“‘1. We must help our students uncover, examine, and debunk the myth that institutions are external to and constrain us, as if they possessed powers that render us helpless – an assumption that is largely unconscious and wholly untrue.'” Until you get fired that is maybe.
Author: Kyriakos Tsoukalas
Comment on Unnecessary Policies in International Institutions by Kyriakos Tsoukalas
“Another policy that worked through is the Re-assessment policy. So to explain this further, this is policy provides a second chance for students to sit through an assessment they already failed.” The reassessment may penalize the student, but since it is extra work, we can argue that it is just an extra effort that will take a student to a passing grade. Therefore this situation seems to be still influenced by a comparison between students and the concept of competition among students.
Comment on Does technology hurt more than it helps? by Kyriakos Tsoukalas
The article made me think that we may miss that we use technology at all times. We just don’t think we do, because we don’t regard clothes, simple tools, and our buildings as technology. Furthermore, Facebook, google and the likes are the final face of core technologies for big data just like bitcoin is based on the blockchain. We will recognize less and less the core technology and more the socioeconomic aspects of their use for services and products. Until we get to be real cyborgs ;p
Comment on Catch the Wave! by Kyriakos Tsoukalas
Thanks for sharing thoughts on MOOCS. It seem that MOOCS are more effective with formal knowledge and maybe less with tacit. Learning by observation can work well, but it is the practicing part that we may miss in MOOCS nowadays. Hopefully with new technology we will get tools to experiment with while following a MOOC.
Comment on Paulo Freire’s Advice by Kyriakos Tsoukalas
While ‘“their way of speaking is as beautiful as our way of speaking”,’ Paulo Freire also pointed out [first reference] that there is a commonly accepted way of language that is more or less required to be used to enable us to communicate with a whole society. I also believe that to ‘“be a tolerant teacher”’ points out very well that educators need be critically tolerant so as to find ways of influencing the learning process, but also hold students accountable when needed. Different situations may require different levels of tolerance.
Comment on “No, I don’t think that is necessary” by Kyriakos Tsoukalas
Thanks for the detailed description of how things have been for you. It allows to imagine a perspective about your particular experience. In the USA colleges are in business of getting money from students (thus as you described remedial courses may cost more; you have to take them in order to proceed…). You wrote: “At the time, I did not actually know what engineering was or that I should want to study it.” And then argue that had you have been allowed to get a college summer class you would have been exposed to engineering earlier. Since engineering has been a critical factor in your life, it seems that it would have been very important for you to get that summer class. We can’t really know what your experience would have been though. Overall, I wonder how much of an difference is to plan on going to study a certain discipline in college since middle-school as opposed to high-school.
Comment on What it means to be a GEDI by Kyriakos Tsoukalas
Diversity a buzzword is. Consider civility we must. Then be discussing a social behavior we will and not a social structure. Agree I will, on diversity-awareness importance.
Comment on On Movie Nights by Kyriakos Tsoukalas
I wonder how mush of “a common emotional experience” would watching a movie be for a culturally diverse group of people. Moreover, I think “stereotype threat” is linguistically framed as a negative phenomenon. Changing attitude and behavior due to consciousness of stereotypes is neither bad nor good. It is simplification and also, more information should lead to new assessment (as in “whistling Vivaldi”). Unfortunately, when people feel that the norm of their surrounding social behavior is unwelcoming to them, then their social integration with that surrounding social environment is threatened. Thus, the stereotype factor can be a threat. Threats alert us the most!
Comment on My personal teaching evolution by Kyriakos Tsoukalas
Methodologies don’t work without methods. An approach to teaching can follow a certain methodology, but methods need to map on individual needs. I wonder how do you approach a class to reach out to “student’s individual needs?” In numbers, how big is that class?
Comment on Features of effective teachers by Kyriakos Tsoukalas
While I agree with you that lessons of effective teachers will share some common features, it may not be so much about the information they share, but the way they do it. For example military instructors don’t teach how to argue, they teach discipline with a purpose. The common features are about simplifying concepts and shaping learning environments.
