educational science

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=science-2-point-0

This is a link to the article from Scientific American that I mentioned yeesterday.  It appears that web tools may become the accepted manner of spreading news of breakthroughs and validating results….  that means anyone can be in line for the funding and the Nobel prizes….

Don’t we continue to learn every day?  We work through life’s problems and find a way around them.  The government encourages this learning by continually changing the tax code each year.   Our students walk into the classroom with different experiences each year.  We can not teach exactly the same way each year because the student’s have a different starting point.   Sometimes the starting point is more inclusive than we expect and sometimes they have bigger gaps that we must fill in before we can certify their progress to that mythical point on the horizon that we call mastery of the subject matter. 

To start a conversation without seeing the look in the observers eye will take me a little time.   The adventure of teaching begins for me with the spontaneous interaction between observer and myself.  I am able to talor a bit of the presentation in a way that engages the observer a bit more than superficially.  I will be looking to explore this ‘one way’ conversational technique as we continue to add hardware to these presentations.

By getting used to this type interaction I might be able to improve my in person presentations.

Dr Reich

http://reich-chemistry.wikispaces.com/

  has set up a linear annotated sylabus of his course materials for the convenience of his students and his own planning.   When looked at from this perspective, the wiki is an outgrowth of the classroom.  It encourages ‘off the clock’ conversations and discussions between students.   All the detail expressed in class in left in class and students can get together over coffee on their own time and rehash the discussions with their own slant.  It might only be a small jump for this annotated page to a concept map and problem solving map for the students to fill in as they proceed through the course.

For a computeer science class the use and structure of the wiki is a course appropriate topic.  Assesment of student effort and understanding is checked through the use of the same tool.

Wiki learning may provide hands on experience for these students; but in a course in which this learning is not part of the expected course content, do we have the class time to devote to bringing the students on board with this skill.   If the students already have the skill, then it is easier to incorporate it.  I hope that teaching with technology in my classroom does not degenerate into teching only the technology.