10 ms·

If there is a "hacker mentality", teachers tend to have the opposite of that: given a maze and a cheese, any route to the cheese more efficient than the one the

by patio11 15y ago

If there is a "hacker mentality", teachers tend to have the opposite of that: given a maze and a cheese, any route to the cheese more efficient than the one the teacher suggests is morally suspect. I've had more than one discussion that devolved into "The journey to the cheese is the real reward!" said by someone who was essentially fetishizing the particular contours of the maze rather than the journey. (More broadly I think most conceptions of education where "Hide the knowledge from the students" is an acceptable operating principle are probably borked. Exceptions to be awarded if you're teaching nuclear engineering or Charms and skipping ahead a few chapters can result in the lab vanishing in a fireball.) There is, for example, a well-trodden path in elementary schools of assigning "busywork", which is essentially a classroom management technique whereby you purposely assign work which has zero or negative marginal educational value such that your faster students do not run out of things to do before the class period ends, so that you can focus your efforts on slower students or class discipline problems. I remember a few incidents where I was chastened for dealing with busywork too efficiently. (e.g. "Draw 10 flags of the world." "Can we pick the countries?" "Sure." "Libya, Japan, Ireland, France, Italy, umm, can I use an encyclopedia for a moment?" "Why those countr... PATRICK." "Yes ma'am?" "That's CHEATING. All the other students will do lots more work." "Happy to suggest better flags for them too, ma'am.")

brador 15y ago
Yup, same thing all around the world. Teachers have "off" days too where they do the same thing. Crossword puzzle is a common one they keep in the backdraw just in case they don't feel like teaching that day. It's one reason I'm pro electronic teaching aids like Khan Academy - more suitable learning, at the kids level and less "human downtime".
karamazov 15y ago
To be fair, on occasion the journey is the real reward - e.g. learning to do arithmetic versus using a calculator. This is a global maximum vs. local maximum problem. Unfortunately, it's extremely rare for a teacher to use this argument for the right reason; much more often they're doing exactly what you describe.
blahedo 15y ago
Two comments: 1) There are good teachers and there are bad teachers. Please don't tar all teachers with the same brush. (I know you said "tend" not "all" but every other part of this post implied a broad brush.) 2) Sometimes we really do need to teach process. If I wait until the programs are complicated and the algorithms can't be held in your head to teach test cases and documentation and encapsulation for the first time, then they're hard. If I step my students through the design process on something simple like is_equal_to or even get_x, then they can start to build good habits so they're ready when they need them. "But I can just write this method and know it's correct just by looking at it." "Well, I should hope so. Fortunately, that's not the point here."
- tptacek 15y ago
  If you're teaching the process, teach the process. Don't set up a project with a clear objective, force students to rigidly follow exactly the steps you yourself took to get to that objective, and assume the process transfers to the students through osmosis. This is a sore point with me; I'm in a minor conflict with one of my 7th grader's over an assignment he aced in which he's being dinged for (bogus) process faults. What's worse is, my 7th grader has generally excellent teachers. I don't buy that this is a "good teacher / bad teacher" issue. I think it's a methodological flaw common to all standard secondary schooling programs.
  - blahedo 15y ago
    > If you're teaching the process, teach the process. I do, thanks. > Don't set up a project with a clear objective, force students to rigidly follow exactly the steps I really do not understand what you're saying here. You want me to teach the process but then not evaluate whether students can do the process? > you yourself took to get to that objective, and assume the process transfers to the students through osmosis. With your "you yourself" comment you sound like you're objecting to the very idea of teaching process; and why are you assuming that I'm attempting some sort of osmotic transfer?
    - tptacek 15y ago
yequalsx 15y ago
You have what appears to me a bias against teachers. I find this curious given one of your products. I personally think that bingo is a worthless activity but I don't thrust this opinion on other teachers. Personalities come into play with teaching. I could never make a bingo activity work in my class because it is antithetical to my personality. But some people do make it work. And with 30 people in a class is it reasonable to believe that all 30 will enjoy the activity or find merit in it? I sometimes hide knowledge from my students because I want them to see it for themselves. Do you know how hard it is to get someone to understand that -4^2 is -16 and not 16? I can say this fact ad nauseam and it just doesn't click until a person sees it. They have to be guided into understanding this. Me telling them it is so and explaining it doesn't work. At any rate it seems you have a bias against teachers. Have you taught much? When was the last time you were in a classroom?
- JacobAldridge 15y ago
  Wait - I thought -4^2 was 16 not -16. But then the 2^3^4 discussion here lost me as well.
  - m_myers 15y ago
    -4^2 is -16. (-4)^2 is 16.
  - jhurliman 15y ago
    Order of operations. -4^2 is equivalent to -(4^2).
    - aaronblohowiak 15y ago
      heehee, programmer's error. -4 is assumed to be the value, and not seen as -1 * 4, which i believe is the interpretation. order of operations is a useless source of confusion -- we should just use parens always and avoid ambiguity. #toomuchcprogramminglately
      - patio11 15y ago
dctoedt 15y ago
> ... given a maze and a cheese, any route to the cheese more efficient than the one the teacher suggests is morally suspect. Somewhat off-topic: The peer-instruction (PI) movement just launched an online community [1]. This semester I've started using a variation on PI in the law-school course I teach (advanced contract drafting and -review). It seems to be working well, and the students really like it. "The PI technique relies on the power of the 'flipped classroom.' Information transfer (i.e., a teacher transferring knowledge to students) takes place in advance, typically through online lectures. In short, students study before rather than after class. ¶ As a result, the classroom becomes a place for active learning, questions, and discussion. Instructors spend their time addressing students' difficulties rather than lecturing. ¶ While originally developed for Mazur's introductory physics courses, PI is now used across multiple disciplines, from the sciences to the humanities." Of course, this all presupposes that the students will actually do the reading in advance, which is not always a given with 3Ls .... [1] http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/press-releases/peer-instruction http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/press-releases/peer-...
sachingulaya 15y ago
I wrote about it in my app to startupworkaway but I was chastised for programming a solution to a 'math challenge' in the 9th grade. The challenge was to take the numbers 1 4 7 9 and the operators ( ) * / + - and using each number exactly once formulate expressions that equal 1 to 100. So 1+4+7+9=21, etc. I wrote a bash script to do it for me and came to class with every possible answer printed out. I was disqualified for 'cheating'.

by patio11 15y ago

brador 15y ago

Yup, same thing all around the world. Teachers have "off" days too where they do the same thing. Crossword puzzle is a common one they keep in the backdraw just in case they don't feel like teaching that day. It's one reason I'm pro electronic teaching aids like Khan Academy - more suitable learning, at the kids level and less "human downtime".

karamazov 15y ago

To be fair, on occasion the journey is the real reward - e.g. learning to do arithmetic versus using a calculator. This is a global maximum vs. local maximum problem. Unfortunately, it's extremely rare for a teacher to use this argument for the right reason; much more often they're doing exactly what you describe.

blahedo 15y ago

Two comments: 1) There are good teachers and there are bad teachers. Please don't tar all teachers with the same brush. (I know you said "tend" not "all" but every other part of this post implied a broad brush.) 2) Sometimes we really do need to teach process. If I wait until the programs are complicated and the algorithms can't be held in your head to teach test cases and documentation and encapsulation for the first time, then they're hard. If I step my students through the design process on something simple like is_equal_to or even get_x, then they can start to build good habits so they're ready when they need them. "But I can just write this method and know it's correct just by looking at it." "Well, I should hope so. Fortunately, that's not the point here."

tptacek 15y ago
If you're teaching the process, teach the process. Don't set up a project with a clear objective, force students to rigidly follow exactly the steps you yourself took to get to that objective, and assume the process transfers to the students through osmosis. This is a sore point with me; I'm in a minor conflict with one of my 7th grader's over an assignment he aced in which he's being dinged for (bogus) process faults. What's worse is, my 7th grader has generally excellent teachers. I don't buy that this is a "good teacher / bad teacher" issue. I think it's a methodological flaw common to all standard secondary schooling programs.
- blahedo 15y ago
  > If you're teaching the process, teach the process. I do, thanks. > Don't set up a project with a clear objective, force students to rigidly follow exactly the steps I really do not understand what you're saying here. You want me to teach the process but then not evaluate whether students can do the process? > you yourself took to get to that objective, and assume the process transfers to the students through osmosis. With your "you yourself" comment you sound like you're objecting to the very idea of teaching process; and why are you assuming that I'm attempting some sort of osmotic transfer?
  - tptacek 15y ago

yequalsx 15y ago

You have what appears to me a bias against teachers. I find this curious given one of your products. I personally think that bingo is a worthless activity but I don't thrust this opinion on other teachers. Personalities come into play with teaching. I could never make a bingo activity work in my class because it is antithetical to my personality. But some people do make it work. And with 30 people in a class is it reasonable to believe that all 30 will enjoy the activity or find merit in it? I sometimes hide knowledge from my students because I want them to see it for themselves. Do you know how hard it is to get someone to understand that -4^2 is -16 and not 16? I can say this fact ad nauseam and it just doesn't click until a person sees it. They have to be guided into understanding this. Me telling them it is so and explaining it doesn't work. At any rate it seems you have a bias against teachers. Have you taught much? When was the last time you were in a classroom?

JacobAldridge 15y ago
Wait - I thought -4^2 was 16 not -16. But then the 2^3^4 discussion here lost me as well.
- m_myers 15y ago
  -4^2 is -16. (-4)^2 is 16.
- jhurliman 15y ago
  Order of operations. -4^2 is equivalent to -(4^2).
  - aaronblohowiak 15y ago
    heehee, programmer's error. -4 is assumed to be the value, and not seen as -1 * 4, which i believe is the interpretation. order of operations is a useless source of confusion -- we should just use parens always and avoid ambiguity. #toomuchcprogramminglately
    - patio11 15y ago

dctoedt 15y ago

> ... given a maze and a cheese, any route to the cheese more efficient than the one the teacher suggests is morally suspect. Somewhat off-topic: The peer-instruction (PI) movement just launched an online community [1]. This semester I've started using a variation on PI in the law-school course I teach (advanced contract drafting and -review). It seems to be working well, and the students really like it. "The PI technique relies on the power of the 'flipped classroom.' Information transfer (i.e., a teacher transferring knowledge to students) takes place in advance, typically through online lectures. In short, students study before rather than after class. ¶ As a result, the classroom becomes a place for active learning, questions, and discussion. Instructors spend their time addressing students' difficulties rather than lecturing. ¶ While originally developed for Mazur's introductory physics courses, PI is now used across multiple disciplines, from the sciences to the humanities." Of course, this all presupposes that the students will actually do the reading in advance, which is not always a given with 3Ls .... [1] http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/press-releases/peer-instruction http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/press-releases/peer-...

sachingulaya 15y ago

I wrote about it in my app to startupworkaway but I was chastised for programming a solution to a 'math challenge' in the 9th grade. The challenge was to take the numbers 1 4 7 9 and the operators ( ) * / + - and using each number exactly once formulate expressions that equal 1 to 100. So 1+4+7+9=21, etc. I wrote a bash script to do it for me and came to class with every possible answer printed out. I was disqualified for 'cheating'.