Author: romcholo

Comment on Facts & Reliability by romcholo

Posted on by romcholo

We should consider that “mindful” learning is dependent on the context of the information. I agree with Langer that pure repetition and over learning is a detriment to grasping a subject on a higher level. She mentions that there is a certain level where repetition is important to understand the basic skill required. Beyond that, we should look at information in a “mindful” way to reach a higher level of understanding. The level of repetition is different for different information. How much effort students should spend learning integrals is not the same as the effort students should spend learning historical events.

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Comment on Third Way! by romcholo

Posted on by romcholo

I do think that the whole argument about “To Ban or Not To Ban” is missing the critical issue at hand. I think that “Third Way” really hits the nail on the head. If a class is engaging in the first place, then there wouldn’t be issues of distractions, of whatever kind, in the classroom. Obviously, we should safeguard against students distracting other students, but do we have a responsibility to not allow students to distract themselves?

I don’t think it is the teacher’s responsibility to “demand” the attention of students. As I said above, we should make sure they don’t distract other students. However, if we force information to unwilling students, then I’m not surprised that we lose their focus. If a lecture is not interesting enough to keep your attention, then focus on improving the lecture! I think the challenge is that with the introduction of laptops and phones, teachers are now asked to raise the engagement factor as well. And in that arms race, it is much more difficult to make lectures engaging than it is to make an app more distracting.

So in that sense, we should all be working on learning how to teach in an engaging manner. Perhaps then, we will looking at the teacher rather than the laptop in front of us.

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