[ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future

[spike]

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty



>.I'm not really sure what are the goals of "common core" 

 

I have some ideas on that.  I hope they had in mind something about updating
education methods that have been outdated for so long it hurts.  The
traditional model of a group of children of the same age sitting and
listening to one grownup talk has been an enormous waste of brains.  It
fails to engage a huge proportion of the student, on both ends of the
ability scale.  They are holding the notion that Common Core will challenge
all the students.  I have high hopes, along with a realistic attitude.

 

As computers get better at interpreting our writing, it allows us to get
away from five-bubble testing and still save labor costs in grading homework
and tests.  An example of a more open ended question is this:  

 

There are three cookies and five children.  What now?

 

There are no choices, the student has to suggest an approach.  I can think
of a dozen answers to that.  The challenge for us is to figure out how to
teach software to evaluate the answers.  You can even assume a keyboard
answer, where the software can use multiple criteria, such considering
spelling, grammar, word length and so on.  What I hope for is some means of
teaching students the real valuable skills for the world they will inhabit.
There is little need for most of the skills you and I were taught in school.

 

Consider these kinds of questions:  

 

Suppose you go through your education, finish with a degree, then discover
you just cannot get a job.  What do you do now?

 

When you think about it, there are plenty of answers to that question, some
better than others.  It is a question which the students need to be asked
often.

 

spike

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