I’m impressed that Practicing, Experience and Association came out as the BIG ideas. And, it’s not lost on me that Making Mistakes is extremely small, albeit right in the middle of the image.
I would also suggest that an aim of teaching should be to promote deep thinking – and questioning – of the subject matter (in college). It is not so much about providing hard and fast facts to be memorized as how to listen, assimilate the information provided, make connections, hear other’s opinions and perspectives and be able to create a deeper, wider, more informed attitude from the time spent contemplating and learning.

Brandon – I’m going to agree with you on this one. I believe students should have the basics (within their own field of study) stored in their brains, ready to be used at any given time. Every university and department has their own way of conducting preliminary exams. Even within the Food Science department, committees may do things a bit differently, however there are typically two types of obstacles each PhD student must go through; one being a written exam, the other being an oral exam. In the written exam, the student is allowed to use whatever materials they need (i.e. textbooks, publications, the Internet, etc.). However, the oral exams are completely closed and the student is forced to use information off of the top of their heads. I think it is because as you said, the basics are important. Although we sometimes have to solve complex problems within a processing facility or for designing a food safety plan, most of the issues come down to entry-level food science concepts like factors affecting microbiological growth or basic chemical reactions. Although these decisions are not nearly as vital as those made in the experiences you described, sometimes decisions related to food are the difference between someone consuming a safe food product or falling very ill, so it is essential that we get it right.

My sentiment exactly. To be honest, I was hoping for “how” more than “why” when taking the FP certificate courses.

That’s an excellent point. I had not considered the psychological impairment, thought it should be on every teacher’s mind. That could completely change the teacher-student dynamic – I hope we’ll cover this a bit in our course.

As for the undergrad – I regularly see the “it’s a job” attitude reflected on college related social media. I would say at least half of the students, perhaps more, are only there because a degree –> a job. If they learn something interesting on the side, that’s great, but if they were truly interested they could just watch a middle-brow Youtube video, take a MOOC, or read a Wikipedia entry. The primary reason those students attend your course is to get a grade. We should not plan an entire curriculum under the assumption that these students have some childlike drive to learn, or some need for enlightenment.

Example of this on social media, the top comment on this Reddit thread.

Very interesting. I am no economist, but I am a biologist, so I do understand competition theory.
In nature if there are limited resources, something inevitably goes extinct. It still baffles me that a lot of people (particularly in the US) think that this ruthless free market ‘survival of the fittest’ strategy is appropriate for human affairs. The free market has led to the demise of the high street, a wealth gap that would make Caligula double take, and economic collapse. We shouldn’t apply it to our economy, and we certainly shouldn’t apply it to our schools. We need a lot more checks and balances!

Don’t get me wrong, I think competition is useful and even necessary for development.
Coming back to nature, competition drives evolution; it is responsible for all of the fine-tuning we see in animals that seem perfectly adapted to their environment. Hence I advocate regulated, as opposed to cut-throat, competition.

Thanks for such a thought-provoking post, Quichao. I first thought I wanted to respond to some particular points you made, but after reading through the comments, I think I have more questions than remarks.

There seems to be a general acceptance that there is competition in every system that humans are engaged in (even in conception), but does there need to be competition in education? Do there need to be ‘winners’ (those that are able to pursue (interest, talent or both) and ‘losers’ (those that fill a job vs. engage in a profession/vocation that they are personally committed to? It a foregone conclusion, in your mind, that some will ‘have’ and some will ‘have not’?

Tangentially, do you (anyone reading this) believe that human capacity to learn is determined at birth (or sometime thereafter) or is virtually limitless (or something in between)?

Do you believe you would be in the same place right now if any external factor in your existence, upbringing or education were different?

I look forward to reading replies.

I hope so. Those students are certainly a minority, but they are incredibly distracting. Most notably because I was one, and I remember utterly hating some courses as a teenager. I feel guilty that I’m the source of their boredom, and that prevents me from focusing on the students who really want to learn. The worst ones are the ones who nearly fall asleep – maybe they’re tired from gaming or partying all night long, or maybe I’m just boring…

Excellent point. It does seem a bit silly that I mentioned the solution in my own post, buried under nay-saying. But there has to be some control over what they learn, we can’t have college level Montessori. I know standardization is a bad word in modern pedagogy, especially the standardized tests associated with the Common Core system, but students do need to learn the boring parts too.

That said, it seems like you found a good balance with the “choose your own section to emphasize via section paper” formula. Allowing them to choose one area to focus on does seem to give them some choice while ensuring they get exposed to all four sections. I will definitely try to introduce more choice in my future lab courses. I wonder how much freedom I could give them…

I agree with everything in this blog post, especially the point highlighted by Chang. I feel like my undergraduate education provided me with all of the tools to effectively learn and then released me on the real world!
The only thing I disagree on is the name Mind Gym; to me it seems to reflect all of the things you denounce!
A gym designates an insular location in which to do work, as if exercise cannot take place anywhere else. This was precisely your gripe against universities, and how learning stops as soon as you leave. Exercise stops as soon as you leave a gym.
Also, ‘repetition’ (ie monotony) seems to be the byword for the gyms that I have frequented, which you acknowledge as a problem for higher education.
Perhaps I am missing something.

I think art is the the field that needs mindful learning the most. I hate to say this, but Korean entrance exam for art school is famous for its non-creativity. My friend, graduated from art high school, always says that her school received creative students and made them all same because they had to draw the same thing with the same technique to enter a good university. Government tried to break this standardized art school exam by establishing a national art school which does not have a conventional exam. But, it raised another question about fairness of the exam, thus, many arts schools in Korea still accept students with a standardized exam. I am not that knowledgeable on the art education in the US, I hope it would be better than that.