Author: Vartan

It’s the convenience, stupid.

There is no doubt that the Internet as a medium of getting information has changed the way our mind operates. For instance, there was a time when mediums of information, such as books, were hard to find. Oftentimes they were censored or banned, depending on the prevailing ideology of the state.

In the span of a few years this has changed. Now, we have an abundance of information. An abundance of digital books, the sum of which could make up an entire library, are now located inside tiny hard drives. Now the problem has boiled down to filtering information. Indeed, an entire market industry is being developed for this problem. Sophisticated programs and algorithms have been developed to find what we are looking for more efficiently, time wise.

Is this a problem? Are search engines making us really stupid? Well, if I was a philosopher, I would ask “define stupid”. But I am an economist, with a deep interest in history. My answer is no. They solve problems. However, as in most cases, we need to adapt ourselves to make use of these new marvelous tools without harming ourselves. I imagine Mesopotamian farmers laughing at the first people who begun using a plough. I reckon the first attempts were not very successful.

I tried to keep my blog post less than three paragraphs. Increasing the length might have been “too much to absorb”.


Critical Pedagogy: An Economist’s view

This is the first time I hear about Paulo Freire. Therefore:

  1. Forgive me for my ignorance.
  2. Forgive me if I make erroneous assumptions with respect to his views, despite reading this week’s material.

I am certain that I won’t be able to write a very informative opinion about his work. Regardless, I am glad that I’ve been been exposed to it because I find it very interesting.

I am a fourth year PhD student in Economics. I work with econometric models, programming and big data. I stress this because my blog post reflects the way I was trained to think. “Trained to think” is the key here.

A Culture of silence

This is something that I have seen happening in higher education, at the highest of levels. For instance, I recall a core PhD Economics course I took during my first year. It was a mathematical, self styled positive economics course with rigorous proofs and real analysis. However, the Professor would go on and make normative conclusions such as: “and this why X will NEVER work”. When I asked him about the Cambridge Capital Controversy, he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. I was bewildered.

Here is an example of a man, a Dr., a Professor, so entrenched in the way he was “trained to think”, that he had never even heard of the positive counterarguments to his positive arguments.

What would a critical pedagogical praxis look like in Economics?

I can only write how a critical pedagogical praxis should NOT look like in Economics. Firstly, we need to be more critical about our discipline. For instance, maybe we should try being less absolute. Think less the way we were “trained to think”. In addition, we should be taught about the great debates and controversies in the development of Economic thought. I find that reading about the history of your discipline is important to understand in depth why we believe what we believe today. Why certain things are taught and some others not. Why an entire generation thinks homogeneously and a slight deviation could tantamount to academic suicide.

It is only when we stop thinking the way we were “trained to think” that we will start thinking.


Education, Creativity, Curiosity and Feelings

I found Tepper’s and Kuh’s 2011 “Let’s get serious about cultivating creativity” article quite interesting. He presents 7 core abilities based on existing research that define creativity. Moreover, he stresses that creativity is cultivated through rigorous training and it is not an abstract concept. He mentions that in arts school, creativity is more successfully developed through the curriculum. Fortunately, the National Science Board has been collecting data to track data an improve arts-school education. Ultimately, the authors suggest incorporating the use the methods of arts school in other disciplines.

I agree with W. Gardner Campbell’s article on curiosity as a learning outcome, however what’s begs the question is, how should we do that? In addition, why should we need to trade compliance for curiosity, can’t they both co-exist? Isn’t there a dynamic interrelationship, between curiosity and outcome, in that both of them affect each other?

Finally, Paul Silvia’s piece regarding the knowledge of emotions and how they affect education helped me understand better how feelings (i.e. curiosity, emotions, interest etc) are fundamental in the learning process. It would be interesting to add some of these ideas during a lecture, fostering different type of emotions to help students to learn better.


Active Learning

I found Jean Lacoste’s teaching innovation statement very interesting. I particularly like the idea that she tried to incorporate different teaching methods while minimizing the drawbacks of each.  I strongly identify with the statement that in very large classrooms you don’t feel that you matter. It’s very encouraging that the overall experience was positive and I am looking forward to learn about the specifics, such as the simulation software that allowed students to test-out of skills they had mastered and generate custom lessons for skills they have not. In fact, I have seen this type of approach followed by successful online private teaching websites. The fact that these institutions are on demand probably indicates that higher education institutions should learn and adapt.

In addition, Carne’s idea on active learning is quite fascinating. I got excited by merely reading the article, especially the part when students get to portray different historical figures and eras.  It definitely does foster motivation. Furthermore, Robert Talbert’s article on the four things lecture is good for was also quite perceptive. While I do recognize from my own experience that lectures are not necessarily good in transferring information, I never explicitly thought about the advantages of lectures, even though on an intuitive level I knew it was useful in organizing my thoughts.

Finally, James Paul Gee brings a novel idea on how video games can teach us how to teach. Reading and thinking are social achievements connected to social groups. His elaborate piece regarding good learning principles and how gaming developers continuously improve them without making game easier, but in most cases, harder was insightful. I look forward in reading his 36 learning principles.


Thoughts on Assessment

I have read very carefully the reading material that was suggested, including the TED talk.

There is not much I can add with respect to the validity of the proposals brought forward. There is research evidence that supports that traditional business compensation schemes are not efficient. My personal experience, both in higher education and the job market, has also has been the same.

Subsequently, I agree with Alfie Kohn’s article and suggestions. However,  we have a system that despite its shortcomings works. We know it does because this is how we were all accepted in our respective graduate programs. Our GPA’s and standardized scores are a necessary, although not sufficient, condition to be considered as serious candidates.

Therefore the question that I ask is what do we replace this system with? Even though I do agree about its shortcomings, there has to be some form of measurable assessment ultimately. There are no easy answers to this question, but that does not mean we shouldn’t investigate and try to gradually change the way we assess our students.

One way to go is to create experimental schools with different forms of assessment, perhaps with no grading system at all. The parents could voluntarily send their children into such schools and we could monitor their individual progress.

 

 


Imaginary death valley

I found Ken Robinson’s TED talk on education quite interesting. He argues that education should take into account two basic traits that all children share. Firstly, each child is different and secondly that children are naturally curious. Education is focused on testing and not teaching, which should facilitate learning. He mentions Finland, which according to him offers more personalized education instead of command and control education, that tops all the scores.

According to the 2015 PISA scores, Finland is not at the top of the rankings, in fact in Math it is not even at the top 10.This does not necessarily negate what Mr. Robinson is arguing for, but it is important to distinguish facts from fiction. Many of the countries that are at the top of the list, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and other Asian countries have a strong command and control system that is focused on rigorous standardized tests.

There have been publications based on research projects, such as the Project STAR (Steps to Achieving Resilience) from 1999 to 2003 with mixed results.

The next issue that is brought forward is Mindful vs. Mindless learning. Based on the paper by Ellen Langer (2000): “Mindfulness is a flexible state of mind in which we are actively engaged in the present, noticing new things and sensitive to context”. In addition: “When we are in a state of mindlessness, we act like automatons that have been programmed to act according to the sense our behavior made in the past, rather than the present”.

Mindful learning seems promising; however we need more examples on how this can be actualized.

Finally, I understand and I agree that each person is different and ideally we should have a more personalized educational system. Perhaps one of the reasons that command and control might be helpful is because it protects students from unqualified teachers. If the teachers are not objective in what they teach, objective as in teaching based on scientific facts, there should be some sort of monitoring and command and control system.

In addition, we should not forget the historical context in which our modern centralized educational school system was established. One of the most important goals was to establish a sense of nationhood and ethnic consciousness among the population. In many cases, the languages had to be “cleaned” from foreign words and school was the most effective way to do it. This has been the experience in most, if not all, European countries.


Education: The Forest and the Tree

Campbell cites Kuh’s [1] premise as follows:

“Education was becoming more about careers and “competencies” (a word Kuh himself used, although in a larger sense than others have) and less about inquiry, meaning-making, and a broadly humane view of human capacity.”

In order to understand the role of education, its significance and goal we need to take step back and explore how humanity has evolved. We will then see that education has always put emphasis on these skills. What has been changing is its manifestation. Human history has developed gradually through what is known as the “division of labor”. From the early days of the Ancient Mesopotamian civilizations, we can already see the creation of stratified hierarchical societies, where each caste or group of people had a different role to play (i.e. priests, artisans, farmers, soldiers, royalty). [2]

With the emergence of the industrial revolution, the rapid urbanization around areas where the factories were located, the need for more skilled labor became imperative. Subsequently, the main purpose of the educational system was to provide skilled labor to support production. The educational system once again adapted a few decades ago to structural changes that shifted the economy from manufacturing to services (tertiary sector).

What we observe now in the age of internet is an equivalent paradigm shift. However, the underlying mechanism is the same; education does not exist outside of our technological limitations and the underlying goals of the economic system. Networked learning is another way of achieving this goal.

Having clarified that, networked learning can facilitate and help to improve learning experience, rendering it more interactive. Most importantly, it might be a toolset to help people learn tacit knowledge more effectively. [3]

References

1  George D. Kuh (2008), High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter (Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities)

2 Diamond, J. M. (1999). Guns, germs, and steel: The fates of human societies. New York: Norton.

3 Klein, Gary A (2009). Streetlights and Shadows : Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press