Thanks! I think we have a long way to improve the assessment and encourage students’ creativity.

Thank you very much for sharing your life experience! I’m glad that you find something that you really love to do. I’m not as lucky as you, since sometimes I feel what I learned is so difficult or boring. Do you think interest should go ahead of mindfulness learning or mindfulness can generate interest of learning?

Thanks Jyotsana! I think although we may not be strong enough to change the education system, we still can influence our students as a good instructor!

Yes, I agree with you that professors and teachers are also mindless teaching. In China, standardized learning may not have direct benefit to students but regarding the corresponding standardized tests, they do help the children in poor families to compete with students in rich families. Because the answer to a standard question is either right or wrong and nobody can alter it by his power or money. Without standardized tests, the selection outcomes are very likely to prefer students with powerful and rich parents.

“…‘in your own words, help your little brother to understand what osmosis is by designing an experimental illustration that tells him a story that pertains to his life history, which will make his friends laugh, but make his aunt and uncle proud of him, while getting him on the teacher’s favorite pet list’”

This is the best example of sideways learning I have seen so far. Thanks for sharing it!

“How will I be graded? then implicitly queries how comfortable and secure will my life be? Will an A in this course allow me to pay back my student loans?”

*slow clap*

Making the best out of life and opportunities requires one to practice mindfulness. The world is constantly changing and the methods of teaching must also be adjusted according! I believe, my study habits have decrease as well since being in graduate school. I attribute this bad habit to experiences with mindlessness learning. Things become so mundane and standardized, and I feel myself becoming burnt out…Maybe we have been professional students for far too long.

LikeLike

Your post is exactly why I have pondered with the thought of becoming a professor. It comes with a lot of responsibilities, but also, a lot of power. I wonder how my abilities as an educator will change once I have some years of experience in the “real world industry.” I’m sure my experiences solving engineering problems will enhance the type of energy and lessons I can pass onto my students. I hope to one day, down the line, become a professor.

I totally agree with everything you’re saying about PDA. I often keep my academic work off social media because I do not want to bored my non-academic friends. I don’t ever want my followers to feel like I’m doing “too much” on social media. And often times, when I talk about my work, it may come across as “bragging.”

Brett, it makes sense that students are a product of the educational system, and I see this when occasionally I have a high school dual enrollment student in my class. Sometimes, but not always, this will be the student who asks obsessively what material will be covered on the exam, and how they should study. Perhaps the fact that most of the other (college) students tend to dwell less on these types of questions is an encouraging sign that higher education may be correcting some of the flaws in the students’ educations.