Learn Lots!

So, I have this theory that there are two kinds of learners: fast and slow.  Fast learners learn from the mistakes of others.  Slow learners feel they must make all the mistakes themselves in order to learn from them. I feel like grad students are forced into being slow learners when it comes to research.  Why must each student struggle through every phase of the research process instead of working in teams and getting the job done better and faster?  Why not let those who actually enjoy stats do that piece, get someone who's a wizard at methods to do that piece, and so on? While I wouldn't argue that it's important for those planning to continue on in academia to have experience with each piece of the research process, for the rest of this method comes down to not having the opportunity to learn from others' mistakes and instead learning just from your own.  For those of us that make lots of them (speaking from experience) this can prove most frustrating....

Granted, deformalization isn't currently a word.  But it does convey the meaning of what I'm trying to say, namely that society in the U.S. and even in the world is becoming less and less formal. Coming from a home more formal than most, I have traditionally viewed this as a negative thing and something that should be righted if at all possible.  However, today I realized at least one positive outcome of 'deformalization.' Deformalization allows us to tell it like it is.  Instead of hiding behind walls of political correctness, we have created the option to call things absurd when they are.  Some of the things I've been reading even have a revolutionary feel to them as they debunk doing things the ways they've always been done just to preserve tradition or to avoid being innovative. Although the inner struggle persists, I am grateful for this new option.  The deeper I get into academia, the more my heart cries out for such options, perhaps b...

Lately I've been wrestling with the idea educational objectives.  While I understand the need for goals and a road map of where you're going (lest you never reach your destination), the idea of making education prescriptive doesn't make a lot of sense to me. During my pre-service teaching training, I remember coming across a theory of reading about how what we get out of the reading experience depends a lot on what we bring to it.  (If I could remember who's theory it was and what it was called, I'd happily include it here.)  In the information processing model, this component is referred to as perception and colors everything we learn.  To me, that seems a better explanation and approach to education than the prescriptive, objectives approach. To avoid misunderstanding, let me clearly state that I'm not proposing that we get rid of objectives entirely.  However, rethinking how we use them might be very useful.  As Eis...

This idea has been bouncing around in my head for awhile, but today I added to it significantly.  After helping teach the Teaching with Technology course last semester, I realized how little students know about professionalism.  Receiving emails from students with incorrect grammar, punctuation, and sporting titles like LittleBunnyFooFoo@gagmail.com caused me much reflection and even some wincing at times. Currently, I'm working on idea at the CTL for teaching a class or at least providing materials to incoming or outgoing students to address such issues.  The hope is to provide them a greater chance at success in addition to removing the excuse that "no one ever told me." I then started wondering if any research or theory has been developed in this area.  It seems like professionalism is becoming harder and harder to define in our increasingly casual culture, yet it remains a reality that can come back to bite you if you don't know the rules.  Attempting to...

This morning during an impromptu brainstorming session with myself, I came up with this idea.  I was lamenting the fact that it seems like more and more children in America are growing up not learning how to sing.  (I don't have any empirical evidence for this, just personal observation.)  Thus, it could be amazing to design an application for the Wii that teaches voice lessons.  For example, lesson one could be matching pitch; it plays a tone, you hum it into the mic, and it gives you a score.  If it could get more people singing, I highly support it.  Perhaps it's too educational for the Wii, though.  At least the title is great!