Quake3World

tnf wrote:Also, in regards to verbatim repetition - the fact that we've left that behind is one of the big problems facing education today. Memorization is a VERY useful tool in education - when it is used in conjunction with the development of understanding. It's another one of the many intellectual tools that students need to be successful later on.

To take one example of this: I'm reasonably of the belief that a person's mind has a finite capacity, and that after a point, as a mind learns new things, older less important things are inevitably forgotten.

Now, from this I derive a belief that the best information to pack into your head is equations. Ways to work things out given certain inputs, and getting an output. The opposite method to this is to be given all the possible outputs and just store them, as a big list, in your head.

Verbatim teaching supports the latter, and I believe strongly in the former. Think of it like this... take a disc. you could cram in hundreds of equations to create an infinite number of beautiful fractals over time, or you can store about 10 more perfected crisper fractals in jpg format. The former might be slower, but can produce so many more results and has so much more flexibility.

So I'll apply this, more or less, to the teaching methods one can employ. I could also use the shitty 'give a man a fire he'll be warm for a day, give him the means to create fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life' analogy too. Shit. I just did :icon33:

Also, an observation from school times still fresh in my memory:
You can class students into 2 distinct groups. There are those who simply accept the information being presented to them, and attempt to store it all up and regurgitate it as necessary. These are typically the students who can do above average in class, and fit in well in workplace scenarios in the future where low original thinking is required.

On the other hand, you've got the paths. Those who worked out properly at an early age how certain bricks fitted into certain shaped holes, but not just THAT they fitted in there, but WHY they did. From that point on, education for this kind of person has been about receiving some new information, then working it around in their head until it fits into the existing information they already carry. This kind of learner can have trouble with exams and such where they can't get their head around what the lecturer is really wanting from them, yet they do know all the subject material at hand. These can also be those bastards who appear 'effortlessly' smart in school.

Foo wrote:

tnf wrote:Also, in regards to verbatim repetition - the fact that we've left that behind is one of the big problems facing education today. Memorization is a VERY useful tool in education - when it is used in conjunction with the development of understanding. It's another one of the many intellectual tools that students need to be successful later on.

To take one example of this: I'm reasonably of the belief that a person's mind has a finite capacity, and that after a point, as a mind learns new things, older less important things are inevitably forgotten.

Now, from this I derive a belief that the best information to pack into your head is equations. Ways to work things out given certain inputs, and getting an output. The opposite method to this is to be given all the possible outputs and just store them, as a big list, in your head.

Verbatim teaching supports the latter, and I believe strongly in the former. Think of it like this... take a disc. you could cram in hundreds of equations to create an infinite number of beautiful fractals over time, or you can store about 10 more perfected crisper fractals in jpg format. The former might be slower, but can produce so many more results and has so much more flexibility.

So I'll apply this, more or less, to the teaching methods one can employ. I could also use the shitty 'give a man a fire he'll be warm for a day, give him the means to create fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life' analogy too. Shit. I just did :icon33:

Kids need to have a mastery of the language of science - vocab, basic math relationships, multiplication tables, etc., in order to do scientific work in a timely matter without getting too bogged down.

I understand your point, and that is not what I am implying in regards to the usefulness of memorization. We have moved too far to the other side at this point, though.

For example, I might be working a problem on the board, and I'll say "ok folks, if this wave is moving at 72 m/s, and it has a wavelength of 8 meters, what is its speed?" Instead of someone giving me a quick answer after we set up the problem, I have to wait for someone to dig out their calculator. This doesn't seem like a big deal until students are in situations where time is a factor.

You will have to take my word on it - I've been involved in scientific research, written textbook material, have graduate experience in both the biological and computer sciences - so I KNOW what the general skill sets are that people need to do well in science beyond high school and college. Many of our students are leaving high school without many of these skills (memorized latin and greek roots, memorized algebraic formulas, memorized physics formulas).
I'm all for a MAJOR overhaul of the way the current educational system is going, and also for an overhaul of graduate programs (many graduate programs in the sciences, at least) for a variety of reasons.

In the states, we are getting surpassed by other nations in matters of current science (look at Korea and the stem cells) for many reasons - the Bush administration is hampering science at almost every corner (slashing the NSF budgets...etc), and dumbass states like Kansas aren't helping matters.

There - all this from a topic about Forza being used as a physics tool.

Foo wrote:Also, an observation from school times still fresh in my memory:
You can class students into 2 distinct groups. There are those who simply accept the information being presented to them, and attempt to store it all up and regurgitate it as necessary. These are typically the students who can do above average in class, and fit in well in workplace scenarios in the future where low original thinking is required.

On the other hand, you've got the paths. Those who worked out properly at an early age how certain bricks fitted into certain shaped holes, but not just THAT they fitted in there, but WHY they did. From that point on, education for this kind of person has been about receiving some new information, then working it around in their head until it fits into the existing information they already carry. This kind of learner can have trouble with exams and such where they can't get their head around what the lecturer is really wanting from them, yet they do know all the subject material at hand. These can also be those bastards who appear 'effortlessly' smart in school.

You have taken my suggestion about memorization and applied it to extreme situations. Notice - I said "memorization alongside a teaching of UNDERSTANDING."

Perhaps I can't speak about this very well, because I had an almost photographic memory (before I drank most of it away...heh). I was one of those 'bastards' who could miss a week of class, show up during the review, take no notes, skim the book for a few minutes, and then get A's on all the tests....Good thing, too, because I had horrible attendance throughout high school (skipped most of my junior year to play Adamms family pinball...) but graduate with only 1 B in 4 years (in both high school and college.)
:icon34:

bitWISE wrote:You sound like kick ass teacher man. I bet that Vice City lesson really caught their attention.

Thanks. I think I was the first teacher in the country to use it. I had to make sure there was nothing too inappropriate...I did, at one point, have to knock a broad off a bike after I crashed the one I was demoing with.

But I made everyone close their eyes.

WOW

this thread got derailed fast.

for the record: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH SAYING CPU WHEN YOU MEAN COMPUTER.*

why? because of two reasons i believe:

(1) as its been said time and time again, language is dynamic. nowadays when people say cpu, they mean computer. yeah, its not technically correct and if this thread were a techincal thread about computer parts it would be inappropriate. but still, its just the way people talk nowadays and that is ok.

its just like when people say atomic bomb. i know what they're referring to, they're usually referring to the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. technically its nuclear bomb, not atomic bomb, but the term works. and again, if it were a technical discussion, then its important to point out.

i think actually that its more forgiveable when someone says cpu for computer than atomic bomb for nuclear bomb because...

(2) the word escapes my mind but there is a literary device used when you say a part of something to mean the whole thing. like saying shingles when you mean roof. i think cpu is also like this. and i think the whole cpu for computer thing started out of a combination of my reasons (1) and (2). anyway, you can find this literary device in other things too. sometimes its hard to think examples but...here's one: many people say "im going to get some ass" to be "im going to get a girl".


* there actually might be something wrong with that word usage. i'm not that arrogant or pretentious to make it sound as if what i say is the end all. i just wanted to catch people's eye.

Language is not completely dynamic. There may be a dynamic bit in the slang used at different times, and, tbh, I see the term 'cpu' to be a sort of 'inter-slang' for computers.
The rules that govern the usage of the English language are pretty standard, though.

so when people say that they are putting a new cpu into there computer, it blows your mind right?

lol

tnf devotes his life to teaching...helping to shape the minds of our future society.

I spend my time twisting and rotting the minds of our future society....teaching them the of virtues of weapon proficiency, blasting Mexicans with an Uzi and the proper technique of shooting mutants in the groin. :lol:

AmIdYfReAk wrote:so when people say that they are putting a new cpu into there computer, it blows your mind right?

No...my mind usually functions at a high enough level that I can handle most of the things thrown at it, even that. In fact, I've built my last 5 computers, and have put CPUs in all of them without ever getting confused at the whole situation, going cross-eyed, and falling over onto the floor in convulsions.

GONNAFISTYA wrote:lol

tnf devotes his life to teaching...helping to shape the minds of our future society.

I spend my time twisting and rotting the minds of our future society....teaching them the of virtues of weapon proficiency, blasting Mexicans with an Uzi and the proper technique of shooting mutants in the groin. :lol:

There's a fine line between shaping and corrupting/rotting, regardless of the arena you are doing it in...

And, it's far from the thing I've completely devoted my life to...if you devote too much to it, the whole thing can consume drive you insane. First year teachers often burn out because they are trying to save the world one kid at a time....

Today, though, I was as mad as I have ever been in front of a class - even madder than I was the time the kid in the hall tried to hit me earlier this year when I was trying to break up the fight he was trying to start - but that is another story. I was so irate that I didn't say a word for 5 minutes. Total silence, while the kid responsible for it was trying harder and harder to turn invisible in his chair. Poor kid was red as hell and the entire class was squirming with discomfort.
Feel terrible too, great kid, poor impulse control, and now he is on his 3rd "mini-vacation" of the year.