Comment on Had I been a railway minister… by Emma

I don’t think the author meant that inspiring students is bad insofar as it always implies entertainment. Their critique of entertainment is more nuanced than that. More close to the author’s intention, I think, is the fact that “inspiration” is often terminologically misappropriated to mean a quick, feel-good approach to learning. This is the ethos of many techno-utopian TED talks, and I think that over time, the insubstantiality of this will come to be clear.

Comment on Draw a Pair of Wings for Your Publication by Emma

“Who says only artists can have their portfolio, we scientists and engineers can have amazing taste of art too! ”

There are more students than scientists and engineers here in GEDI class ? — some of us in the philosophically oriented disciplines may even do work that challenges the presumption that scholarship can be transformed into infographics. Images are more readily accessible to online audiences with limited attention spans, but it doesn’t always work. Image creation, like gamification, can be a way to avoid the most painful — but rewarding — part of learning.

Comment on Dubious on Digital Learners by Emma

I think a problem with gamification is that it adds an incentive to the learning above and beyond the knowledge itself. Jane McGonigal is popular for a reason; her philosophy represents an accessible, feel-good solution for a generation that is very heavily addicted to gaming. Learning is boring and painful sometimes, and so much “active learning” and gamified learning seems like a thinly-veiled attempt to gloss over the parts of learning that require that very thing culture has trained us out of: deep, deep focus, attention, and relative lack of stimulation. The fact that “progressive” pedagogy has been *so* willing to jump on board with a lot of these ideas may also represent a greater crisis in education that demands that this field innovate as quickly as for-profit sectors. Thinking critically about this should be a central concern for educators who are genuinely interested in conveying educational material, though it may be unpopular (and receive less funding and resources from rapidly-corporatizing universities right now).

Comment on Blogging helped me learn by accident by kgculbertson

Bravo, Bethany. Thank you for putting your thoughts out in the wild.

I think that the networked community that blogging can create (if done intentionally) is the highest objective it can achieve. Beyond being an excellent opportunity for one to get their ideas, experiences, interests aired in an open forum, the people that are drawn near to one another because of their common ideas, experiences or interests have the potential to change how humans perceive themselves in the world. At least that’s my opinion.
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Comment on Change Over Time or Timeless? by Kathryn Culbertson

Thanks for another thoughtful post, Faith. I feel like I’m becoming a bit of a groupie. I think you hit on something I never really made it around to saying in my post: that improvement of our processes and think is not really a wholesale change, although some sure act as if it is.

I feel like we may actually be *swinging back* toward the type of learning that seemed to occur in the 1930’s and ’40’s (albeit limited to certain people who had access to the appropriate resources) in the trying-failing-re-trying mindset (what is now referred to as a ‘growth mindset’) and in the tinkering/making culture that is reemerging (now that many kids/parents don’t have access to a garage full of tools). I don’t mean going backward, but often I am engaged in conversations with educators who talk about the pendulum on teaching methods/fads/thinking swinging back after a swing forward when a new way/method/fad has faded from view.

I think your students are lucky to have you. It is wonderful to meet a thoughtful, willing Educator who is open to the possibilities that change can bring.

Comment on Be Knowledgeable Before Being Creative by brooks92

I must be a terrible drinker, I could only afford 8 beers…
I agree that you need some understanding of a system before your creativity can make any reasonable imaginings. NASA are not going to be interested in my ‘novel’ idea of walking to the moon.
However, I do think the converse is just as counterproductive. People who are so ingrained in their field that they cant (or wont) look at things from different perspectives. A Goldilocks situation exists; perhaps this is the real reason why most important contributions to mathematics (or any of the sciences) come from people in their 20s. Older than that, your brain still works, you are just too set in your ways to do anything truly novel.

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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 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.