11–18 of 18 posts
[0]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/opinion/the-importance-of-...
This seems like a good way to teach about a product or tool (as you promote its use, or in other words, sell it). I can see such advice being useful on today's HN, which is full of people who need to sell tech. But really, teaching is not selling. The objectives are different. There may be some overlaps of technique, but it's easy to overstate that. It is correspondingly easy to take this advice much too far. For exa…
OP seems to be encouraging teachers to "sell" the idea that the material they're teaching is important. If you don't make someone emotionally investing in learning the material, they'll forget 60% of it (on average). If you don't sell the material, it won't matter whether you were completely objective because students will forget most of what you taught them.
I agree that it's really important for teachers to encourage critical thinking. I just think that it's possible for teachers to encourage critical thinking while still selling the fact that you should care about the material.
This seems like a good way to teach about a product or tool (as you promote its use, or in other words, sell it). I can see such advice being useful on today's HN, which is full of people who need to sell tech. But really, teaching is not selling. The objectives are different. There may be some overlaps of technique, but it's easy to overstate that. It is correspondingly easy to take this advice much too far. For exa…
When teaching (as in sales), there is definitely such a thing as overselling.
This seems like a good way to teach about a product or tool (as you promote its use, or in other words, sell it). I can see such advice being useful on today's HN, which is full of people who need to sell tech. But really, teaching is not selling. The objectives are different. There may be some overlaps of technique, but it's easy to overstate that. It is correspondingly easy to take this advice much too far. For exa…
I have to agree. The distinction between "teaching" and "imparting information to achieve x goal" seems to be getting lost here. Teaching to me involves a give and take of some kind, some form of productive conversation or line of questioning rather than just inserting data into brains in a linear fashion. I did find the unapologetically mechanistic perspective here interesting though, since I just got done teaching…
In my experience, outside my core curriculum, lecturers never told me why I needed to know something. To me, the social sciences were about as fun to study as getting teeth-pulled, it was horrendous. To this day, I can't remember a single thing I read in college outside of science/math/engineering.
Instead, it was just "here, read this, it'll be on the test". No build up, no explanation on how it's going to make my life better, just "your'e required to know this for the exam". Thanks, but no thanks.
We are literally bombarded with new information constantly, if you really want me to learn it, please explain why it's important.
She could probably improve her method by adding some stuff from Gagne's Nine Steps of Instruction[0] Most of what she's doing I would say is not so much sales stuff, but hitting on important educational theory. For example: She starts with the idea of getting them interested in the topic, by choosing something they've encountered, and then telling an amusing anecdote. (That would be Gagne's step 1 and 2) She then goe…
This seems like a good way to teach about a product or tool (as you promote its use, or in other words, sell it). I can see such advice being useful on today's HN, which is full of people who need to sell tech. But really, teaching is not selling. The objectives are different. There may be some overlaps of technique, but it's easy to overstate that. It is correspondingly easy to take this advice much too far. For exa…
I will make one point in favor of the author though, and that is the selling of ideas might be required for those who could benefit from them, but lack motivation or vision to see the implications.
Used wisely, this is a tool to get people engaged. Once there, it's back to critical thinking, etc...