[ExI] google classroom, was: RE: Meta question

Sat Aug 20 18:48:57 UTC 2016

Then please comment upon your comment above, in light of the modern
education philosophy: a teacher should be a guide on the side rather than a
sage on the stage.

spike

I would have quit and gone into marketing.  Example:  my chairman asked if
I would like the department to buy some statistics videos by some
well-known teacher.  My answer was that they could come in handy if I were
to go out sick for some time, but otherwise I'd prefer to teach my classes
myself.  In contrast to you and your son's example. these Ss were all at
the same level re stat, so I wasn't holding anyone back.  (re that, I'd
take your son out of a class of Ss some of whom could not do simple algebra
(if you did not have the Google classroom).

Also, I would often add material to the class (that was explicitly not
tested on) that was for the upper Ss.  That's not possible in the G
classroom.

*Most importantly, I'd lose the personal contact with the students and they
would lose theirs with me.*

What you describe is what I experienced in grad school  (well, sort of,
since everyone viewed the same thing): I came into the class, took roll,
and turned on the TV.  I handed out tests and picked them up.  Period, end
of teaching assignment.

Where's the fun in that?  Where's the creativity?

Now you must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss......ooops.    I was a
college teacher, mainly of upper level classes (we had no grad program),
and so what goes on and what needs to go on in the 7th grade is a mystery
to me.  Too, I taught psychology, an area no one had any experience in at
all, in stark contract to your son and math.

If I were teaching now, I could conceive of this:  Ss get a DVD at the
beginning of the semester and can go at their own speed and take tests any
time they want to, all in the first week of class if they're geniuses.  But
they would still have to come to class and get my opinions and views on
everything and perhaps straighten out stuff they got wrong on the tests
which they did not understand even with repeated viewings of the DVD.  I
could adapt to that.

But what you seem to describe is a teacher who is little more than a
secretary, standing aside and taking roll and keeping order and doing very
little actual teaching.  Boring boring boring.  Not worth being paid more
than a waitress.

bill w

On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 12:50 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 20, 2016 7:48 AM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] google classroom, was: RE: Meta question
>
>
>
>
> >>…The education these modern students are getting is so far superior to
> anything my colleagues and I were offered  spike
>
>
>
> >…If the teacher is just standing there watching 40 students go at 40
> different speeds, I'll bet she wishes she had gone into some other
> profession.
>
>
>
> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> BillW, very much to the contrary sir.  The teachers loooove this system.
> They rave in unprecedented unison.  I have yet to hear a disparaging
> comment about it, even in private.
>
>
>
> Reason: teachers, especially in grades about 5 and 6, have a huge problem
> on their hands.  By that time, the students have spread so far in their
> abilities, it becomes very difficult to give many of them a meaningful
> education.
>
>
>
> Think back on your own least useful years in school, the biggest time
> waste.  Good chance it was those two grades, ja?  Reasoning: starting in
> Junior High they separate the students according to their level and they
> can take the brainy classes or the sloth classes.  In first and second
> grades, the kids are all young enough they haven’t had time to diverge much
> in ability.  But in that transition, fifth and sixth grades, the students
> have diverged so wildly, Google Classroom is a gift from the education gods.
>
>
>
> I see this divergence in my work with the cub scouts.  When they were aged
> 6 years, it was easy to teach them.  Now that they are 10, the sloths
> struggle and the eagles soar.  The eagles have already mastered all the
> skills long since and begin to lose interest, but we  leaders struggle and
> grind just to get the sloths to the next rank.  The older end of cub
> scouting is waaaay more difficult than the younger end.
>
>
>
> For instance… in my own son’s current classroom are students struggling to
> master long division.  But Isaac finished the first of Khan Academy’s
> calculus courses along with all its prerequisites, before he blew out ten
> birthday candles.  He is working on the second KA calculus series
> (integrals) while some of his compatriots scarcely know how many horizontal
> lines are in an equal sign.  Oy.
>
>
>
> This teacher is smart as a whip; oh she is good, I do think the world of
> her.  But she has no clue what a differential is, or what it does, or how
> to derive one from a polynomial, or what to do with it if Isaac handed her
> the answer.  But now: no worries, she gets off the runway, the eagles soar,
> her time is free to help the strugglers, everybody wins.
>
>
>
> BillW, question please, my professor friend: how the heck is a fifth grade
> teacher expected to manage that?  How would you?  I’ll tell you how I would
> do it: run away!  Flee before this intractable problem like terrified
> foot-soldiers in Monte Python’s Holy Grail:
>
>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPELc1wEvk
>
>
>
> Your homework sir, if I may presume to assign:  view Python’s Holy Grail
> in its entirety.
>
>
>
> Heh, just kidding.  Every proper nerd can already recite the script from
> that geek classic.  It was a teenage rite of passage for those of us whose
> chances of getting actual attention from the opposite sex ranged from zero
> to somewhat less than that.
>
>
>
> Your homework sir, if I may presume to assign: go into any Khan Academy
> video (it’s free, they are all ten minutes or less) choose at random any
> video on any topic, view it.  Then share with us any newly-acquired
> insights, not on the topic or content of the video itself but rather the
> impact of the availability of such tools on education in general and the
> longer term impact it is likely to have on colleges and society in
> general.  Doooo iiiiiiit.
>
>
>
> Then please comment upon your comment above, in light of the modern
> education philosophy: a teacher should be a guide on the side rather than a
> sage on the stage.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
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