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Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

#61

Post by DelightOne »

magic_beans wrote: post #42

Why do teachers always think group projects and in-class demonstrations are great ideas? I hated that as a student. I found those classes to be really shallow, because groups of students rarely had good ideas or grasped the material well enough to present on it. A good teacher can spend a whole class lecturing and is able to engage their students. We don't need to fix class structure. We need to fix teachers.

I rather think tools need to improve. Could you do without a teacher? That should be the goal. To be able to simply take ur tablet out, and learn and have fun doing it, to discover and practise, as to get the knowledge into you while enjoying the experience.

I think that should be the goal, because then you will do it again and again on your own. Why do you like computer games so much? Cause its fun!

That should be the goal im my humble opinion. Get students to learn all day long while enjoying it and being productive without teachers, so to make the learning success independent of the teachers and tests, whereby the students all the while learn more than they would on a test.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

#62

Post by thatswrong0 »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #45
magic_beans wrote: post #42

Why do teachers always think group projects and in-class demonstrations are great ideas? I hated that as a student. I found those classes to be really shallow, because groups of students rarely had good ideas or grasped the material well enough to present on it. A good teacher can spend a whole class lecturing and is able to engage their students. We don't need to fix class structure. We need to fix teachers.

Because you get group projects at work, And the groups at work rarely have good ideas or grasp material well enough to work on it.

"Group projects" at work are completely different from group projects in school. Work generally has managers. If someone isn't pulling their weight in a project, there's someone you can talk to about it and have something done about it. People have their income on the line.

At school, my teachers were almost always explicit about not wanting to manage. "Organize yourselves". There were countless times I had lazy project partners, even in grad level courses in college, that I could do nothing about. The teachers told me to just figure it out myself. They never took action against bums. This meant that lazy people could assume they'd be taken care of by their more disciplined teammates. As a result, I never got any value out of group projects in school - whenever I had a group project, I always assumed I'd have to be doing _way more_ work than I'd have to for individual projects.

I've never had to deal with coworkers who acted that way.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

#63

Post by egel »

I am glad that this topic has been highlighted. It is really important to understand that education cannot be treated like 0 & 1 in the schedule. After some lessons student can be so much mentally exhausted that is really hard to imagine for someone who forget how it is, when you need to spend few hours being constantly focus and thinking.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

#64

Post by Consultant32452 »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #62
Consultant32452 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you get group projects at work, And the groups at work rarely have good ideas or grasp material well enough to work on it.

"Group projects" at work are completely different from group projects in school. Work generally has managers. If someone isn't pulling their weight in a project, there's someone you can talk to about it and have something done about it. People have their income on the line. At school, my teachers were almost always explicit about not wanting to manage. "Organize yourselves". There were countless times I had lazy proj…

You've never had incompetent coworkers? You've never worked at a megacorp where it was basically impossible to get fired? One of the things you could've done for your group projects is be the manager yourself. Assign tasks and divvy up the work load based on skill/knowledge. Obviously, don't give the doofus anything challenging. 99% of the time people are willing to do whatever they're explicitly instructed to do. Track assigned tasks and completion. If someone doesn't pull their weight, don't put their name on the finished project and turn in the assignment tracking with the project to explain why their name was removed.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

#65

Post by nradov »

rhino369 wrote: post #39
bighi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might not remember a lot of the specifics. But I am sure you remember that you did a lot of sitting and a lot of listening (2 of the 3 surprising findings of the article).

I remember class being boring, but I didn't have these two hour long block classes that seem in vogue now. Well, I did in college and grad school, but you could skip class. Or during grad school it was common to just surf the web when you got truly bored. After reading this I remembered sitting in some really boring high school classes boiling with almost rage at how boring it was. Sitting and looking at the clock. I…

My father was a high school teacher. When his school shifted to long block classes it was great for lab and shop classes because they lost much less time on setup and cleanup, but terrible for lecture classes because many students couldn't pay attention that long.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

#66

Post by thatswrong0 »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #64
thatswrong0 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Group projects" at work are completely different from group projects in school. Work generally has managers. If someone isn't pulling their weight in a project, there's someone you can talk to about it and have something done about it. People have their income on the line. At school, my teachers were almost always explicit about not wanting to manage. "Organize yourselves". There were countless times I had lazy proj…

You've never had incompetent coworkers? You've never worked at a megacorp where it was basically impossible to get fired? One of the things you could've done for your group projects is be the manager yourself. Assign tasks and divvy up the work load based on skill/knowledge. Obviously, don't give the doofus anything challenging. 99% of the time people are willing to do whatever they're explicitly instructed to do. Tr…

I would never work at a megacorp. That sounds miserable.

And why are you assuming I didn't try managing projects? Of course I did. I would always divvy up the work in such a way that'd I'd have the more difficult portion and I'd keep tabs on people. And when I'd tell my teachers that someone wasn't pulling their weight, they'd say it's my problem. I took _one_ class in college where the professors actually took that into account and docked my teammates. Without threats from teachers, students do not give a fuck. Complete waste of my time in school.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

#67

Post by wvenable »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #45
magic_beans wrote: post #42

Why do teachers always think group projects and in-class demonstrations are great ideas? I hated that as a student. I found those classes to be really shallow, because groups of students rarely had good ideas or grasped the material well enough to present on it. A good teacher can spend a whole class lecturing and is able to engage their students. We don't need to fix class structure. We need to fix teachers.

Because you get group projects at work, And the groups at work rarely have good ideas or grasp material well enough to work on it.

Group projects at work are different because everyone has a different role. In school, everyone must have the same role in order to equally learn the material. Any divisions are arbitrary and the consequences of not putting in effort are minimal.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

#68

Post by Allower »

lr4444lr wrote: post #26
jstanley wrote: post #2

Why does she need to shadow a student to learn what it's like to be a student? Wasn't she a student once herself? These things are pretty obvious. I always just assumed teachers didn't care.

To be fair, your perspective changes when you're on the other side of the desk. Teacher training in the U.S. is pretty abysmal. The research they're exposed to is largely theoretical or specialized, because that's what your professors have to focus on in a publish or perish world. Good training would identify the misconceptions teachers are prone to, and the practical application of adolescent psych. There's also an…

The three key points outlined by this piece are not difficult to grasp, or even realize. Its common sense. Bottom line, teachers are incentivized to sabotage real learning opportunities. the sad thing is, no one is trying to change it.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

#69

Post by logfromblammo »

glibgil wrote: post #54
alunchbox wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's the irony here ? asking for a friend.

13 years in a designated place of learning is worth less than 1 year in unstructured freedom, according to OP. It's ironic because for OP a place where you are suppose to learn is not a good place to learn

I learned more about technical writing from The Elements of Style and a one-semester university course that I ever did from 13 years of public schooling. I learned more about creative writing from being an immortal on a MUD and contributing to the underground newspaper than from anything I ever did in classes.

What I learned from the public school system was that I was not a good writer, and didn't know how to appreciate literature. As it turns out, that was antipodal from the truth. I have since re-synthesized the available data and revised my conclusion: my interests in school simply did not align with the curriculum mandated by school administrators. My grades were a measure of correlation rather than indicative of causation.

For instance, my teachers made me read Dante's Inferno. If Dennis Miller ever dropped the name Vanni Fucci into an obscure joke, I would probably get it, still having vague memories of the Malebolge filled with thieves and bitey reptiles. But I consider Planescape: Torment to be a better work of art. It isn't in a standard poetic form, though. Torment is a bit tougher to read in its entirety, and no one would dare to allude to bronze spheres to make a point without some inkling that the audience has played it. It is one thing to be exposed to art that has been blessed as a canonical masterwork in a controlled, sterile classroom environment: it is another thing entirely to recognize art in the wilds of your own life, and to recognize its worth because you feel emotion in its presence. When the system values the former over the latter, it has failed in its purpose. It failed me.

So I consider myself fortunate that I taught myself to program in BASIC and C many years before my public schooling system decided to offer a programming course in Pascal. Had that been my first exposure to software development, I would certainly not be here, writing this, now.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student (2014)

#70

Post by Consultant32452 »

wvenable wrote: post #67
Consultant32452 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you get group projects at work, And the groups at work rarely have good ideas or grasp material well enough to work on it.

Group projects at work are different because everyone has a different role. In school, everyone must have the same role in order to equally learn the material. Any divisions are arbitrary and the consequences of not putting in effort are minimal.

>Any divisions are arbitrary and the consequences of not putting in effort are minimal.

That's been my experience at work too. Sure, I might be a developer, but I'm often doing PM, QA, or BA tasks. Eventually crappy coworkers might get the boot, but almost never within the time frame of a single project.

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