A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days • Hacker News Board

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#11

Post by smoyer » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 5:04 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #7

smoyer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the board of a small private high-school and I'm going to forward this to the headmaster but ... Sitting all day [1] passively listening to a droning professor [2] and feeling like a nuisance [3] if you don't grasp the material, pay attention and avoid causing disruptions [3] is an important skill for college survival. If we change the curriculum to engage the students more (which I tend to believe will increa…

Why shouldn't college education be more engaging as well? I'm teaching at the Interaction Design programme in Malmö, which is very much centered around project based learning and because of that inherently avoids the problems mentioned to a large degree. Although I admit that interaction design lends itself better to such an approach than some other subjects.

It should be!!! I believe people like you are the future of higher education - project-based learning where the students can actually see how the skills they're practicing might be used in the real world.

There are, unfortunately, too few of you but at least you're not alone. One of my favorite classes involved solving a problem encountered at a real business. It was free for the business - all they had to do was supply the problem. The students submitted suggested solutions and the business was free to implement the solution or (if they were being generous) tell the students why the solution wasn't used (and if they could, what the chosen solution was).

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#12

Post by wglb » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 5:11 PM UTC

Periodic wrote: post #8

I'd like to step back from this from a moment and get a little more abstract and ask if this idea of shadowing applies to software products (or any other business, really). Has anyone really sat down and shadowed one of their users for a whole day? I know small usability studies are pretty common. You get someone in a room, ask them to perform some tasks, see what they do. But if you have an app that people are going…

I think quicken did this very early in their history. They would look over a new customers shoulder to fine any parts of the product that were hard to use.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#13

Post by smoyer » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 5:12 PM UTC

ObviousScience wrote: post #10

smoyer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the board of a small private high-school and I'm going to forward this to the headmaster but ... Sitting all day [1] passively listening to a droning professor [2] and feeling like a nuisance [3] if you don't grasp the material, pay attention and avoid causing disruptions [3] is an important skill for college survival. If we change the curriculum to engage the students more (which I tend to believe will increa…

To address your points: [1] My college schedule was considerably more broken up, including a 10 minute break in classes that were longer than 90 minutes. In fact, I almost never had a block of classes longer than 3 hours which didn't have at least an hour before more classes happened. During the time I wasn't in class, I was unsupervised and able to walk around a large campus, stop by the gym, go off campus, etc. All…

I agree ... in college you don't have to do 1, 2 or 3. The ability to do them is however a necessary skill (e.g. "I was (generally) allowed to eat, use my laptop as I saw fit." - but if you browsed the Internet during the entire class period, you'd have completely missed the presented materials).

So college classes don't force students into these behaviors like high-school classes often do, but the ability to self-regulate those same behaviors are needed for success.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#14

Post by peteretep » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 5:27 PM UTC

Periodic wrote: post #8

I'd like to step back from this from a moment and get a little more abstract and ask if this idea of shadowing applies to software products (or any other business, really). Has anyone really sat down and shadowed one of their users for a whole day? I know small usability studies are pretty common. You get someone in a room, ask them to perform some tasks, see what they do. But if you have an app that people are going…

Some people would argue that this is the meaning of "dog fooding"

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#15

Post by keeptrying » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 5:40 PM UTC

Whats really amazing is that this experiment would have been a first of its kind in nearly 100s of years.

I personally think that our class based education systems are languishing at some 100 year based minima right now w.r.t effectiveness.

Present systems don't take into account: 1. Most subjects require different modalities of learning. Teaching computer science via lecture format? seriously?

2. Students have different economic situations which usually means real demands on their time and attention. The system HAS TO cater to this to be more effective.

3. As the environment changes the teaching methodology has to change. Right now phones and tablets really inhibit concentration. So something to counter this would be effective for all other classes.

4. Schools primary function is a safe place to keep your kids. Their inability to accept this makes them stuff the day with classes.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#16

Post by vvpan » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

I grew up and went to school in Russia, but spent my last three grades in the US. Both have their pros and cons, but some cons of the US system were very apparent.

1. In Russia I remember having eight classes a day only briefly and that quickly came to an end because having so many classes was considered to be close to child abuse. Six was the norm, sometime seven, but definitely not every day of the week. Here I had 9 classes every single day. I was not pleased at all.

2. The breaks between classes were only 3-5 minutes long in the US. Whereas in Russia they were 10-15 minutes. You can't socialize during 3-5 minutes you have to run to another class. Yes, you are less likely to "get in trouble", but getting in trouble is part of socializing.

3. Not really a problem with the schooling system, but the above two combined with living in the suburbs produces a great problem. You know you won't see any of the students for the rest of the day, unless your mom drives you to the mall or something. Socializing time is very brief during the school day, but really, that's all you've got...

Needless to say I hated going to the US school tremendously. Color me cynical, but I am somewhat surprised that there are not many more school shooting than there are now. Oh and I graduated more than a decade ago, so perhaps things have changed, but I doubt it.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#17

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 6:08 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #3

Mithaldu wrote: post #2

> In addition, there was a good deal of sarcasm and snark > directed at students > ... > I realize that sarcasm, impatience, and annoyance are a > way of creating a barrier between me and them. From a european point of view that is something the entire us-american culture embraces and grapples with vigorously, to the detriment of interactions among themselves and with other cultures. It would make sense that this is…

I think we're very stand-offish people. We tend to not engage in conversation with strangers. I think sarcasm is sort of a way to probe another person for where you stand with them, given a functionally retarded mindset towards personal interactions. You can say something, and if the person laughs, you know they are net-positive towards you, and if they don't, you can apologize and claim you were just being sarcastic…

[deleted]

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#18

Post by gizmo686 » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 7:18 PM UTC

Regarding #1

>Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting.

Doing any unfamiliar job all day is exhausting. There are plenty of other professions where sitting all day is the norm (like programming). Of course, most have the option of taking a stretch when they want to, but the only time I have seen people do this on a regular basis was for medical reasons.

In high school, I had an administrator (the dean of students) enroll in one of my classes for a year.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#19

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 7:22 PM UTC

smoyer wrote: post #5

Afton wrote: post #4

The three points from the article: > [1] Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting. > [2] High School students are sitting passively and listening during approximately 90% of their classes. > [3] You feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long. People wonder why high school aged students are unruly, unpleasant, and filled with deep negative emotions (anger, disdain, need-to-rebel). I look at this list (espec…

I'm on the board of a small private high-school and I'm going to forward this to the headmaster but ... Sitting all day [1] passively listening to a droning professor [2] and feeling like a nuisance [3] if you don't grasp the material, pay attention and avoid causing disruptions [3] is an important skill for college survival. If we change the curriculum to engage the students more (which I tend to believe will increa…

So your plan for preparing students to endure these things successfully in college is just to inflict the same things on them, with no preparation, no training, no discussion, no allowance for failure?

If true that's as insane as most of the rest of the education system, but it seems to be more likely to be a very weak justification for continuing with the status quo.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#20

Post by calibraxis » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 7:41 PM UTC

smoyer wrote: post #13

ObviousScience wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To address your points: [1] My college schedule was considerably more broken up, including a 10 minute break in classes that were longer than 90 minutes. In fact, I almost never had a block of classes longer than 3 hours which didn't have at least an hour before more classes happened. During the time I wasn't in class, I was unsupervised and able to walk around a large campus, stop by the gym, go off campus, etc. All…

I agree ... in college you don't have to do 1, 2 or 3. The ability to do them is however a necessary skill (e.g. "I was (generally) allowed to eat, use my laptop as I saw fit." - but if you browsed the Internet during the entire class period, you'd have completely missed the presented materials). So college classes don't force students into these behaviors like high-school classes often do, but the ability to self-re…

The reasoning goes on. Colleges make people endure boredom & obedience in preparation for future jobs.

People should at least be allowed to decide whether some school should waste years of their lives for these (depressing) benefits. Failing that, this reasoning should be made crystal clear.