Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate • Hacker News Board

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#161

Post by nicoburns » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

notriddle wrote: post #156

jhanschoo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, this observation must be qualified as not necessarily generalizable to all teenagers and parents. Sometimes a person may grow up and realize that their parents were indeed quite lacking, and be right in that assessment. I think this other circumstance is important to at least mention because children of objectively lacking parents can have doubts in their mind about their own judgment. In part beca…

Older people knowing better than younger people is one of those heuristics that's almost always right [1]. It's hard to tell the difference between a stupid kid and a stupid parent, because stupid parents are rare. Yet people keep searching for stupid parents, because it's really important to find them when they exist. There's a constant rate of kids pulling false alarms on their parents, but you don't want to ignore…

Maybe I was just unlucky, but that isn't my retroactive judgement on my childhood at all. My experience was one of mostly adults making me do something that is really down to subjective preference because that was their preference. And now that I'm an adult and can make my own choices I'm much happier about it.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#162

Post by lolinder » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:30 PM UTC

nvarsj wrote: post #139

lolinder wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Memorization is not going to help you solve math problems. On the contrary, memorization is the way most people I know got through most of their math classes, at least through calculus and linear algebra. You memorize the steps by rote repetition without really learning why they work, then the test is mostly an exercise in guessing which steps and formulas you should apply to the given problem.

Is that really memorization? Memorizing multiplication tables is one thing. Practicing the techniques over and over isn't memorization imo. In grad level maths, you are solving proofs pretty much, you can't just memorize facts in a textbook to do that.

It's memorization insofar as you can do all of that practice and become proficient at solving math problems without really knowing what they mean or why the steps work. You're regurgitating what you were taught, not making connections and using your understanding.

You used math as an example of a subject where tests are used to check understanding. I disagree, because most people that I know who did well in math did so by being good human computers, not by understanding anything.

I expect that doesn't continue to be true at the grad level, but most people don't get that far.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#163

Post by jedberg » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #81

finexplained wrote: post #6

This perfectly describes my experience as a TA in graduate school. At first I didn't understand why my advisor insisted on being so precise in assignment instructions. Then when TAing with him I saw how students could creatively misinterpret instructions, even when I could not imagine how to make them more precise. An exception for the new case would be added to the next iteration of the assignments. I only understoo…

I thought the article was fairly strong except for in the two points you highlighted here. In the first case, I still don't understand why you don't just mark their answer from creatively misinterpreted instructions wrong and move on with life. And in the second case it seems like just not worrying about cheaters and letting it be their own funeral (or not) is optimal. I remember who the cheaters were in my classes a…

Both questions were answered in the article. The reason for precise directions is because otherwise people will complain, and if you ignore their complaints, they will complain to your boss. At the end you'll win, but you'll waste a bunch of time defending yourself.

The reason for not allowing cheating is repetitional. If you get a reputation for allowing cheaters, then all the cheaters will want to take your class, and eventually you'll have so many that your testing will be worthless. And if word gets out that your institution allows cheating, then your students will not be respected when they leave, causing harm to the non-cheaters and your chance at keeping your job as fewer people want to attend a school known for allowing cheats.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#164

Post by beebeepka » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:32 PM UTC

jhanschoo wrote: post #127

warner25 wrote: post #10

I've often thought the same thing about becoming an adult, especially a parent, in general. There are so many choices that I harshly judged older people for making (how to allocate their time and money, where to live, what to allow or not allow the kids to do, how to behave at work, etc.) that I now find myself making as a married guy in my mid-30s with four kids. It makes me sad, but on each point I'm like, "Oh, now…

On the other hand, this observation must be qualified as not necessarily generalizable to all teenagers and parents. Sometimes a person may grow up and realize that their parents were indeed quite lacking, and be right in that assessment. I think this other circumstance is important to at least mention because children of objectively lacking parents can have doubts in their mind about their own judgment. In part beca…

That is an excellent point. Yes, usually parents do "what is best for their children". However, good intentions do not guarantee good results.

It took me 20 years to undo some of the more direct damage done to me by forcing me into a path I didn't want. Parents being completely wrong for the right reasons is very much a thing.

That doesn't even count psychological damage almost guaranteed to lurk in there pretty much forever

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#165

Post by professoretc » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:32 PM UTC

musingsole wrote: post #142

sanderjd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the article was fairly strong except for in the two points you highlighted here. In the first case, I still don't understand why you don't just mark their answer from creatively misinterpreted instructions wrong and move on with life. And in the second case it seems like just not worrying about cheaters and letting it be their own funeral (or not) is optimal. I remember who the cheaters were in my classes a…

> I still don't understand why you don't just mark their answer from creatively misinterpreted instructions wrong and move on with life Because the actual incidents are often in fuzzy areas where it seems possible the teacher's instructions were confusing . You're stuck making a character judgment of your student instead of evaluating knowledge. Over a career, it becomes easier to cordon off fuzzy areas than it is to…

> it seems possible the teacher's instructions were confusing.

Yes; I've been on both sides. I've written assignments that I thought were clear and unambiguous, only to find that a significant number of students misunderstood what I meant. They weren't intentionally trying to make the problems easier, they just weren't sure what I wanted. (And, of course, who is going to interpret an ambiguous problem so as to make more work for themselves? A few students will do it both ways -- the easier interpretation and the harder one -- but most won't.)

And on the other side, I've taken continuing education classes taught by other teachers where the instructions were confusing, ambiguous, or sometimes just plain impossible to follow ("You'll find the answers to this quiz in the article you just read." but the article was revised and now uses different terminology from the quiz.)

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#166

Post by caddemon » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

jjj123 wrote: post #25

beebmam wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good! Students should be failing out of they're unwilling to work hard

You could call it unwilling to work hard. Or it could be difficulty prioritizing work, or ADHD, or disorganization. Are those traits what we’re testing for, or are we testing for knowledge of the subject?

Ironically, measures like discussed in this article can actually make classes much harder for students with ADHD. Keeping on top of busy work, maintaining a tight schedule, etc. is not easy with executive functioning issues, and could lead to a student that actually did learn the material and performed well on exams receiving a bad final grade.

This may be more relevant to "twice exceptional" students that can still pick up on the material without following the whole class. There is certainly heterogeneity and I don't mean to speak for all ADHD students in what they would prefer. I just think it is funny your comment could be read as supporting either side of the debate without the parent context. And given the parent context I have to say I disagree.

Now whether the hand holding of attendance policies and weekly assignments and the like is better for the class on the whole I can't comment on. It's not an easy tradeoff and I don't think the decision should be made primarily based on how people with ADHD perform, unless you are teaching a class where it is disproportionately represented.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#167

Post by bmacho » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

(On homework)

> And you know what? When the students blame you, maybe they are right. The teacher is supposed to use their experience to help students learn. Shouldn’t you help the actual imperfect humans in front of them, rather than imagining a bunch of perfectly rational Platonic objects?

This is an extremely mean accusation. As a former student, I've never ever blamed any of my professors for not giving me enough homework. I am sure I passed the final exam classes with much better grades and knowledge than the homework classes (which I usually failed and dropped very early). And if I've not, I've still felt extremely annoyed and mad about the system, and how nonsense and unfair it is.

I can accept a statistics about homework and no homework classes (which the article fails to provide), that the majority of students perform better, or the average is better, or the lower range is better, or anything. But this kind of arguing is simply worthless (less than worthless).

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#168

Post by yodsanklai » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

kevinventullo wrote: post #55

yodsanklai wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you ever feel like you’re forced to teach topics you know won’t benefit students? Normally, professors teach things they have some expertise in, and they're biased to think that this is useful to students. Besides, it's often very debatable whether something is useful or not. For instance, I used to teach things such as theory of computation, automata theory, and similar so-called theoretical classes. You could…

Ha! As a pure mathematician-turned-software engineer, Theory of Computation was one of the few classes I took that remains even remotely applicable. At the time I thought it was really cool, and probably made CS a little more appealing. Conversely, in my current role as a backend/systems/researchy person, a JS class would broaden my horizons a bit like a literature class might, but I think both would be equally usefu…

In what sense theory of computation is applicable to your current job?

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#169

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

lupire wrote: post #74

ZYinMD wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading Harry Potter on Kindle, and Dumbledore had a line "Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young", and Kindle has this feature to show how many other readers have highlighted a sentence, and this sentence were highlighted by thousands. I guess they're all teenagers.

Harry Potter on Kindle readers are probably young adults.

Amazon probably has the exact demographics.

Re: Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate

#170

Post by staticassertion » Sat, Mar 12, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #136

staticassertion wrote: post #53

> But some are an assault on reason, with every word of the assignment creatively misinterpreted. It was never stated which temperature circuit to build or how to prove it works or what level of explanation was necessary. And who’s to say what “build” means? OK? So your students tried to do something and failed creatively. Sounds good. Reward them for their efforts, ask them to try again if you feel that they still n…

>Round up by default? If someone has an 89, just give them the 90. Honestly, who cares if a few students come up to you and want regrades, I imagine it takes all of 30 seconds to cross out the old grade and add the new one. How onerous... Ahh, here speaks someone who's never taught a class :) If word gets out that you round 89 up to 90, then next you'll be dealing with all the people who got 88.5. At some point you h…

> If word gets out that you round 89 up to 90, then next you'll be dealing with all the people who got 88.5.

Why would word get out if you just grade that way? No one would know you were rounding up...

> As the article explains, cheating has negative effects on everyone else. Of course cheating can be good from the cheater's point of view – that's why people cheat!

I think you've completely missed my point. Cheating had no negative impact - on anyone, at all. Getting caught cheating would have huge negative impact.