3 ms·

WTF people!? Why is everybody discussing what the water is going to do when the article is about online education? To stay on topic: I agree with the article,

by yread 13y ago

WTF people!? Why is everybody discussing what the water is going to do when the article is about online education? To stay on topic: I agree with the article, watching videos often leaves you with feeling of understanding but being unable to answer questions which require actual comprehension

mattgreenrocks 13y ago
> Why is everybody discussing what the water is going to do when the article is about online education? It's easier to argue about 'right' rather than the harder issue of deep understanding as it relates to MOOCs.
crankyguy 13y ago
I agree, I used to watch tons of nature shows and was always amazed at how I could recall very few of the facts presented in the show once the show was over. Retention doesn't occur until you have actually used the information in some way, not just passively watching it. I like the approach ULearniversity takes where you watch a short video and have to apply that technique before seeing the next video.
wbillingsley 13y ago
At one of the keynotes for the Association for Learning Technology back in 2007, the speaker had a variation on this question. His point, if I recall, was a little different -- As normally asked, the question is code for "parrot the Archimedes principle back to me". But on a realistic "hot summers day" there's not just the Archimedes principle. There's evaporation that can remove water from the cup. There's wind, and occasional movement of the ice cubes as they melt and slip over each other in the glass, that could cause spillage if it's really that full that it's on the verge of overflowing. As could interruption of the surface tension (e.g., condensation in just the wrong spot at the edge of the glass, causing the water in the meniscus to spill over.) The initial temperature of the water being unstated, its density will also change a very small amount, potentially in either direction. Often when we ask our students scenario questions as teachers, we are essentially asking them to identify which taught principle we have flagged this question as being about, and base their answer on that, ignoring all other factors. If the student answers "A. It goes down", did they fail to grasp the Archimedes principle, or are they a pedant grumbling that over that length of time there will be evaporation so it won't be exactly the same? Take the question out of the context of a course, and suddenly the educational point of it can change. Is the person asking you this a physics teacher checking your understanding of Archimedes principle, or an ALT conference pedant checking whether you understand that in uncontrolled environments where bumps and spillages can occur you can't blindly expect the ideal result you'd get in a textbook? The peril comes when questions are used outside of a teaching context. For example in technical interviews, where the same question can sometimes be a signal for many different teaching points, each expecting subtly different answers, and the interviewee does not know which the interviewer has in mind.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  But on a realistic "hot summers day"... That's an excellent point and a flaw of many "reasoned conclusions" thought experiments. There's a world of difference between contemplating what might happen (which is a useful first step) and experimenting to see what actually does happen. In the case of your hot summer's day instance, there are a number of things which could confound the experiment: how do you distinguish between water inside the glass (from the initial water + ice), and that on the outside (mostly from condensation, but possibly also from spillage)? How could you control for this? How might you run the experiment repeatedly? Etc. Actually, a chemistry lab where students each mix known weights of water + ice at specified temperatures and observe what happens, then collaboratively compare results might make for a useful group + parallel experiment exercise. And that's just for ice water. In a field I've got some interest in (practical and applied economics) there's an even greater tendency for assumptions and ideal circumstances to get constructed.

by yread 13y ago

mattgreenrocks 13y ago

> Why is everybody discussing what the water is going to do when the article is about online education? It's easier to argue about 'right' rather than the harder issue of deep understanding as it relates to MOOCs.

crankyguy 13y ago

I agree, I used to watch tons of nature shows and was always amazed at how I could recall very few of the facts presented in the show once the show was over. Retention doesn't occur until you have actually used the information in some way, not just passively watching it. I like the approach ULearniversity takes where you watch a short video and have to apply that technique before seeing the next video.

wbillingsley 13y ago

At one of the keynotes for the Association for Learning Technology back in 2007, the speaker had a variation on this question. His point, if I recall, was a little different -- As normally asked, the question is code for "parrot the Archimedes principle back to me". But on a realistic "hot summers day" there's not just the Archimedes principle. There's evaporation that can remove water from the cup. There's wind, and occasional movement of the ice cubes as they melt and slip over each other in the glass, that could cause spillage if it's really that full that it's on the verge of overflowing. As could interruption of the surface tension (e.g., condensation in just the wrong spot at the edge of the glass, causing the water in the meniscus to spill over.) The initial temperature of the water being unstated, its density will also change a very small amount, potentially in either direction. Often when we ask our students scenario questions as teachers, we are essentially asking them to identify which taught principle we have flagged this question as being about, and base their answer on that, ignoring all other factors. If the student answers "A. It goes down", did they fail to grasp the Archimedes principle, or are they a pedant grumbling that over that length of time there will be evaporation so it won't be exactly the same? Take the question out of the context of a course, and suddenly the educational point of it can change. Is the person asking you this a physics teacher checking your understanding of Archimedes principle, or an ALT conference pedant checking whether you understand that in uncontrolled environments where bumps and spillages can occur you can't blindly expect the ideal result you'd get in a textbook? The peril comes when questions are used outside of a teaching context. For example in technical interviews, where the same question can sometimes be a signal for many different teaching points, each expecting subtly different answers, and the interviewee does not know which the interviewer has in mind.

dredmorbius 13y ago
But on a realistic "hot summers day"... That's an excellent point and a flaw of many "reasoned conclusions" thought experiments. There's a world of difference between contemplating what might happen (which is a useful first step) and experimenting to see what actually does happen. In the case of your hot summer's day instance, there are a number of things which could confound the experiment: how do you distinguish between water inside the glass (from the initial water + ice), and that on the outside (mostly from condensation, but possibly also from spillage)? How could you control for this? How might you run the experiment repeatedly? Etc. Actually, a chemistry lab where students each mix known weights of water + ice at specified temperatures and observe what happens, then collaboratively compare results might make for a useful group + parallel experiment exercise. And that's just for ice water. In a field I've got some interest in (practical and applied economics) there's an even greater tendency for assumptions and ideal circumstances to get constructed.