Something I discovered almost by accident when doing training for a larger group of "students" than had PCs available for exercises, was that the concept of "paired exercises" worked very well. So I then started pretty much mandating it for subsequent training where possible.
If a single student has a problem with an exercise they tend to keep quiet. If 2 of them bounce ideas off each other and still have a problem, they are more happy to ask for help. Interactivity and learning significantly increased!
I realised quite quickly this was similar to pair programming which was a pretty new thing at the time.
Things I learned from teaching (2023)
31–40 of 78 posts
Re: Things I learned from teaching (2023)
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> would you want a 'passionate' doctor As long as the doctor is proficient/expert/licenced, why would the rest matter?
As long as the teacher is proficient/expert/licensed, why would the rest matter? Just give them your children and hope for the best.
There's nothing right or wrong where the teacher or a doctor lives. That's their own decision.
What matters is their performance at work and that there are not only intrinsic motivation but also an extrinsic motivation with monetary incentives to perform well at work.
And that can only be ensured with a free market that allows schools to pay better for the best teachers and also parents to pay more for the best schools.
Re: Things I learned from teaching (2023)
#33Great article, thanks for sharing, as a recovering high school teacher (5 years ago I moved into tech after reaching full burn out in education) I must admit that I fantasised about teaching at the higher education level thinking that a minimal amount of student buy-in was what was needed to have a fulfilling experience teaching. But it's interesting see that in your class, students who wanted to be there still struggle to engage in a meaningful way for the most part.
For me, the most difficult part of teaching was dealing with the broken feedback loops. It’s challenging to gauge your own progress and performance as a teacher and to identify which areas need improvement and what is actually working.
Re: Things I learned from teaching (2023)
#34most important lessons from teaching...22 years now, a thing I didnt plan in my highschool:
* you learn more than your students * students only effectively learn when they create/solve themselves * in 2024 there is little reason to use slides, or retell topics widely available on the net * students are not smarter than students 25 years earlier, but are much better informed. * people love publishing their results open-source. actually open-source is best taught in academia. * seniors, including professors you are assisting, very seldom are interested in your performance * the dean and the faculty is very seldom interested in my actual performance in my custom classes, which are complementary ones (even though are regularly frequented) * it takes years for teachers to start actually teaching, and not showcasing, retelling or just showing off their superiority * teaching without specific goal/task to solve is absolutely irrelevant and should not be practiced * academia needs to be rethought dramatically, this all makes very little sense now in the light of LLMs, Global Libraries and open-source
disclaimer: i have 2500+ teaching hours in the disciplines intro to programming, object oriented programming, data structures and algorithms, advanced ES6, db systems, db&er design, practical perl programming, piratical python programming and last 2 years we been giving a brand new R&D of GIS Systems. technically my role is of a teaching assistant, but I've almost never had the seniors come to review my classes.
Re: Things I learned from teaching (2023)
#35most important lessons from teaching...22 years now, a thing I didnt plan in my highschool: * you learn more than your students * students only effectively learn when they create/solve themselves * in 2024 there is little reason to use slides, or retell topics widely available on the net * students are not smarter than students 25 years earlier, but are much better informed. * people love publishing their results ope…
> academia needs to be rethought dramatically, this all makes very little sense now in the light of LLMs, Global Libraries and open-source
> i have 2500+ teaching hours in the disciplines intro
Academia is much, much, much more than web programming!
Re: Things I learned from teaching (2023)
#36most important lessons from teaching...22 years now, a thing I didnt plan in my highschool: * you learn more than your students * students only effectively learn when they create/solve themselves * in 2024 there is little reason to use slides, or retell topics widely available on the net * students are not smarter than students 25 years earlier, but are much better informed. * people love publishing their results ope…
> academia needs to be rethought dramatically, this all makes very little sense now in the light of LLMs, Global Libraries and open-source > i have 2500+ teaching hours in the disciplines intro Academia is much, much, much more than web programming!
academia is much much more than teaching also, and my post is about much more than web programming. tbh is not at all about web programming or web-anything.
(update: in fact, in my opinion, after years teaching web technologies, webdev is perhaps the most boring area you may decide to advance into... sorry, fellow webdevs, but i really believe it)
academia is not about programming at all.
but when people start consuming/exchanging academic thoughts via media, which the academia (itself) does not acknowledge, well then academia becomes just a road to universal income, rather than driver of technological advance.
besides, most significant research nowadays is supported/enabled by large corporations, no matter if you or myself likes it. meanwhile academia is ran the way it was ran 200 years ago when it was more a retreat for theosophy and contemplation.
fact is that students don't understand the very fundamental reason to be in academia - to collaborate. you may want to tell me why is that, i have several ideas most of them related to the fact that we all are so alienated with this constant man-machine interface that we forget the pleasure, the joy of exchanging knowledge live, staring at the same blackboard or piece of paper. we are in constant arguing on social media, forums, etc.
and finally - teaching a class to people is only possible in 2024 when you have a reversed classroom, where the teacher is a host/curator/enabler, and the people put their research abilities to work. otherwise ... well you lose them 5th minute into the class, because they all ADHD into X, FB or even HN...
Re: Things I learned from teaching (2023)
#37The lecture-tutorial pedagogical model used in universities is called scholasticism and dates back to the middle ages. Books were very expensive, so in the lectures, the lecturer would just read out the relevant text for students to copy down, word for word. (In the more prestigious English universities, lecturers are still called 'Readers', and students say that they're 'reading' History or Computer Science rather t…
Well, lector literally means "reader" in Latin, and lectio means "a(n act of) reading". It's exactly what it says on the tin.
The thing is, reading the textbook on your own, then discussing the material with the teacher (in a group) is still quite an efficient way to obtain knowledge even though it's not most efficient on an individual level. This knowledge, of course, still needs to be turned into practical skills.
Re: Things I learned from teaching (2023)
#38I used to teach at public middle school. The format of "lecture and assignments" is a big reason I couldn't keep doing it. Every trained educator knows it's scientifically the _least_ effective pedagogical method we know, but the school administrators, parents, and the entire system forced us to keep doing it. After years of learning that lecture is almost completely ineffective, I had to do it anyway because the sys…
Absolutely horrible! I teach, but only a few days per week, and definitely not the same lecture for three different classes. I love it! It's very interactive, lots of questions, opportunity for me to check if students understand and work out solutions to problems together. A lot of humour and fun as well. In terms of inappropriate behaviour I've found out that strict discipline, equal treatment and the backing of the…
This sounds similar to a small private school in the USA. Public schools here do not allow or enable discipline or the backing of the school.
Re: Things I learned from teaching (2023)
#39Something I discovered almost by accident when doing training for a larger group of "students" than had PCs available for exercises, was that the concept of "paired exercises" worked very well. So I then started pretty much mandating it for subsequent training where possible. If a single student has a problem with an exercise they tend to keep quiet. If 2 of them bounce ideas off each other and still have a problem,…
Paired exercises fairly often end up with faster student doing it all and slower student not knowing what is going on. I was sometimes that slower student and it just meant that I had to redo everything later if I actually wanted to learn.
Re: Things I learned from teaching (2023)
#40The lecture-tutorial pedagogical model used in universities is called scholasticism and dates back to the middle ages. Books were very expensive, so in the lectures, the lecturer would just read out the relevant text for students to copy down, word for word. (In the more prestigious English universities, lecturers are still called 'Readers', and students say that they're 'reading' History or Computer Science rather t…
I have always wanted a tutorial ONLY environment for my future Physics study.
I believe I can grind through the textbooks by myself but I need some tutor, preferably a PHD to answer my batched questions and guide me through exercises I cannot figure out.
Do PHDs of good universities do this kind of things? What hourly rate should I expect?