Computers in school

Rev Aaron reic0024 at d.umn.edu
Tue Aug 7 19:10:24 UTC 2001


On Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:35:56 -0400 (EDT) rms at cs.brown.edu (Rosemary Michelle
Simpson) wrote:

>On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Rev Aaron wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:45:17 -0400 guzdial at cc.gatech.edu (Mark Guzdial)
>wrote:
>>
>> >By "boredom" I mean a bunch of things that make a class
>> >un-interesting.  Assignments that have no real purpose or don't lead
>> >to real artifacts can lead to "boredom."  Being forced to use
>> >strategies that don't work for you can lead to "boredom."
>>
>> That's the impression my SO has of the majority of college classes she's
>> taken in the last two years. Especially in the lower level, intro classes,
>> where they try to cram tons of somewhat-useless information into your
>> head, and grade you on how well you can regurgitate it.  That's how
>> the first two years of college seem to go, you get judged on how well you
>> can tell the prof what s/he told you, but no real synthesis.  And that can
>> be done with a good book or two, making the entire multi-thousand year
>> of college education a giant waste of money.
>
>That wasn't my experience at all of the core curriculum when I went to
>college, although that certainly does describe my high school experience.
>The reason I changed from an entering Chemistry major to History was the
>quality of the required freshman European History course.  It was
>fascinating - the lectures showed that history is a time-based framework
>for exploring all of human experience and the exam questions made me probe
>and analyze and think about the connections and implications of what I had
>studied.  I left those exams knowing more than when I went in.  As a
>result of that experience I am a supporter of core curricula because it
>introduced me to areas that, based on my previous experience, I would
>never have explored.

I'm not taking about having to take (what we call here at UMD) the
required "liberal education" courses, but the intro-level material even for
the major you're involved with.  It's a matter of student perception and
attitude but also one of the way it's taught. My CS I (programming in C)
and Biology I courses were taught in the same room, with the same amount of
students.  The material had the about same dry/cool potential. The Bio
course was 100x better because of the way it was taught.  The prof actually
took questions from the 300-odd lecture room and managed it very well.
Even with 300 kids, there was interesting dialogue between the students
and the lecturer.

By contrast, the CS I course was just slide after slide and ended with 
the prof just finishing talking.  There was no incentive to go to class;
you learned nothing more going to class than you could've reading the
text and looking at the slides, which were posted on-line.

When teachers start adding silly questions about "On the 2/4 lecture, I
mentioned I have a pet; what is it's name and what kind of pet is it?",
it's a sign that the lecture time and the lecturer is superfluous as
implemented.

Regards,
Aaron





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