EPTThat's it. You focus on a single subject, totally immerse in it and have a single teacher to work with.
It's worked for them for 70 years.
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2198
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RCMDVA
United States708 Posts
That's it. You focus on a single subject, totally immerse in it and have a single teacher to work with. It's worked for them for 70 years. | ||
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Wegandi
United States2455 Posts
On August 14 2015 12:50 Yoav wrote: For whatever it's worth, standardized tests kinda saved me. I have AD/HD, undiagnosed for many years until things got hard enough I couldn't easily "smart" my way through them (late high school). But I got mediocre grades all through primary and secondary education, and without standardized tests I would never have known I was actually really good at a lot of this stuff. Testing in school I always did well on, but it never gets counted separately... e.g., no-one says, "what was your history test average," they just asked "what was your history grade" and mine was always pushed down by homework, attendance, etc. Then, I went to college in humanities, where tests and essays were all you did, and I did great. Again, I really don't know the prescription for our broken educational system, but I'm all for anything that recognizes the differences in the way students learn. Would really hate to have something like the German or Korean system, which would have early on sorted me as a "dumb kid." The humanities are some of the easiest classes I've ever taken, even easier than High School classes when I lived in Maryland (which ironically, was pretty good for a Government school, probably because our population was less than 1200, the HS had a student population of less than 400 and this was before No Child Left Behind non-sense). The problem with education is a pedagogical one, not a financial one. It's well known that the US spends more than almost anyone on its 'schools', schools, I might add that are more akin to prison, than education. The US school system is based off the Bismarckian Prussian system that was meant to produce obedient workers and citizens. Everything about school is regimented, authoritarian, and in the interests of the Government. At least the more science oriented classes are a bit more out of reach. You have to ask permission to use the restroom, you have no 1st amendment rights, you're regimented like Boot Camp (I should know I experienced both), if you're slightly out of line with authority figures you're punished, and the list goes on. I am more excited about how the internet is changing education. Classrooms are antiquated. Regimented schedules, standardized tests, and liberal arts are antiquated. People should pursue their interests in education, not be forced to take classes and subjects which hold no interest for them and are only meant to produce compliant obedient citizens under the auspices of the interests of the State. Hopefully we can get more and more teens and children out of the Government schools, and have aptitude certs and tests for professions instead of ridiculous pieces of paper from the State to determine demonstration of skills and knowledge. That, and it'll be much cheaper and allow for a much broader range of pedagogy. | ||
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
On August 14 2015 13:26 GreenHorizons wrote: I'm curious on teachers opinions in general but I'm of the opinion grades are totally stupid. One teacher/professors "A" is another's "C" or "F". Which means identical performance/learning can be measured very differently. This can have dramatic impacts on their future in a variety of ways especially at the high school and college level. That's pretty much the only thing I like about standardized testing. That and some of what Yoav mentioned regarding evidence I was good at things that were otherwise not brought to my attention. Accommodating different learning styles is probably my number one complaint about our education system, with segregation and lopsided funding in a close 2nd and 3rd. I don't think I've seen arbitrary grading Pre-College(sexist, racist, and politically biased, yes) and only in my non-core (I was engineering) classes. But grading that is weighted heavily towards homework is certainly stupid. Its basically a test of how few sports you participate in, plus how good you are at cheating. The only third way that I have seen is the strategy of doing homework in class. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45246 Posts
On August 14 2015 12:50 Yoav wrote: For whatever it's worth, standardized tests kinda saved me. I have AD/HD, undiagnosed for many years until things got hard enough I couldn't easily "smart" my way through them (late high school). But I got mediocre grades all through primary and secondary education, and without standardized tests I would never have known I was actually really good at a lot of this stuff. Testing in school I always did well on, but it never gets counted separately... e.g., no-one says, "what was your history test average," they just asked "what was your history grade" and mine was always pushed down by homework, attendance, etc. Then, I went to college in humanities, where tests and essays were all you did, and I did great. Again, I really don't know the prescription for our broken educational system, but I'm all for anything that recognizes the differences in the way students learn. Would really hate to have something like the German or Korean system, which would have early on sorted me as a "dumb kid." Oh definitely, and a lot of tests unfortunately don't take learning differences into account. Having students show work to understand the thought process is really important. | ||
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
On August 14 2015 13:36 cLutZ wrote: I don't think I've seen arbitrary grading Pre-College, and only in my non-core (I was engineering) classes. But grading that is weighted heavily towards homework is certainly stupid. Its basically a test of how few sports you participate in, plus how good you are at cheating. The only third way that I have seen is the strategy of doing homework in class. I think grades serve a purpose, but that purpose is often subverted. The worst case I saw was in business school-- we were all on a curve with a cap on the % of each letter grade that could be given out. I got screwed over in a couple group evaluations. What I think is really dumb is final exams. When I was in school, I overloaded ever semester to finish two majors with fairly high requirements. During the vast majority of the semester i did fine-- kept up with material, budgeted my time, did well on tests and projects. When finals came around, I had to try and cram some insane amount of trivia into my head for 6+ different classes. Pretty sure finals alone dropped by GPA by .1 or .2. Students ought to have a choice between a final project or a final exam. It goes back to the idea that evaluating people on a holistic basis is really hard and really time consuming. Some professors are willing to make more of an effort than others. | ||
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Bigtony
United States1606 Posts
On August 14 2015 13:28 RCMDVA wrote: Military school down here does it this way... you only go to (1) class every day for seven weeks. That's it. You focus on a single subject, totally immerse in it and have a single teacher to work with. It's worked for them for 70 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXJViLXJh1E&feature=youtu.be There's nothing counterintuitive about this. 7 weeks with 5 classes per week is a full college semester. Most teachers recognize that asking students to switch between subjects is taxing and draining - mentally and physically. Time is lost logistically moving between classes and re-setting the students. You lose time at the end of a class. It's one of the huge advantages block type schedules have. Education as we know it (basically free for all up to age 18) is a very new concept. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23608 Posts
On August 14 2015 14:27 Bigtony wrote: There's nothing counterintuitive about this. 7 weeks with 5 classes per week is a full college semester. Most teachers recognize that asking students to switch between subjects is taxing and draining - mentally and physically. Time is lost logistically moving between classes and re-setting the students. You lose time at the end of a class. It's one of the huge advantages block type schedules have. Education as we know it (basically free for all up to age 18) is a very new concept. It also puts a strange stress to forcibly segment course work that naturally overlaps. Math and science being one of the most obvious. | ||
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RenSC2
United States1079 Posts
I'd suspect that immersing yourself completely in one subject will work well for the short term... more material can be covered and the understanding of that material will be better. However, it also means that every other subject is likely regressing during that time frame. If you do math for 7 weeks and then don't touch it again until 45 weeks later, then I'm guessing there's a massive regression of abilities. Unfortunately, I don't have any empirical studies on how well these people retain knowledge compared to a similar group of kids taking a more traditional course load. And unfortunately, the only way to empirically test it is through *gasp* standardized testing. And then we get back to the starting point. How do you measure if a school is teaching a subject adequately? By testing the students on that subject and comparing their results to national standards of what a person should know at that grade level. Standardized testing makes sense. The problem is that schools are so incentivized around those standardized tests, that teachers try to cheat the system. Some teachers or administrators literally cheat. More often, the teachers teach specifically for the test rather than giving a full treatment of the subject. So, I think we should continue to give some standardized tests, but handle them differently. We shouldn't base teacher pay or school funding on standardized tests. Instead, we should test students at midterm. We should hold students to a standard of what they're expected to know by that time at a certain grade level. If a school's average is below the expected level, then we should send a special group of educators into that school for the rest of the year to assist in the classrooms, help the class adhere to the curriculum, and also do performance reviews of the primary teachers. This would effectively improve the student to teacher ratio, make sure the students are getting the information they need, and also check to make sure that poor grades aren't a result of a bad teacher. In cases where there is a bad teacher, the expert could help guide them towards better teaching. If that still doesn't work, then it could lead to a firing. In cases where there's a good teacher in a crappy situation, the expert would give the added help needed. With this incentive scheme, teachers would still want their students to do well on the standardized tests or else someone else will come in and tell them how to run their class and also risk being fired. However, good teachers in bad situations would not be punished, but would instead get the help they need. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45246 Posts
On August 14 2015 13:26 GreenHorizons wrote: I'm curious on teachers opinions in general but I'm of the opinion grades are totally stupid. One teacher/professors "A" is another's "C" or "F". Which means identical performance/learning can be measured very differently. This can have dramatic impacts on their future in a variety of ways especially at the high school and college level. That's pretty much the only thing I like about standardized testing. That and some of what Yoav mentioned regarding evidence I was good at things that were otherwise not brought to my attention. Accommodating different learning styles is probably my number one complaint about our education system, with segregation and lopsided funding in a close 2nd and 3rd. I definitely think that teachers who are teaching the same course should have a consistent grading rubric, but with different teaching styles, paces, and assessments, there's always going to be inconsistencies and different standards in grading. It's an unfortunate reality, but I think that if teachers are constantly communicating and collaborating with each other, some of these issues can be minimized. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45246 Posts
On August 14 2015 13:28 RCMDVA wrote: Military school down here does it this way... you only go to (1) class every day for seven weeks. That's it. You focus on a single subject, totally immerse in it and have a single teacher to work with. It's worked for them for 70 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXJViLXJh1E&feature=youtu.be I found that video absolutely hilarious. Do they really not realize that pretty much every college and university does this? It's called summer and winter sessions for classes. I've seen a semester-long class grinded out in as little as one month. There are some obvious drawbacks to this cram session format though. For example, if a student is taking 2 months of math and then 2 months of English and then 2 months of something else, etc., then students may not have another math class for a good 8-10 months, and so students will be more likely to forget the material that they haven't been continuously practicing. In fact, we've found that simply due to 3 months of summer vacation, American students tend to have fallen an entire year behind their Chinese counterparts in mathematics by 5th grade because of not having year-round schooling. | ||
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Laurens
Belgium4553 Posts
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Jswizzy
United States791 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45246 Posts
On August 14 2015 18:38 Laurens wrote: I'd rather fall behind and have the 3 months tbh. From a student's perspective or a teacher's perspective? It's certainly an interesting issue that is talked about but probably won't ever be changed. If we took our 3 months of summer vacation and just split up those days and had extended breaks throughout the entire year, students would probably be more likely to retain information from year to year. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18204 Posts
On August 14 2015 23:18 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: From a student's perspective or a teacher's perspective? It's certainly an interesting issue that is talked about but probably won't ever be changed. If we took our 3 months of summer vacation and just split up those days and had extended breaks throughout the entire year, students would probably be more likely to retain information from year to year. That's the way it worked in Holland. 6 weeks of summer vacation, 2 weeks over Christmas, and 3 1-week holidays and some random days scattered around the year. | ||
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whatisthisasheep
624 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain18204 Posts
On August 14 2015 14:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I found that video absolutely hilarious. Do they really not realize that pretty much every college and university does this? It's called summer and winter sessions for classes. I've seen a semester-long class grinded out in as little as one month. There are some obvious drawbacks to this cram session format though. For example, if a student is taking 2 months of math and then 2 months of English and then 2 months of something else, etc., then students may not have another math class for a good 8-10 months, and so students will be more likely to forget the material that they haven't been continuously practicing. In fact, we've found that simply due to 3 months of summer vacation, American students tend to have fallen an entire year behind their Chinese counterparts in mathematics by 5th grade because of not having year-round schooling. I find that very hard to believe without a very rigorous experiment to back that up. Simply put, the year-round education Chinese 5th graders get is just one of a very large number of differences between Chinese and American school systems. Deciding that THIS is the factor that causes them to perform better is quite arbitrary. It's like observing that a Ferrari drives faster than a Fiat and deciding that it is due to improved aerodynamic design. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Ghostcom
Denmark4783 Posts
On August 14 2015 23:55 whatisthisasheep wrote: in 10 years going to a university campus to learn from a professor will be like going to the record store to buy a cd. Everything is online. You can come back and mock me in 10 years, but I'm calling bullshit. Whilst some courses are easy enough and it doesn't make a big difference whether you follow online or not, the benefit of physically going to your place of education shouldn't be underestimated. I have followed 2 UCSF courses online and whilst it wasn't an issue I could tell I learned much more by being there in person. EDIT: Silly phone and my fat thumbs... | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45246 Posts
On August 15 2015 00:01 Acrofales wrote: I find that very hard to believe without a very rigorous experiment to back that up. Simply put, the year-round education Chinese 5th graders get is just one of a very large number of differences between Chinese and American school systems. Deciding that THIS is the factor that causes them to perform better is quite arbitrary. It's like observing that a Ferrari drives faster than a Fiat and deciding that it is due to improved aerodynamic design. It's not the only factor, but taking off from school/ academic practice for multiple months is how students forget the material. You can look at any group of students who do some tutoring/ schooling over the summer, as opposed to comparable students who don't. That's why the first month of school is often spent going over the previous year's material (if the classes build on one another, like math courses do). There are many other cultural differences between American education and Asian/ Scandinavian/ Finnish education too, of course. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45246 Posts
On August 15 2015 00:18 Ghostcom wrote: You can come back and mock me in 10 years, but I'm calling bullshit. Whilst some courses are easy enough and it doesn't make a big difference whether you follow online or not, the benefit of physically going to your place of education shouldn't be underestimated. I have followed 2 UCSF courses online and whilst it wasn't and issue I could tell I learned much more by being there in person. Plus there will be some courses- like science labs- where hands-on learning will be a necessity. Of course, it will be far easier for some college classes to transition into online ones than it would be for high school classes to transition into online ones, since there are rarely classroom management issues at the college level (certainly compared to primary and secondary education). However, the importance of interactions between students and between the students and professor cannot be ignored. Schools have been moving more towards collaborative learning, open discussion, and social learning in classes, rather than just lecture. It's been shown to be more effective. This is pretty much exactly against the theme that would be present if students just watched an online lecture on their own; they couldn't ask in-the-moment questions, the professor couldn't come over and look at the work, etc. | ||
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