nothing beats self education through prospect motivation. teachers are becoming and will be outdated and software WILL replace teachers eventually if not soon. its already replacing them...you can see the trends in webapps such as blackboard and online courses etc. Anything that is repeated in a loop can be systematized through software, teachers constantly waste human resources by repeating the same things over and over again, books are also an extreme waste of resources and much harder to update. software is just soo much more flexible, its only a matter of time before teachers stop existing all together.
Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong
31–40 of 40 posts
Re: Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong
#32Oh dear. When a student answers that 7/12 is 1.5 and doesn't immediately see why this couldn't possibly be true you know that the problem is rote learning of algorithms. Whoever gives such an answer does not connect classroom learning with the real world, he does not understand what the answer means. You see this often, even in university students. The problem isn't solved with more accountability or more teacher aut…
> Oh dear. When a student answers that 7/12 is 1.5 and doesn't immediately see why this couldn't possibly be true you know that the problem is rote learning of algorithms.
Not really, no.
1. Students have to have a good concept of division, as you suggest.
2. Students have to know a method of division that accurately gets a precise answer. (whether this is via an algorithmic method or via a calculator)
3. Students have to know that their answer to (2) should correspond to their concept in (1)
4. Students have to recognise that they can check their answer using (3), and then remember to actually check this.
A good teacher will teach all four parts of this process. However, it's not possible to teach part 4 without first teaching parts 1 and 2. Every single child makes this same mistake at some point in their learning. This is not really a "problem" and it doesn't indicate a failure of teaching - in fact, the opposite here: the important thing is that the teacher has identified it and can advise the child on how to improve their understanding.
That's what teaching is. As you say, many adults have not consistently achieved part 4 - in fact, it's not immediate at all: it has to be learned.
Re: Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong
#33The article is an excerpt from a book called "Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (And How to Teach It to Everyone)", but it feels like an introduction; it doesn't say anything useful or even give much of a hint as to what the author believes. Certainly it doesn't live up to the title. It doesn't tell us what the "secrets of amazing teachers" are, nor establish that there are only TWO sides of "the educatio…
Moreover, the arguments are slightly misrepresented. If the autonomy folks are comparing to Finnish education, they're talking about a system with plenty of time and attention devoted to ongoing development of professional teaching skills. I don't think anyone believes that we can just let American teachers have complete autonomy and expect good results: many American teachers have been placed into positions teaching subjects they don't have degrees in, and they're given very little time for class prep or continuing education. At best this autonomy would free some of the teachers to teach to the classes they have rather than being forced to push through the mandated syllabus that says by week 4 you should be on fractions whether the kids understand multiplication or not.
Re: Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong
#34The article is an excerpt from a book called "Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (And How to Teach It to Everyone)", but it feels like an introduction; it doesn't say anything useful or even give much of a hint as to what the author believes. Certainly it doesn't live up to the title. It doesn't tell us what the "secrets of amazing teachers" are, nor establish that there are only TWO sides of "the educatio…
>doesn't say anything useful
Doesn't it? The author asserts clearly that a great teacher is, first and foremost, defined by their ability to gleen "where the mind fired incorrectly", rather than it being some innate, unlearnable thing. A great teacher is more like a programmer debugging a problem in the kids head than a "born performer". And I found this insight, well, insightful.
Re: Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong
#35Oh dear. When a student answers that 7/12 is 1.5 and doesn't immediately see why this couldn't possibly be true you know that the problem is rote learning of algorithms. Whoever gives such an answer does not connect classroom learning with the real world, he does not understand what the answer means. You see this often, even in university students. The problem isn't solved with more accountability or more teacher aut…
It's funny, a physicist is going to say "it's a half". A math person is going to roll their eyes, bored, and not answer at all. Only a mechanical engineer or a carpenter or an accountant are going to need an exact answer.
Most of us are well served by the physicist approach to estimation, because even in the rare case we do need the precise answer our estimate will prevent obvious errors. And having a "feel" for OOM estimates is handy almost everywhere.
And, actually, the approach even gives you a short cut to the precise answer. It's about 1/2, because it's so close to 6/12. In fact, it's only 1/12 away from half. Which means the answer is 1/2 + 1/12 (which is actually a better answer for, say, a carpenter). Note also that this problem is really crappy to do in decimal, as 1/12 yields a repeating decimal (.08333...), which is natures way of saying "use fractions".
Re: Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong
#36The best teachers I've had throughout school (preschool to uni) were the ones that were A) passionate about students learning and B) didn't let the curriculum get in the way. Looking back, the inverted-teaching model was what worked best for me (lessons/readings at home, in-class time is used to work on problems & troubleshoot w/ teacher). Unfortunately all the teachers now are following curriculum that encourage spe…
I agree with you in my own experience, but let's face it, we were (I'm just gonna guess here) among the smart kids, and what works well for smart kids isn't necessarily what works well for the average or dumb kids. Maybe dumb kids learn more effectively through different methods.
This has been studied as well, and dumb kids learn very well through inverted methods (as the post above calls them). "Dumb" kids show the greatest gains with active and experiential learning -- after all, we think they are dumb because they don't learn well by listening to a lecture, reading a text alone, and then regurgitating content on a test!
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/turning-educ...
Re: Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
or, as explained quite clearly in the article, a simple misunderstanding of symbols: the kid interpreted it as 12/7 instead of 7/12.
Two misunderstandings: the kid also thought that 1.5 means 1 remainder 5. That's a profound lack of knowledge, he does not understand decimal notation. If you do not know what these number symbols mean, how can you communicate using those symbols? It all degenerates into futile pattern matching.
A typo is not a profound non understanding. When a C++ programmer misuses Java notation, it isn't a profound none understanding, it's a mistake.
Re: Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong
#38The article is an excerpt from a book called "Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (And How to Teach It to Everyone)", but it feels like an introduction; it doesn't say anything useful or even give much of a hint as to what the author believes. Certainly it doesn't live up to the title. It doesn't tell us what the "secrets of amazing teachers" are, nor establish that there are only TWO sides of "the educatio…
>doesn't say anything useful Doesn't it? The author asserts clearly that a great teacher is, first and foremost, defined by their ability to gleen "where the mind fired incorrectly", rather than it being some innate, unlearnable thing. A great teacher is more like a programmer debugging a problem in the kids head than a "born performer". And I found this insight, well, insightful.
She does indeed seem to assert that, supporting the point with an anecdote I found less than convincing. But suppose we grant her that point. Let us suppose that "master brain debugger" is indeed the crucial skill that makes for a good teacher. Here's the problem: she doesn't (in this article) indicate how THAT skill can be taught either! So for all we know, being able to do THAT - debug what's going on in a student's head - might be an innate, untrainable thing that teachers are innately born with or magically acquire through experience without knowing how it's done.
So for this point to be useful, we'd need both (a) stronger evidence that it's actually true, (b) evidence that it's teachable. Absent those things, it's just somebody's random assertion. And wouldn't it be just as easy to tell a story of that sort claiming the key to great teaching is empathy, or flexibility, or knowing the material really well?
(Actually, the featured anecdote featured TWO attributes. (1) skill at debugging what's going on in the student's brain, (2) skill at figuring out how best to CORRECT the misconception without unduly harming the student's ego. And I'm sure these are both useful skills for a teacher, but I would need more convincing that they matter more than all the OTHER skills such as being organized, speaking clearly, presenting NEW material effectively, etcetera.)
Side note: in the back of my mind while I read the piece I was probably thinking about Direct Instruction. One provably superior teaching method is to have teachers follow an exact script that is carefully designed to minimize misconceptions in the first place. If teachers could get better at not introducing misconceptions to their students, it might be less important to be good at debugging those misconceptions.
Re: Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Immediately means "without executing an entire algorithm".
Perhaps, if the student had done some rote learning of algorithms, they wouldn't have come up with 1.5 at all.
> if the student had done some rote learning of algorithms, they wouldn't have come up with 1.5 at all.
When you see "7/12 is 1.5", is your first thought "one sec, let me calculate that and see if the answer is correct"? Or do you just know, without any computation, that the statement must be false?
If you understand division, it's far easier to explain why this answer is wrong without appealing to an algorithm than by appealing to an algorithm.
And besides, the very example we're discussing proves this isn't the case!
The student was able to use the algorithm correctly; his error was at the boundaries of the standard algorithm -- correct input and interpreting output properly.
Simply practicing arithmetic will not prevent you from ever making a silly (or not-so-silly) mistake. Rote practice of the algorithm without also acquiring an intuition for the meaning of division won't help.
With correct guidance, practicing the algorithm can help students form this intuition, but that requires an a priori realization that we need to teach something other than just the rote algorithm, even if we teach it by discussing executions of the algorithm on specific inputs and outputs.
Re: Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
or, as explained quite clearly in the article, a simple misunderstanding of symbols: the kid interpreted it as 12/7 instead of 7/12.
Two misunderstandings: the kid also thought that 1.5 means 1 remainder 5. That's a profound lack of knowledge, he does not understand decimal notation. If you do not know what these number symbols mean, how can you communicate using those symbols? It all degenerates into futile pattern matching.
> he does not understand decimal notation.
which, again, is a symbol misunderstanding. it's extremely presumptuous of you to say that two chained symbol misunderstandings by a fifth grader new to a subject are "the problem [of] rote learning of algorithms [by someone who] does not connect classroom learning with the real world [or] understand what the answer means"
when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail