or metacognition, it's how to strike a good balance. Without some fact-like material, there wouldn't be any reason for distinct subject areas. Without some teaching of how to learn, students would end up as large fact repositories, but there would be no opportunity for progress or discovery. I think the proper balance is to teach just facts, but to teach them in such a way that the students can't learn without developing their metacognitive skills. Incidentally, by facts I don't mean things like the value of pi, or how to integrate an arcsecant, or whatever. I mean concepts, things you can't look up in books, but are definitely knowable in some sense, even if they can't be clearly defined. I don't think things that can easily be looked up in books should be taught. -Dan
landman%hanami@Sun.COM (Howard A. Landman) (01/13/89)
In article <19252@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> verma@mahimahi.cs.ucla.edu (Rodent of Darkness) writes: > Speaking of division and "fractions" once had a teacher who > said that division and fractions had nothing to do with each > other. To this day I have no idea as to why she said this. My first grade teacher taught that there was no such thing as a negative number. It took me three years to figure out she was wrong, but when I did, I was furious for a month. I never COMPLETELY trusted a teacher after that. It made for some interesting exchanges in class when I thought that something wrong had been said or written (hey, MOST of the time I was right!). Howard A. Landman landman@hanami.sun.com
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (01/13/89)
in article <5268@pdn.UUCP>, reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) says: > In article <13160@bellcore.bellcore.com> duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) writes: > >>What techniques do people use to produce an atmosphere where questions that do >>not have immediate answers get asked and pursued? > > industry. Often a professor is looked upon in awe by the average undergrad. I think this is the crux of the matter -- the professor being put up on a pedestal as "the man who knows EVERYTHING about Computer Science." The lecture turns into Awestruck Students Avidly Awaiting Tidbits of Enlightenment from Oh Noble Guru of Professorhood. Pthui. What needs to be gotten across to students is that professors don't have magical powers. They're just ordinary folks who put a helluva lot of time into research and study. Any Joe Student after the first few semesters ought to have enough background so that he can begin making sense of the books and papers on a topic... but how many students do you think actually go out of their way? How many students taking, say, a Compiler course, will do more than just scan the book? Short of folks going for an advanced degree specializing in compilers, I can't think of many who'd buy every compiler book they came across, and check out the referenced papers. Yet that's just the difference between Dr. B and Joe Undergrad. Dr. B has put years into it, but there's nothing magical or mystical about it. I don't know how to impart upon students the self-confidence needed to participate in class and pursue outside questions. But I do know that part of the answer is to eliminate the self-proclaimed Godhood of All Instructors. Teachers in elementary and secondary education in particular use this method to actively discourage questions, mostly because they don't know the answers (if you ask an elementary school teacher why 1+1=2, she'll just say "because."). I've also encountered a few college-level professors, pompous types, who tend to fall into the same relationship with their students ("I'm the Professor, you're the peons, what I say goes."). Thankfully, at the college level, such instructors are a minority. But the students don't seem to have noticed. -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 Netter A: In Hell they run VMS. Netter B: No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (01/13/89)
In article <3062@cbnews.ATT.COM> lvc@cbnews.ATT.COM (Lawrence V. Cipriani) writes: >It is a state law in Ohio that teachers at a state university have to pass >an English competency exam of some sort. This law came into being when a >relative of a legislator complained that he or she could not understand their >instructor. The exam might be limited to only non-citizens, I don't remember. >That hardly seems fair to me, I've had American instructors with lousy English. I recall the front page article in the Wall St Journal concerning the students at Ohio State complaining of this. I'm glad to see that something was done about it. But is it working? BTW: I agree that there are many natives with lousy English (me included according to my wife who minored in English). However, at least we can verbally understand them, right? -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (01/13/89)
In article <19035@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes: >In article <5314@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: >* None the less, there are too many foreign instructors out there who >**do* have very poor english skills. In fact, there are many foreign students >*who enter US universities without adequate english skills as well. I know >*that some universities are really pressed for help, but something needs to >*be done to get these people to a level of english that does not inhibit >*others or themselves. >I think that by implication you were also referring to foreign-born >engineers in U.S. companies, where they have even worse communication >problems. Yes, that too. However, not everyone is guilty of this. There are foreign-born students, engineers, etc... who speak English better than you and I! >I agree. But again, I feel that it is much more a matter of GENERAL >communication skills than a matter of accent, grammar and vocabulary. >Most foreign (East Asian) engineers do very much need to improve on >the latter aspects, but they need EVEN MORE to improve non-language >specific communication skills. I'll agree with you on this. Some folks that I worked with at a former employer in New Jersey not only have verbal problems, but socially they did not seem to feel comfortable dealing with other people in English. >Unfortunately, they tend to do neither. I once took a survey of >Chinese students in my CS program, and found that during their school >years in their own countries (Taiwan, Hong Kong, China), they didn't >pay much attention to their language courses, even their CHINESE >courses; they put most of their effort into their technical courses >instead. I know that high schools in Hong Kong tend to have separate >"majors" for "arts" students versus "science" students, and the latter >usually don't place a high value on languages/communication. That is unfortunate. Years ago the same was true in this country. The science and math courses were everything and who cares if you can speak, read or write. However, communication skill play a very important part in a technical person's life and should not be ignored. >In light of the foreign students' immigration goal which I have mentioned, >it is ironic that they don't place more emphasis on improving their English. >Good English would certainly enhance their job/immigration prospects very >strongly. I agree! I would never even think about trying to either attent a university or land a job in France. My two years of high school French are not enough. Yet, I get the feeling that many enter this country will less preparation than that! Obviously, somehow they are hearing that it is not all that important to get into an American university or to get a job. I found out how one university screens applicants from foreign countries. Traveling to the US to visit the university is not always possible, so students must take some sort of English proficiency exam and have one of their instructors write a letter confirming their skills. Often this does not work because the filtering mechanism is in the hands of the offenders! I once had a student from Taiwan who after six weeks into the course, came to me complaining that he could not understand me. He could only read one page per hour in the book! After speaking to him, I realized that his English skills were not even at the level of a pre schooler! I immediately got him out of my course, after the withdrawal deadline, and got him in touch with a prof who was offering language skill courses for these people on the side. However, a few years later I saw he was working on his Senior Project, which means someone let him back into the course the next semester and passed him! -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826
hunt@kevin.CES.CWRU.Edu (Francie Hunt) (01/14/89)
In article <6771@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes: > >I think this is the crux of the matter -- the professor being put up >on a pedestal as "the man who knows EVERYTHING about Computer Science." ^^^ !!! Please, let's be careful what assumptions we are making here. This would sound just as good with the word person substituted above. There are many professors out here (myself included) who are not men, and are quite put off by sweeping generalizations that exclude us. I pretty much agree with the rest of your article, but had to set this straight. Later, ... >I don't know how to impart upon students the self-confidence needed to >participate in class and pursue outside questions. True, this is a hard thing to do, in most cases. This is where nurturing qualities come in handy, to draw out the student participation in a supportive environment. I try to make my classes "interactive" by asking them questions and giving them enough time to come up with an answer before hopping in myself. It's usually easy to tell if they know the answer and are just shy or if they haven't a clue. Eye contact and a non-threatening manner go a long way toward increasing the participation in class. Now, if only good teaching were recognized, encouraged, and rewarded...... Francie Hunt Assistant Professor, Computer Engineering and Science Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 hunt@alpha.ces.cwru.edu
del@hou2d.UUCP (D.LEASURE) (01/14/89)
In article <533@eecea.eece.ksu.edu>, gordon@eecea.eece.ksu.edu (Dwight Gordon) writes: > Question 1 - Is it [handing out notes] really helping them > prepare for their jobs of the > future? Who will summarize for them on the job in this fashion? Having only worked for one large corporation, I can't speak for others, but it's customary for all oral communication to be backed up with written summaries/notes/visuals. The point is to communicate. Note taking will of course be important, but written material is standard in AT&T for business communication. -- David E. Leasure - AT&T Bell Laboratories - (201) 615-4169 hou2d!del del@hou2d.att.com leasure@paul.rutgers.edu
duncan@geppetto.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) (01/14/89)
In article <13160@bellcore.bellcore.com> I commented on the teacher-student relationship and the sense that instructors *ought* to have the *right* answers for questions. In this connection I asked "What techniques do people use to produce an atmosphere where questions that do not have immediate answers get asked and pursued?" I haven't received much that really addresses practical techniques, i.e., things to try in a classroom, as opposed to talk on aspects of teacher pomposity, etc. But... In <6771@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>, elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) says: > >What needs to be gotten across to students is that professors [are]... just >ordinary folks who put a helluva lot of time into research and study. Any Joe >Student after the first few semesters ought to have enough background so that I was sort of predicating my request on the experiences I had of first year students who would NOT have had much, if any, college background. >he can begin making sense of the books and papers on a topic... but how many >students do >you think actually go out of their way? How many students taking, >say, a Compiler course, will do more than just scan the book? Short of folks >going for an advanced degree specializing in compilers, I can't think of many >who'd buy every compiler book they came across, and Should very many be expected to commit to such an expense -- they have many courses and buying "every" book on the subject is a tremendous commitment! I would expect people at the very least in their Senior year to have at least looked at or read "every" book in a specific area of interest. >check out the referenced papers. I think that's a good idea, only many introductory books (first year) don't reference many "papers" that students might easily find available. I think an enterprising instructor might want to try to make such things available as an extension of source materials -- so thanks for that idea. >I don't know how to impart upon students the self-confidence needed to >participate in class and pursue outside questions. [Eric goes on to note how some of the problem starts very early when answers to questions are limited to "because".] I would like some suggestions about how folks have addressed this. I always felt a bit more responsible for students than just to teach the material (even well) since I dealt with first year students (or some second year in a commun- ity college setting). In article <387@cwjcc.CWRU.Edu>, hunt@kevin.CES.CWRU.Edu (Francie Hunt) says: > >True, this is a hard thing to do, in most cases. This is where nurturing >qualities come in handy, to draw out the student participation in a >supportive environment. I try to make my classes "interactive" by asking >them questions and giving them enough time to come up with an answer before >hopping in myself. It's usually easy to tell if they know the answer and >are just shy or if they haven't a clue. Eye contact and a non-threatening >manner go a long way toward increasing the participation in class. This is some of what I was getting at -- along with ideas of a content nature like Eric mentions above. Speaking only for myself, of course, I am... Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan) (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ 08854) (201-699-3910 (w) 201-463-3683 (h))
troly@redwood.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly) (01/14/89)
In article <85191@sun.uucp> landman@sun.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) writes: >My first grade teacher taught that there was no such thing as a negative >number. It took me three years to figure out she was wrong, but when I >did, I was furious for a month. My 3rd grade teacher said the same thing, but I didn't believe her. I tried to explain them, but that only served to enrage her. She pulled me up in front of the class and said, "All right smarty, show the class numbers less than zero on your fingers. See, you can't, so there aren't any! Nyaah!" I had just come to this country and the encounter left me wondering if Americans were just intellectually inferior. -Bret
jiii@visdc.UUCP (John E Van Deusen III) (01/15/89)
Thanks
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (01/15/89)
in article <5354@pdn.UUCP>, reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) says: > I found out how one university screens applicants from foreign > countries. Traveling to the US to visit the university is not always > possible, so students must take some sort of English proficiency exam > and have one of their instructors write a letter confirming their skills. > Often this does not work because the filtering mechanism is in the hands > of the offenders! I once had a student from Taiwan who after six weeks At the university I attend (University of SW Louisiana), there is a large percentage of foreign students (mostly East Asian now... was once a lot of Latin American and Middle Eastern students, but the economic troubles in those lands have curtailed that). In addition to the scores sent in with the application, each student, upon arrival in the U.S., is required to take the test over here. If the score either there or here is below a certain point, they are required to take remedial courses entitled "English for Speakers of Other Languages" (ESOL for short). I'm not up on the exact details (though I count many foreign students among my friends), but it seems like remedial efforts of this type are what is necessary if the U.S. is to continue to import the talent that it needs (just another example of something the U.S. no longer produces domestically and has to import -- engineering talent!). -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 Netter A: In Hell they run VMS. Netter B: No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.
dant@mrloog.LA.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque;1893;92-101;) (01/15/89)
George W. Leach writes: > > Another factor may the cultural differences between students and the >instructor. In many countries the instructor lectures and the students >hang on every word, paying maximum attention. Or, quite likely, taking dictation without understanding a word said. Richard Feynman in _Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman_ discussed his experiences in Brazil. He was giving a lecture on polarization and stopped to ask a simple question on something he'd just said. Not a single student understood the question. The problem was that he'd asked them to apply his lecture to a real world situation. The students could repeat back what he'd just said but didn't really comprehend a thing. Brazilian students evidently succeed by writing down everything the teacher says, memorizing it, and regurgitating it back on the final. No original, creative, synthetic or analytic thought is required. I have a feeling that Brazil is not unique in this kind of scholasticism. --- Dan Tilque -- dant@twaddl.LA.TEK.COM
bagpiper@oxy.edu (Michael Paul Hunter) (01/16/89)
In article <2334@hou2d.UUCP> del@hou2d.UUCP (D.LEASURE) writes: >In article <8125@aw.sei.cmu.edu>, firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes: >> Having prepared lecture notes, why not hand them out? If 50% >> notes will help the student, surely 100% will help more, and why ever >> would a teacher NOT want to help the pupils? > >Dr. J. McNaughton of Expert Knowledge Systems does an exercise in [edited].... >The notes give the opportunity to interact at the lecture. Always >go to class, the notes are never as good. Give feedback to the >lecturer if the lectures don't surpass the value of the notes. >-- >David E. Leasure - AT&T Bell Laboratories - (201) 615-4169 >hou2d!del del@hou2d.att.com leasure@paul.rutgers.edu Bravo!!! Even when notes are NOT handed out I find it more beneficial to try to interact with the lecture. I find it more educational to try and do the next line of the proof myself rather then passively accepting the data that is written on the board. Of course in classes where either a lot of the class material is not in a textbook or in classes where the textbook is poor, notetaking is crucial. Michael Hunter
piner@pur-phy (Richard Piner) (01/16/89)
In article <331@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> troly@math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly) writes: ->In article <85191@sun.uucp> landman@sun.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) writes: ->>My first grade teacher taught that there was no such thing as a negative ->>number. It took me three years to figure out she was wrong, but when I ->>did, I was furious for a month. -> -> My 3rd grade teacher said the same thing, but I didn't believe her. ->I tried to explain them, but that only served to enrage her. She ->pulled me up in front of the class and said, "All right smarty, show ->the class numbers less than zero on your fingers. See, you can't, so ->there aren't any! Nyaah!" I had just come to this country and the ->encounter left me wondering if Americans were just intellectually ->inferior. -> ->-Bret Oh wow, did you ever miss a chance to get tossed out of school. Here's how you could have answered your teacher. "Let these fingers represent positive numbers.", holding up three fingers. "Now, let these fingers represent negative numbers.", holding two fingers pointed down. (A side note, only a physicist would think of this, plus and minus spin and all of that. Don't you know?) "Now, if I ADD these two numbers, I get.....", holding up just one middle finger. Can you say expelled, I knew you could. Oh well, life is full of missed chances. R. Piner
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (01/16/89)
In article <13432@bellcore.bellcore.com> duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) writes: >Should very many be expected to commit to such an expense -- they have many >courses and buying "every" book on the subject is a tremendous commitment! I >would expect people at the very least in their Senior year to have at least >looked at or read "every" book in a specific area of interest. Lots of folks in graduate school don't go this far! I think one of the problems is finding an area in which to concentrate that really stimulates the student. Undergradutes are presented with a great variety of material, but at an introductory level. In graduate school the student should concentrate on a few areas, but in greater depth. [Commenting on Eric Green's suggestion to check out the literature on a topic] >I think that's a good idea, only many introductory books (first year) don't >reference many "papers" that students might easily find available. I think an >enterprising instructor might want to try to make such things available as an >extension of source materials -- so thanks for that idea. I did at one time, but one must be extremely careful not to dump too much information on the "introductory" level student. If every week I hand out papers for them to read, it may turn more people off than on. The quality and appropriate content for an introductory level student is more important than the quantity of papers. I will only hand out a paper to an introductory level class if it is outstanding and fits in well with what we are discussing. The introductory level student will not be as willing to read a lengthy paper as a junior or senior. Also, many papers in the literature require some basic knowledge in the subject matter that these students just don't have at this point! Many tutorial or survey papers, while written for the novice in a particular subject area, require some level of basic general CS knowledge. I will try to draw from the literature to add to the course content. Essentially I must act as a filter to derive appropriate information from the literature and present it in the class so that it makes sense for my students. The temptation to show the introductory level class the wealth of information that is available on the course subject is great. But one must remember that in order to learn how to walk, one must learn how to crawl first! [Eric Green writes:] >>I don't know how to impart upon students the self-confidence needed to >>participate in class and pursue outside questions. >I would like some suggestions about how folks have addressed this. I always >felt a bit more responsible for students than just to teach the material (even >well) since I dealt with first year students (or some second year in a commun- >ity college setting). I think this discussion is not just isolated to instructor/student relationships, but to many situations in life. There are people, who just are not good at dealing with others, especially others who don't have as much experience and knowledge as themselves. Take a look at any profession. There are people who take new people under their wing, show them the ropes, etc... There are others who wouldn't give such people the time of day and go out of their way to antagonize them. My assessment of the situation is the former types of people feel comfortable with themselves while the later need to feed their fragile egos due to their own feelings of inadequacy. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826
hough@ldgo.columbia.edu (sue hough) (01/16/89)
> In article <331@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> troly@math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly) writes: > ->In article <85191@sun.uucp> landman@sun.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) writes: > ->>My first grade teacher taught that there was no such thing as a negative > ->>number. It took me three years to figure out she was wrong, but when I > ->>did, I was furious for a month. > -> > -> My 3rd grade teacher said the same thing, but I didn't believe her. > ->I tried to explain them, but that only served to enrage her. She > ->pulled me up in front of the class and said, "All right smarty, show > ->the class numbers less than zero on your fingers. See, you can't, so > ->there aren't any! Nyaah!" I had just come to this country and the > ->encounter left me wondering if Americans were just intellectually > ->inferior. > -> > ->-Bret Not all Americans are intellectually inferior. When I was first taught subtraction in school (second grade?) the teacher went through her spiel and ended with, "Now how many people think you can subtract 3 from 2?". I raised my hand, along with a handful of others. She went through her spiel again, demonstrating with apples. Then she asked her question again, and I was the only one with my hand up. When she asked me to explain, I said you'd get a negative number. She agreed on the existence of negative numbers (!), but explained that you couldn't have a negative number of apples. American education has this pie-eyed premise of equality: Every student can be a rocket scientist if he/she is taught right. Rather than ship the less promising students off to some sort of trade school (where they won't embarrass your national statistics), everybody gets the same classes up to at least eighth grade. Is anybody surprised that the country that gave you Wonder Bread and Budweiser also gives you least-common-denominator education? ------------------------------------------------------------------- I never respected anyone who could spell --Mark Twain :o) ----- Sue Hough ***if these are opinions, Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory they must be mine*** Columbia University Palisades N.Y. 10964 email:hough@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------
bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) (01/17/89)
("Oh wow"? Ah, nostalgia.) It's pretty disturbing as well, that a
teacher should think of counting on fingers as a proof of anything. I
use it as an example of minimal arithmetic skills...
I thought of a safe way to convince brain-dead people that negative
numbers exist. Simply ask them how much money they have, after writing
a $250 rent check on a bank account with $197 in it. (Of course, most
grade schoolers aren't thinking along these lines, and the example will
seem unrealistic in the apartment markets of most big cities, but it
puts it in a realm that grade school TEACHERS should relate to.)matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) (01/17/89)
In article <5354@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: >In article <19035@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes: >>In article <5314@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: >>* None the less, there are too many foreign instructors out there who >>**do* have very poor english skills. In fact, there are many foreign students >>*who enter US universities without adequate english skills as well. I know >>*that some universities are really pressed for help, but something needs to >>*be done to get these people to a level of english that does not inhibit >>*others or themselves. >>I think that by implication you were also referring to foreign-born >>engineers in U.S. companies, where they have even worse communication >>problems. > Yes, that too. However, not everyone is guilty of this. There >are foreign-born students, engineers, etc... who speak English better >than you and I! Of course, I was referring to the East Asians, especially the ones from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, which form the largest groups. I agree that the ones from India tend to have MUCH better English than the majority of Americans, at least in the case of Indians from Indian Institute of Technology. >>I agree. But again, I feel that it is much more a matter of GENERAL >>communication skills than a matter of accent, grammar and vocabulary. >>Most foreign (East Asian) engineers do very much need to improve on >>the latter aspects, but they need EVEN MORE to improve non-language >>specific communication skills. > I'll agree with you on this. Some folks that I worked with at >a former employer in New Jersey not only have verbal problems, but >socially they did not seem to feel comfortable dealing with other >people in English. Yes, and there are lots of reasons for this, including an anticipated (whether real or perceived) lack of welcome from the native-born Americans. However, what I was saying was that many of them don't communicate well in their own langauges either. [See next quote.] >>Unfortunately, they tend to do neither. I once took a survey of >>Chinese students in my CS program, and found that during their school >>years in their own countries (Taiwan, Hong Kong, China), they didn't >>pay much attention to their language courses, even their CHINESE >>courses; they put most of their effort into their technical courses >>instead. I know that high schools in Hong Kong tend to have separate >>"majors" for "arts" students versus "science" students, and the latter >>usually don't place a high value on languages/communication. > That is unfortunate. Years ago the same was true in this country. >The science and math courses were everything and who cares if you can >speak, read or write. However, communication skill play a very important >part in a technical person's life and should not be ignored. Agreed. But do you really feel that things have improved in this respect in U.S. education? >>In light of the foreign students' immigration goal which I have mentioned, >>it is ironic that they don't place more emphasis on improving their English. >>Good English would certainly enhance their job/immigration prospects very >>strongly. > I agree! I would never even think about trying to either attent a >university or land a job in France. My two years of high school French >are not enough. Yet, I get the feeling that many enter this country will >less preparation than that! Obviously, somehow they are hearing that it ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >is not all that important to get into an American university or to get a job. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It's not so much that they hear this explicitly, but they do hear all the success stories of others, and emulate them. Unfortunately, they do NOT hear that these people found it much harder to get their first job than it should have been, and that these people got jobs which were not quite up to their qualifications, and that these people had trouble getting promotions later on, all due at least in part to poor verbal skills. Moreover, I'm not sure that your example is directly comparable. There are so many Chinese immigrants working in the Silicon Valley that many of them don't have to speak English very much at work. My wife speaks Mandarin most of the time at work there. > I found out how one university screens applicants from foreign >countries. Traveling to the US to visit the university is not always >possible, so students must take some sort of English proficiency exam >and have one of their instructors write a letter confirming their skills. Actually, this has worked quite well for us for students from China. There are a lot of Americans teaching English in China now, and the letters from them have been pretty reliable (we've only had one disappointment). Norm
matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) (01/17/89)
In article <4392@teklds.CAE.TEK.COM> dant@mrloog.LA.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes: >George W. Leach writes: >> Another factor may the cultural differences between students and the >>instructor. In many countries the instructor lectures and the students >>hang on every word, paying maximum attention. *Or, quite likely, taking dictation without understanding a word said. *Richard Feynman in _Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman_ discussed his *experiences in Brazil. He was giving a lecture on polarization and *stopped to ask a simple question on something he'd just said. Not a *single student understood the question. The problem was that he'd *asked them to apply his lecture to a real world situation. The *students could repeat back what he'd just said but didn't really *comprehend a thing. *Brazilian students evidently succeed by writing down everything the *teacher says, memorizing it, and regurgitating it back on the final. No *original, creative, synthetic or analytic thought is required. I have a *feeling that Brazil is not unique in this kind of scholasticism. True. Again, East Asia is an example of this. In Chinese, there is a phrase which translates to "stuff the duck," meaning rote memorization, and this seems to pervade education in East Asian countries. Anecdote: A year ago, I taught a course in networks, and I gave a very free-form assignment involving a simulation study. I said to the students, "YOU pose the problem to be studied, YOU design a simulation experiment to study it, YOU decide how to present the results, etc.." The students worked in teams of 2. One particular team consisted of one student from the top school in Taiwan and the other from a top school in China. After a few days, this team asked me during lecture, "What do you want the output to consist of?" I answered by repeating what I had said before, i.e. this problem is free-form, use your own creativity for both posing the problem and studying it, it's all up to you, etc., etc. The team replied, "Sure, we understand that, but what do you want the output to consist of?" :-) [The rest of the class laughed, though some of those who laughed suffered from a similar problem.] Norm
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (01/17/89)
in article <19147@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) says: > other from a top school in China. After a few days, this team asked > me during lecture, "What do you want the output to consist of?" > I answered by repeating what I had said before, i.e. this problem > is free-form, use your own creativity for both posing the problem and > studying it, it's all up to you, etc., etc. The team replied, "Sure, > we understand that, but what do you want the output to consist of?" :-) > [The rest of the class laughed, though some of those who laughed suffered > from a similar problem.] Note that in most undergrad classes at the freshman-sophomore levels, you don't get points for creativity. You get points for putting the answer that the professor expects. Is it any wonder that the same attitude carries over to upper-level courses? An anecdote of my own: A friend, whose father is a mathematics professor, took a Discrete Math course. He did a proof on a test, and the professor marked it wrong. He brought it home to his father, who agreed, "that sure looks right to me." Brought it back to the professor, who said "It might be right, but it wasn't the answer I wanted." -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 Netter A: In Hell they run VMS. Netter B: No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.
matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) (01/17/89)
I had written: >>>In light of the foreign students' immigration goal which I have mentioned, >>>it is ironic that they don't place more emphasis on improving their English. >>>Good English would certainly enhance their job/immigration prospects very >>>strongly. George had replied: >> I agree! I would never even think about trying to either attent a >>university or land a job in France. My two years of high school French >>are not enough. Yet, I get the feeling that many enter this country will >>less preparation than that! Obviously, somehow they are hearing that it > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>is not all that important to get into an American university or to get a job. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I responded: >It's not so much that they hear this explicitly, but they do hear all >the success stories of others, and emulate them. Unfortunately, they >do NOT hear that these people found it much harder to get their first >job than it should have been, and that these people got jobs which were >not quite up to their qualifications, and that these people had trouble >getting promotions later on, all due at least in part to poor verbal >skills. >Moreover, I'm not sure that your example is directly comparable. There >are so many Chinese immigrants working in the Silicon Valley that many >of them don't have to speak English very much at work. My wife speaks >Mandarin most of the time at work there. I had intended (but forgot) to add: It should be noted that the English-to-French transition is much easier than the Chinese-to-English transition, so your example of your going to France is again not very comparable. On the other hand, I have some Chinese immigrant friends with really outstanding English, so it can be done if one really makes a commitment to do so. Norm
duncan@geppetto.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) (01/17/89)
In article <5382@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: > > one must be extremely careful not to dump too much >information on the "introductory" level student. If every week I hand out >papers for them to read, it may turn more people off than on. Agreed, which is why I just said "try to make such things available" rather than require that they read them. I'm sure it might require some experimen- tation to see what works out well before adding to the required course mater- ial is feasible. > The quality >and appropriate content for an introductory level student is more important >than the quantity of papers. I will only hand out a paper to an introductory >level class if it is outstanding and fits in well with what we are discussing. Perhaps some examples of papers you've used (and those others might care to recommend) for introductory courses would be really useful -- they would to me! It would save a lot of the experimentation I mentioned above if people experienced in introducing computer science literature into the curriculum would suggest papers that an introductory class could be expected to read and understand. (I realize the 'understand' part might be open to debate, but I am more interested in compiling a list of what people have used, THEN discuss the pros and cons of specific ones.) Speaking only for myself, of course, I am... Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan) (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ 08854) (201-699-3910 (w) 201-463-3683 (h))
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (01/18/89)
In article <19145@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes: >In article <5354@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: [Norm discusses the tendancy for foreign students to concentrate too much on math and science and not enough on language and communications skills, even in their native languages] >> That is unfortunate. Years ago the same was true in this country. >>The science and math courses were everything and who cares if you can >>speak, read or write. However, communication skill play a very important >>part in a technical person's life and should not be ignored. >Agreed. But do you really feel that things have improved in this respect >in U.S. education? Oh, no! I didn't mean to imply that this is not a problem here. I feel that we are at least more aware of the problem these days, but not enough is being done about it. >> I agree! I would never even think about trying to either attent a >>university or land a job in France. My two years of high school French >>are not enough. Yet, I get the feeling that many enter this country will >>less preparation than that! Obviously, somehow they are hearing that it ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>is not all that important to get into an American university or to get a job. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >It's not so much that they hear this explicitly, but they do hear all >the success stories of others, and emulate them. Unfortunately, they >do NOT hear that these people found it much harder to get their first >job than it should have been, and that these people got jobs which were >not quite up to their qualifications, and that these people had trouble >getting promotions later on, all due at least in part to poor verbal >skills. It sounds like what many of the immigrants of the earlier part of this century heard: "the streets are paved with gold". >Moreover, I'm not sure that your example is directly comparable. There >are so many Chinese immigrants working in the Silicon Valley that many >of them don't have to speak English very much at work. My wife speaks >Mandarin most of the time at work there. True! In the New York/New Jersey area there are enough Chinese who work in certain places that they can band together and speak their native tongue as well. In fact, I have known people who came to this country and settled in Chinatown, in lower Manhattan, where the society very much mirrors their homeland. New York is rather unique in this respect. There are many ethnic neighborhoods there. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826
matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) (01/18/89)
In article <6817@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes: >in article <19147@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) says: *> other from a top school in China. After a few days, this team asked *> me during lecture, "What do you want the output to consist of?" *> I answered by repeating what I had said before, i.e. this problem *> is free-form, use your own creativity for both posing the problem and *> studying it, it's all up to you, etc., etc. The team replied, "Sure, *> we understand that, but what do you want the output to consist of?" :-) *> [The rest of the class laughed, though some of those who laughed suffered *> from a similar problem.] >Note that in most undergrad classes at the freshman-sophomore levels, >you don't get points for creativity. You get points for putting the >answer that the professor expects. >Is it any wonder that the same attitude carries over to upper-level >courses? Actually, it doesn't. I have making free-form assignments like this quite a bit in my grad courses recently, usually with projects instead of homework problems, and the projects are VERY free-form. I agree with Eric's point, but the better students (i.e. MOST of those in grad school) tend not to have this follow-the-instructions-step-by-step point of view, and they do some really nice, creative and insightful work on their projects. And even more surprisingly, they enjoy it! Norm
shankar@haarlem.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Son of Knuth) (01/19/89)
In article <1088@bird.ldgo.columbia.edu> hough@ldgo.columbia.edu (sue hough) writes: >American education has this pie-eyed premise of equality: > Every student can be a rocket scientist if he/she is taught > right. Rather than ship the less promising students off > to some sort of trade school (where they won't embarrass > your national statistics), everybody gets the same classes > up to at least eighth grade. Perhaps because every student *can be a rocket scientist if he/she is thought right and works hard at it. Let's see, who was it that said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. I would rather not see elementary school kids tested, classified into one of many professions, and then sent to an appropriate school. -- Subash Shankar Honeywell Systems & Research Center voice: (612) 782 7558 US Snail: 3660 Technology Dr., Minneapolis, MN 55418 Internet: shankar@src.honeywell.com UUCP: shankar@srcsip.uucp {umn-cs,ems,bthpyd}!srcsip!shankar -- Subash Shankar Honeywell Systems & Research Center voice: (612) 782 7558 US Snail: 3660 Technology Dr., Minneapolis, MN 55418 Internet: shankar@src.honeywell.com
dkingsle@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU (david kingsley) (01/19/89)
In article <331@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU>, troly@redwood.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly) writes: > In article <85191@sun.uucp> landman@sun.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) writes: > >My first grade teacher taught that there was no such thing as a negative > >number. It took me three years to figure out she was wrong, but when I > >did, I was furious for a month. > > My 3rd grade teacher said the same thing, but I didn't believe her. > I tried to explain them, but that only served to enrage her. She > pulled me up in front of the class and said, "All right smarty, show > the class numbers less than zero on your fingers. See, you can't, so > there aren't any! Nyaah!" I had just come to this country and the > encounter left me wondering if Americans were just intellectually > inferior. This reminds me of something I read in Isaac Asimov's book, "Asimov on Numbers" In college, Asimov was waiting for a friend's class to finish and sat in the back of the room. The instructor had lists of scientists and mystics on the board and included mathematicians in the list of mystics. Asimov asked why, and the instructor said, "Because they believe in numbers that don't exist. The square root of minus one doesn't exist, but they believe that it has an existence of some sort." Asimov said, "What do you mean? It's just as real as any other number." The instructor said, "My friends, we have here a budding mathematician who believes that the square root of minus one exists. If so, would you care to hand me the square root of minus one pieces of chalk?" Asimov hesitated, then said, "Okay, I'll do it, if you hand me half a piece of chalk." The instructor took a piece of chalk, broke it into two pieces, and handed one of the pieces to Asimov. He then said, "Okay. Now fulfill your end of the bargain." Asimov said, "That isn't half a piece of chalk. It's one piece. It certainly doesn't look like two or three." The instructor replied, "A one half piece of chalk is half a regulation piece." Asimov said, "Now let's assume that I accept your defintion of half a piece of chalk. How can you be sure that isn't a .52 or a .48 piece? Furthermore, how can you feel qualified to talk about the square root of minus one when you're a bit fuzzy on the concept of one half?" The instructor then became infuriated and ordered Asimov, laughing, out of the room. David Kingsley Department of Mathematics and Statistics University of Minnesota, Duluth
matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) (01/19/89)
In article <5392@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: >In article <19145@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes: >>In article <5354@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: %>> That is unfortunate. Years ago the same was true in this country. %>>The science and math courses were everything and who cares if you can %>>speak, read or write. However, communication skill play a very important %>>part in a technical person's life and should not be ignored. >>Agreed. But do you really feel that things have improved in this respect >>in U.S. education? % Oh, no! I didn't mean to imply that this is not a problem here. I feel %that we are at least more aware of the problem these days, but not enough %is being done about it. *Who* is aware of the problem? Certainly managers in industry are painfully aware of it, especially on the written side. University educators are vaguely aware of it. But the *students* are not aware of it at all. They would be shocked to know how much of ordinary work in the real world consists of communication -- holding meetings, writing reports, explaining things to others, dealing with users of the company's products, etc. %>> I agree! I would never even think about trying to either attent a %>>university or land a job in France. My two years of high school French %>>are not enough. Yet, I get the feeling that many enter this country will %>>less preparation than that! Obviously, somehow they are hearing that it % ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ %>>is not all that important to get into an American university or to get a job. % ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>It's not so much that they hear this explicitly, but they do hear all >>the success stories of others, and emulate them. Unfortunately, they >>do NOT hear that these people found it much harder to get their first >>job than it should have been, and that these people got jobs which were >>not quite up to their qualifications, and that these people had trouble >>getting promotions later on, all due at least in part to poor verbal >>skills. % It sounds like what many of the immigrants of the earlier part of %this century heard: "the streets are paved with gold". Yes, and it's true! I believe that the average salary for an engineer in Taiwan is about $5,000, and of course a lot lower than that in China and India. When word gets back home that Wang Ai Qian has bought a $500,000 house and is running his own business in addition to his regular job with Sun Microsystems, it looks very attractive indeed. [But, apparently, it's much less attractive to Americans. Why?] >>Moreover, I'm not sure that your example is directly comparable. There >>are so many Chinese immigrants working in the Silicon Valley that many >>of them don't have to speak English very much at work. My wife speaks >>Mandarin most of the time at work there. % True! In the New York/New Jersey area there are enough Chinese who %work in certain places that they can band together and speak their %native tongue as well. In fact, I have known people who came to this %country and settled in Chinatown, in lower Manhattan, where the society %very much mirrors their homeland. New York is rather unique in this %respect. There are many ethnic neighborhoods there. Actually, the Chinatown example is not what I meant. You won't find many professional people living in Chinatown. The residents there are "normal" immigrants, i.e. who immigrated through U.S. relatives instead of on the basis of professional skills. Norm
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (01/19/89)
in article <5382@pdn.UUCP>, reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) says: > In article <13432@bellcore.bellcore.com> duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) writes: >>Should very many be expected to commit to such an expense -- they have many >>courses and buying "every" book on the subject is a tremendous commitment! I >>would expect people at the very least in their Senior year to have at least >>looked at or read "every" book in a specific area of interest. > Lots of folks in graduate school don't go this far! I think one That's why they invented libraries. If you intend to specialize in, e.g., compilers, you ought to have read the "classics" of the field, and bought what books you found to be up-to-date and good reference works. Or, if you intend to specialize in, e.g., low-level kernel work, you should have at least read (but preferably bought) the Bach book and the Minix book, as well as having read more general type references and looked at all the low-level code you could beg, borrow, or pilfer. (as an aside, has the book about the 4.3 kernel been released yet?). If you're going to be a "Computer Scientist", you simply have to have the reference materials to back it up. > the student. Undergradutes are presented with a great variety of material, > but at an introductory level. In graduate school the student should concentrate > on a few areas, but in greater depth. Even undergrads can have areas that they "like" more than others. At junior-senior levels, they ought to look into those areas in more depth than topics they don't particularly care for. But rarely will you find someone who does. > [Commenting on Eric Green's suggestion to check out the literature on a topic] >>I think that's a good idea, only many introductory books (first year) don't >>reference many "papers" that students might easily find available. I think an Note that I was not referring to introductory-level courses. I was specifically referring to upper-level courses, where the student has some skill in programming and some knowledge about computer systems. For example, in a computer architecture course, you might tell your students to go check out SigARCH, IEEE Computer, and IEEE Micro... in particular, if your text is more than 2-3 years old, you might want them to check out e.g. Patterson's summary of RISC in the '85 CACM. One of the most important courses I ever took was Technical Writing. Not for the writing part itself (which certainly is an important thing to know), but, rather, because a good TW course will introduce an undergrad to the indexes and journals available at the college library. In other words, the "HOW TO" of researching. > The introductory level student will not be as willing to read a lengthy paper > as a junior or senior. Also, many papers in the literature require some basic > knowledge in the subject matter that these students just don't have at this > point! Many tutorial or survey papers, while written for the novice in a > particular subject area, require some level of basic general CS knowledge. I'll agree about the "basic knowledge" part. When I was a freshman, the typical impenetrable prose and lofty vocabulary of your average paper befuddled me to no end... when I got the "Boyer-Moore" paper for my grad student (utilized me for free research :-), I had a heckuva time making heads or tails out of it (even after it was translated into English :-). But as for the "willing to read a lengthy paper": In my view, the people serious about CS will be quite willing to do it. The rest will change major to Business Administration as soon as they find out that CS not "easy", so why pander to them? -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 Netter A: In Hell they run VMS. Netter B: No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (01/20/89)
In article <15007@srcsip.UUCP>, shankar@haarlem.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Son of Knuth) writes: > In article <1088@bird.ldgo.columbia.edu> hough@ldgo.columbia.edu (sue hough) writes: > > >American education has this pie-eyed premise of equality: > > Every student can be a rocket scientist if he/she is taught > > right. Rather than ship the less promising students off > > to some sort of trade school (where they won't embarrass > > your national statistics), everybody gets the same classes > > up to at least eighth grade. > > Perhaps because every student *can be a rocket scientist if he/she is thought > right and works hard at it. Let's see, who was it that said genius is 1% > inspiration and 99% perspiration. > > I would rather not see elementary school kids tested, classified into > one of many professions, and then sent to an appropriate school. The problem and solution are both simpler and more complex than you have stated. There are massive innate differences of ability. Having seen promising-looking graduate students run into a stone wall strikes a fatal blow to the idea that students are even approximately equal. I believe that a student capable of understanding abstraction is more capable of it at the age of 6 than at the age of 16. Am I right? We do not know. We need great diversity in teaching children because their abilities are diverse. Sending children to appropriate schools is not feasible. We would need thousands of different types of schools. We need to consider the child who can advance rapidly in one area but not in another. So I even reject the idea that students in a given group get the same education. Advancing students rapidly in particular subjects is far from ideal, but is immediately feasible. It was widely used before the social adjustment people took over the educational establishment 50 years ago. But there is another way, which involves technology. I mean electronic classes, NOT lectures. That is, the class is assembled, not by physical presence, but electronically. I think the expense is tolerable, and it need not be used for all students in all cases. This also allows students to switch if the ability and desire are there, and allows fairly quick correction of gross errors. Of course mistakes will be made, but will they be worse than teaching every child exactly the same material as eveyone else of the same age? -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (01/20/89)
In article <19214@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes: >*Who* is aware of the problem? Certainly managers in industry are painfully >aware of it, especially on the written side. University educators are >vaguely aware of it. But the *students* are not aware of it at all. They >would be shocked to know how much of ordinary work in the real world >consists of communication -- holding meetings, writing reports, >explaining things to others, dealing with users of the company's products, >etc. Be careful when you're making broad, encompassing generalizations. Maybe you just know a lot of stupid students. Maybe you've just never met any students who've held full time jobs. Maybe it's much easier to remember instances in which you noticed that a recent graduate was shocked by the amount of verbal communication in the business world. Most students I know spend their entire academic lives doing things like writing papers, reading source material, writing exams, and trying to get themselves heard in small classes. -Dan
dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) (01/20/89)
In article <6838@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes: >Even undergrads can have areas that they "like" more than others. At >junior-senior levels, they ought to look into those areas in more >depth than topics they don't particularly care for. But rarely will >you find someone who does. Rarely among poor students, who are the most noticeable. [sorry i chopped the first attribution] >>The introductory level student will not be as willing to read a lengthy paper >>as a junior or senior. Also, many papers in the literature require some basic >>knowledge in the subject matter that these students just don't have at this >>point! Many tutorial or survey papers, while written for the novice in a >>particular subject area, require some level of basic general CS knowledge. >[...] >But as for the "willing to read a lengthy paper": In my view, the >people serious about CS will be quite willing to do it. The rest will >change major to Business Administration as soon as they find out that >CS not "easy", so why pander to them? Becuase not everyone who might make a good computer scientist is going to know right off that that's what they want to do. You're expecting introductory students to spend an inordinate amount of time devoted to deciphering a paper in a subject in which they may or many not even be interested. And unless you're saying that computer science is somehow different in this respect, then you're really expecting them to do this in several different areas. And all this without, apparently (that I could detect from your message), any concern as to whether or not this is a good way to teach computer science (which I suspect it's anything but). Sure, the rest will change to business administration. Who wants to major in a subject in which it's a virtue to waste your time reading a paper that's assigned not because it will help the learning process, but because of something completely independent. Who wants to major in a subject where open-mindedness about your area of concentration is punished, while being narrow is rewarded? As far as I'm concerned, an introductory level course should be just that. It should introduce the material, the goal should be education. If someone wants to have their loyalty tested, let them join a cult. -Dan
matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) (01/20/89)
In article <1104@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: >In article <15007@srcsip.UUCP>, shankar@haarlem.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Son of Knuth) writes: >> In article <1088@bird.ldgo.columbia.edu> hough@ldgo.columbia.edu (sue hough) writes: *> >American education has this pie-eyed premise of equality: *> > Every student can be a rocket scientist if he/she is taught *> > right. Rather than ship the less promising students off *> > to some sort of trade school (where they won't embarrass *> > your national statistics), everybody gets the same classes *> > up to at least eighth grade. %> Perhaps because every student *can be a rocket scientist if he/she is thought %> right and works hard at it. Let's see, who was it that said genius is 1% %> inspiration and 99% perspiration. %> I would rather not see elementary school kids tested, classified into %> one of many professions, and then sent to an appropriate school. > There are massive innate differences of ability. Having seen >promising-looking graduate students run into a stone wall strikes a fatal >blow to the idea that students are even approximately equal. This reasoning ("There are massive ...") just doesn't hold water. The question was, "Is variation in X due to Y?", and you are answering, "Yes, because I have observed that there IS variation in X." Yes, many promising-looking grad students do run into a stone wall. But I would contend that there are nongenetic (i.e. non-"innate") reasons for this. In grad school, we emphasize (or should emphasize) insight and creativity. In undergrad school, high school and grade school, we generally do NOT have this emphasis; in fact, the lower the level, the less the emphasis on these aspects. There are two consequences of this: 1. A grad applicant may only APPEAR "promising," but actually be someone who has done well in the undergrad courses that don't emphasize insight and creativity; in fact, he/she may have even deliberately avoided the courses/professors who had this reputation. 2. Since the lower-level schools don't emphasize insight/creativity, only those students whose personal attitudes toward learning stress these aspects will cultivate it, RESULTING IN THE VARIATION THAT YOU (AND I) HAVE OBSERVED AMONG STUDENTS AT THE GRAD LEVEL. So here would be a nongenetic source of that variation. If Point 2 above were somehow "proven" to be correct, then the "different schools for different kids" idea would not only be wrong, but actually a tragic opportunity cost. If Point 2 were correct, we should be making sure our schools DO foster insight, instead of shaping schools around incorrect notions of what traits are genetic. -- Norm
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (01/20/89)
In article <19214@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes: >In article <5392@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: >% It sounds like what many of the immigrants of the earlier part of >%this century heard: "the streets are paved with gold". >Yes, and it's true! I believe that the average salary for an engineer >in Taiwan is about $5,000, and of course a lot lower than that in China >and India. When word gets back home that Wang Ai Qian has bought a >$500,000 house and is running his own business in addition to his regular >job with Sun Microsystems, it looks very attractive indeed. [But, >apparently, it's much less attractive to Americans. Why?] I've got friends and relatives who never went beyond high school. They never gave it a second thought. They are plummers and electricians. Some can do better than me! It certainly was an easier path to take, with more immediate realization of money. However, in the long run those with the education will benefit more >Actually, the Chinatown example is not what I meant. You won't find many >professional people living in Chinatown. The residents there are "normal" >immigrants, i.e. who immigrated through U.S. relatives instead of on the >basis of professional skills. Yes, I meant it as an extreme example. The larger number of foreign professionals that work for certain companies allow them to congregate at work and keep to themselves. Then again, native americans do the same. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826
nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather) (01/21/89)
In article <1104@l.cc.purdue.edu>, cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: > > Advancing students rapidly in particular subjects is far from ideal, but is > immediately feasible. It was widely used before the social adjustment people > took over the educational establishment 50 years ago. > And it has serious drawbacks. I am a product of such a policy -- I entered college at age 15, and had serious problems in social adjustment as a result. Until I saw the alternatives in action, I was totally against such an idea -- but now that I've seen them, I'm not so sure. Is it better to be socially adjusted and intellectually alienated or bored stiff? I dunno. When I was 17 I knew all kinds of things, for sure. I must have forgotten all the cogent arguments ... -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin