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> 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 t

by 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
Here's a project: write a research paper. This paper accounts for 2/3rds this semester's English grade; in other words, it's the major learning objective of the class this semester. What we're going to do is, here's a project rubric. It breaks the research paper into a series of steps. You make little cards for sources. You organize the cards to "brainstorm". Your turn your brainstorm into an outline. And so on. You're going to follow all these steps, and most of our class time will be spent with you working on these steps and then me, the teacher, evaluating your progress on the steps. In the end, your grade will be 50% based on the outcome of the paper, and 50% based on your timely adherence to the rubric. What's wrong with this teaching method? It prioritizes the "research process" in the assessment, but does not actually explain what the research process is or why it works that way. It presumes that standing up in class spending 5-10 minutes saying "here's why we make little cards, so we can brainstorm" provides adequate context so that combined going through and following the steps, students are learning a research process. That it allows for no other alternatives to the process of organizing a paper is of secondary concern; the primary concern is, it doesn't sell the process, it simply mandates and then grades on it. An alternative method to teach the research process: have the students pick a research topic and then write a paper on it without following a formal process. Evaluate the papers; they're poorly organized, they don't make coherent points, they lack sourcing, their sources are inadequate, &c. Now do another paper, focusing on how the research process is a corrective for the flaws in the first paper. This seems strictly better than "You didn't turn in a printed outline in the correct format before handing in a fully cited first and then final draft of the research paper. 50 points on the paper. 10 points on the process. C- for you." This example extends to every other process-focused assignment I've seen my kid deal with in school: "here's an ambitious outcome, here's a rigidly specified process, and here's a grading system that assesses each individually". This is a great scheme for teaching smart kids why not to take "process" seriously. I am 1000% sure you do things better than this. This is a message board. Everyone is always the exception to the rule.
- noahc 15y ago
  I had to go through this exact same process in High School. I almost shot my self. I ended up getting a D- on the paper. The process is so deeply flawed here is one example. I have my sources, my note cards, and my outline. Each note card had on the front of it a single sentence and on the back of it the source written perfectly according to some standard (I lost many of my points because I would forget a period or comma). Each note card then had to be perfectly ordered (and wrapped with a rubber band and with each paragraph having a paper clip on it) and have the corresponding number written on the back and then circled. If I wanted to change the 2nd sentence in my paper, I would have to completely renumber all the note cards. If I wanted to change a word in my paper I had to cross out the word on the note card with ONE line through it and then rewrite it on the notecard and then change it on the computer. If I wanted to change the structure of my paper, I had to go back and rewrite the outline. I've always considered the outline the "black dot" of a painting. It's hard to start painting on a blank canvas, but as soon as you put a black dot on it you have something to fix, build off of, whatever. The outline puts the first 2 -3 paragraphs on the paper and the rest of the time you ignore it. Retyping this and thinking about it has made me literally feel physically sick.
- jacobolus 15y ago
  Thank you for spelling this out in detail. I took a user interface design course a few years ago in college (good college, good lecturer, good students), and was frustrated by exactly the same problem. The focus of the course was learning process rather than making things, but we only were able to touch each particular process step (paper prototyping, user testing, formal usability study, &c.) one time, for a week or two of an assignment about it, and so there was no great way to judge improved understanding after having done the exercise, or experiment with different methods to see what their faults were. Because most of the actual effort in the course went into writing about what we had done, instead of doing it, I feel like we learned quite a bit more about (a) describing our group’s working habits and parroting back the theoretical benefits of particular processes than we did about either (b) performing those processes or (c) the actual project we were trying to build. The only way to really make these meta-analyses of process and structure valuable is, as you say, to take them on after having tried doing the thing a few times. You can’t make a map in your head of ideas you’ve never experienced by just copying other maps. It’s like trying to design an API without knowing what the use cases are, or trying to pick a data structure before you have idea what the data looks like. * * * This type of instruction is far too common; pedagogical exercises are decontextualized and the means become the ends. Instead of learning languages by reading and speaking, with explanations of grammar and bilingual dictionaries as reinforcement and an ultimate goal of conversation/writing fluency, language classes help students to perfect their ability to learn and perform grammar drills. Instead of trying to write and discuss stories, using writing as a tool for clarifying thought and sharing ideas, English classes spend all their effort and attention on teaching narrow rather uninspiring process and rigid form. Instead of finding math and physics problems in the context of figuring out how something works, we put the problems in their own little boxes and pretend they’re discrete entities, and students are expected to just grok the patterns without having done the kinds of doodling and exploration that ever actually reveal their structure. Unfortunately, without much smaller student:teacher ratios, it’s really hard for teachers to act as guides and mentors rather than lecturers.

by blahedo 15y ago

tptacek 15y ago

Here's a project: write a research paper. This paper accounts for 2/3rds this semester's English grade; in other words, it's the major learning objective of the class this semester. What we're going to do is, here's a project rubric. It breaks the research paper into a series of steps. You make little cards for sources. You organize the cards to "brainstorm". Your turn your brainstorm into an outline. And so on. You're going to follow all these steps, and most of our class time will be spent with you working on these steps and then me, the teacher, evaluating your progress on the steps. In the end, your grade will be 50% based on the outcome of the paper, and 50% based on your timely adherence to the rubric. What's wrong with this teaching method? It prioritizes the "research process" in the assessment, but does not actually explain what the research process is or why it works that way. It presumes that standing up in class spending 5-10 minutes saying "here's why we make little cards, so we can brainstorm" provides adequate context so that combined going through and following the steps, students are learning a research process. That it allows for no other alternatives to the process of organizing a paper is of secondary concern; the primary concern is, it doesn't sell the process, it simply mandates and then grades on it. An alternative method to teach the research process: have the students pick a research topic and then write a paper on it without following a formal process. Evaluate the papers; they're poorly organized, they don't make coherent points, they lack sourcing, their sources are inadequate, &c. Now do another paper, focusing on how the research process is a corrective for the flaws in the first paper. This seems strictly better than "You didn't turn in a printed outline in the correct format before handing in a fully cited first and then final draft of the research paper. 50 points on the paper. 10 points on the process. C- for you." This example extends to every other process-focused assignment I've seen my kid deal with in school: "here's an ambitious outcome, here's a rigidly specified process, and here's a grading system that assesses each individually". This is a great scheme for teaching smart kids why not to take "process" seriously. I am 1000% sure you do things better than this. This is a message board. Everyone is always the exception to the rule.

noahc 15y ago
I had to go through this exact same process in High School. I almost shot my self. I ended up getting a D- on the paper. The process is so deeply flawed here is one example. I have my sources, my note cards, and my outline. Each note card had on the front of it a single sentence and on the back of it the source written perfectly according to some standard (I lost many of my points because I would forget a period or comma). Each note card then had to be perfectly ordered (and wrapped with a rubber band and with each paragraph having a paper clip on it) and have the corresponding number written on the back and then circled. If I wanted to change the 2nd sentence in my paper, I would have to completely renumber all the note cards. If I wanted to change a word in my paper I had to cross out the word on the note card with ONE line through it and then rewrite it on the notecard and then change it on the computer. If I wanted to change the structure of my paper, I had to go back and rewrite the outline. I've always considered the outline the "black dot" of a painting. It's hard to start painting on a blank canvas, but as soon as you put a black dot on it you have something to fix, build off of, whatever. The outline puts the first 2 -3 paragraphs on the paper and the rest of the time you ignore it. Retyping this and thinking about it has made me literally feel physically sick.
jacobolus 15y ago
Thank you for spelling this out in detail. I took a user interface design course a few years ago in college (good college, good lecturer, good students), and was frustrated by exactly the same problem. The focus of the course was learning process rather than making things, but we only were able to touch each particular process step (paper prototyping, user testing, formal usability study, &c.) one time, for a week or two of an assignment about it, and so there was no great way to judge improved understanding after having done the exercise, or experiment with different methods to see what their faults were. Because most of the actual effort in the course went into writing about what we had done, instead of doing it, I feel like we learned quite a bit more about (a) describing our group’s working habits and parroting back the theoretical benefits of particular processes than we did about either (b) performing those processes or (c) the actual project we were trying to build. The only way to really make these meta-analyses of process and structure valuable is, as you say, to take them on after having tried doing the thing a few times. You can’t make a map in your head of ideas you’ve never experienced by just copying other maps. It’s like trying to design an API without knowing what the use cases are, or trying to pick a data structure before you have idea what the data looks like. * * * This type of instruction is far too common; pedagogical exercises are decontextualized and the means become the ends. Instead of learning languages by reading and speaking, with explanations of grammar and bilingual dictionaries as reinforcement and an ultimate goal of conversation/writing fluency, language classes help students to perfect their ability to learn and perform grammar drills. Instead of trying to write and discuss stories, using writing as a tool for clarifying thought and sharing ideas, English classes spend all their effort and attention on teaching narrow rather uninspiring process and rigid form. Instead of finding math and physics problems in the context of figuring out how something works, we put the problems in their own little boxes and pretend they’re discrete entities, and students are expected to just grok the patterns without having done the kinds of doodling and exploration that ever actually reveal their structure. Unfortunately, without much smaller student:teacher ratios, it’s really hard for teachers to act as guides and mentors rather than lecturers.