Setareh mentioned that somewhat the same is happening in Iran. We have thousands of engineers with wildly varying levels of skills, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how society can thrive without good teachers and expert psychologists. Can a prosperous nation not have good musicians? Who is going to study and defend our natural environment? Sorry for the rambling, I definitely feel you Adbhut.
LikeLike
Thanks for the link Arash! If you like Heidegger’s philosophy, I highly recommend John Paul Sartre’s “No Exit”.
I think the comfort zone actually extends to students too. Being a passive listener is a great prelude to tuning out 🙂
It’s so great that your advisor is asking for your involvement in creating the course. Besides the mentoring benefits, I think the structure of a course designed by a team is always more learner-centered. Especially as grad students, we can relate better to students than professors.
Thanks Japsimran for the comment! Yes, as Thomas and Brown mentions in the ‘New Culture of Learning’ : “the challenge is to marry structure and freedom”, to create something for the better than the present. Or I would like to think, the challenge is to somehow create an environment of freedom in learning that encourages students to create a structure of their own accord.
LikeLike
Indeed. 🙂
Thanks for sharing the story! And you are absolutely right, irrespective of the medium of communication, good stories stick with you. As long as we humans can attach relatable emotions to something, we learn from it.
LikeLike
Cindy, one of my first real science memories from school was a weather station in the 7th and 8th grades. We made up little tables for each day that had the various weather values like minimum and maximum temperatures, wind speed, precip for the day, type of cloud, and % cloudiness for the day. We then try to play with the data and answer questions that had a math component. What was the average temperature for the month? We were then given the previous 5 classes worth of data and determine if that temperature was close to the other ones. We didn’t have any statistics but we could give it a good guess. Then, we try to figure out the type of cloud meant for the weather and I find myself looking up even today shaking my head that it looks like it going to rain later. I appreciate how the simple education tools can have a big influence on someone’s education.
Aislinn, I agree with about the problems with multi-tasking on two things that requires your attention but I am person that has to have noise in the background while working. After living four years in a dorm and twenty years of working in an office or a farm of cubicles, I have always had noise in the background to block out the rest of the world. I have evolve to have “talk radio” in the background when I am doing math or calculations but I have to have music on while I write. I do not know if it is a left vs right brain but there is no talking when I write. Even right now, there is music playing and I will go back to the beastie boys when I am done.
Ben, I enjoyed the post. I am not a disciple of Nietzsche and the concept of ĂĽbermenschen. I believe it takes a long time to master a “trade”. It does not matter if it is being a plumber or a heart surgeon. A person can master multiple “trades” but it does not make him an ĂĽbermenschen. I do not know any degrees in at least the United States collegiate system that is “specialized.” The heart surgeon or the bridge building engineer all has to have a “classical” education with liberal arts like technical writing, english, and even public speaking. My problem is the watering down of the degree over time. The engineering degree of 30 years ago no longer has the same requirements in the specialized classes. I would make the argument that degrees are becoming less specialization and a graduate degree is required for that specialization in at least engineering.
LikeLike
I appreciate all the ideas, tricks and suggestions for keeping students engaged. What I would like to add to the bag of tricks is that I would Listen to the anti-learners. They might actually have a compelling reason. So, if a student in one of those 100+ big auditoriums classes told me she is going to drop the class because she doesn’t feel she is being treated as a person in the class, I would not blame her. I guess before doing something for our learners we have to have a fairly good understanding of how they are experiencing the environment.
