Thanks for your comment, Amy. WhenI said performing experiments is where the real learning happens, I meant doing research in general – conceiving, building, and performing experiments. I have just begun to step back and look at the big picture in my own Ph.D. The first year was all about going over the initial learning curve of knowing the state of art and techniques in the lab.
Author: Anurag
Comment on The Geeky Lovechild of Buddy Holly and Clark Kent by Anurag
I have had a post-doc in my research group flip an informal scientific writing class he offered over the summer. He took the time and effort to flip the classroom and post videos of basic tips to use excel and R studio (a statistical analysis software) and those were really helpful in terms of learning shortcuts to cumbersome repetitive tasks. It was an interesting concept and it worked really well. I am definitely planning to do it when I teach.
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Comment on All Work and No Play Makes Jac a Dull Instructor by Anurag
I never thought of peer-review as a means to learn in a classroom setting! Thanks for your post. You literally set my “mind on fire” ?
Comment on Why do you Feel Sleepy during Lectures? by Anurag
I am glad you were able to motivate students to pay attention in class. I never paid attention in most of my classes up until graduate school, because classroom instruction was a repetition of what could easily be learnt from the book. There was rarely any participation or discussion, and I was forced to attend classes due to strict attendance policies. I would frequently get out of sitting through classes by doing things like sleeping in the front bench and be asked to leave.
What changed when I got to graduate school? I had the choice to pick the classes I took and was either really interested in the subject or the professor. Either way, classroom discussion was not something I would find in a book (as there were no prescribed texts for most of the courses), and I was self-motivated to pay attention.
Comment on Passive sitters: “they make excellent cannon fodder” by Anurag
Some of the more inspired moments I have had in my education were related to the course material and not the instruction or the class itself. I remember having a huge ah-ha moment in 10th-grade history when the teacher mentioned the reason behind why the British empire clung to India for so long (until 1947) when civil unrest had become widespread starting in the early 1900s. It was because of the two World Wars. That prompted me to dig deeper into modern history related to India and the World Wars, something I read about to this day.
Although my mind was “set on fire” after this, most of my classmates were not present mentally at the same time, so maybe setting students’ mind on fire is more at an individual scale rather than a classroom.
Comment on Bumper to Bumper Learning by Anurag
I, like you, have tried audiobooks/narrators and found them to be not suitable for me. I absorb better if I am reading.. Whether it be on a screen or in print. I know a lot of purists prefer reading in print over a screen. So, I agree that there is not a single method or time or place that works for everyone. But that is an advantage of using technology in learning. I have sat in classes where I was really distracted and wished they were recorded for review later…
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Comment on Why Blog? by Anurag
I had similar concerns Wejdan, and I am positive that this class is a safe space for learning.. and that includes blogging. Looking forward to learning from you over the semester.
Comment on What Do We Want? Swamp Drainage! by Anurag
We all talk about how we can engage students better…. Maybe chalk and board is a way to do it.. Or maybe it is something else. I agree with Jyotsana that we need to balance the expectations of the incoming students with the limitations of the traditional curriculum. Keeping up with the state of the art (or science) should be applicable to everything in academia, whether pedagogical or practical.
Comment on How did we go from learning from the Cosmos to learning by blogging? by Anurag
By the deficiencies of traditional instruction, I am referring things like enrollment restrictions and campus-specific classes within a university, relying on textbooks (at least for lower level undergrad classes, although it is rapidly changing), and a stand-and-deliver method of lecture delivery for massive class sizes.
I am hopeful that technology will enable us in creating better assessments, by opening different types of submissions (audio, video, webpages etc.) and provide newer ways of integrating virtual enrollments into classrooms (an example, although a little dated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAIDXzv_fKA)
Comment on How did we go from learning from the Cosmos to learning by blogging? by Anurag
Good point. I wrote this post under the assumption that technology is being used wisely. If not, it can lead to distractions in the classroom. It is also worth pointing out that while it has become easier than ever to find information, it has also become easier than ever to plagiarize and cheat (Ctrl+C; Ctrl+V) and I believe we can all work on creating engaging assignments that are conducive to promote creativity and free thought.
