
Technology-based,
Activity-driven, Question-based
Education
Prelude: Bases on
Laboratories of democracy
suggested by
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.
this rudimentary first proposal could be completed the HS graduating class of
2035
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Education
Libraries Updated 11/14/18
Please link to ,use as
textbook/supplement, and share.
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I. |
Computers, student activities,
and student determined questions would be
central to
the students learning experience.
A.
You can't go from
books to problems but you can go from problems to books
from The Black Swan 12/26/16
B. See
Geekability
Challenging Students to Solve Real Problems
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II.
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A year-round two session school calendar
consisting of four twelve-week
terms.
1. Morning and afternoon structured sessions consisting of four consecutive
one-hour traditional classes.
2. Structured unstructured activities would be based upon each student's
Individualize Curriculum.
3. Days per week would be flexible.
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III. |
Teaching loads would consist of four structured
traditional classes during one session
1. Unstructured activities could substitute for structured
traditional classes. |
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2.
.Paid or for comp time overloads would be based on
seniority, |
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IV. |
Gains from this
more efficient system would be shared by students, faculty, and community. |
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Pedagogical
requirements of four courses per year for many HS and undergraduate college students would be limited to those useful to someone with just HS or college degree
respectively. |
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1. Academically
oriented students could take extra academic courses |
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2.Usefulness data of pedagogical material would be
collected from alumni, business, and community. |
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3. Activities now
considered extracurricular might become more structured and done for credit,
especially
for students not academically oriented. |
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Free Internet materials would replace
textbooks and lectures. |
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1. Faculty could put their own notes on the Internet or choose from
many Internet course materials. |
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2. Reading assignments
and lectures would be taken from the Internet or teacher provided materials. |
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Economic facilities use would solve housing problems,
especially for larger school districts.. |
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Community
benefits from
Structured Unstructured Time
as students fulfill community needs while fulfilling their
Individualize Curriculum.
Example: Early childhood education students could volunteer at nursery
schools. |
V. |
Grades would be activity centered. |
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1.Multiple choice tests would come to an end.
This could take a while. |
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2. Grades would be based on
student determined research papers, individual projects,
group projects, case analysis, essay
questions, math problems, oral presentations... |
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3. Students would be encouraged to make up their own
test questions and projects. |
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4. Working with others would be encouraged.
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5. Amount of work required, a completion
time,
and expected grade would be negotiated.
A student want a C would be expected to
do less than those wanting a higher grade. |
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6.Faculty would
review student created material as needed and if appropriate, meet with student
a group.
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VI. |
Teachers, as managing consultants, would have varied responsibilities to satisfy
their four course requirement. |
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1. Keep Internet pedagogical materials relevant, especially as it pertains to individual student needs. |
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2. Management student group
activities: senior class play, student work experiences, group projects,
coaching,
managing student teaching assistants
... |
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3. Explaining difficult concepts to students and
teaching assistants |
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4. Grading which would be a continuing
often subjective process. |
Appendix 1 Some perceived problems.
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A. |
Some faculty would object. |
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1. |
Fine, choose all traditional
classroom experiences. |
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2. |
Faculty member could use earned sabbatical based on unpaid
overloads to develop materials....
Paid overloads would not count toward sabbaticals. |
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3 |
Implementation should be slow
with the goal centered on
Educating the Class of 2035. |
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4. |
Eventually most would agree that students learn much more in
this relaxed, dynamic community. |
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B. |
Students would have too much free
time. |
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1. |
Both Individual and group projects would be
required as much time as students desire to expend. |
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3. |
Ambitious students would not have too much free time. |
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a, Some would complete in less
time. |
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b. Some would work. |
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c. Some would specialize in for credit for school activities. |
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d. Some would do what they do now. |
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C. |
Some students would be unhappy |
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1. |
Students successful with the current system of
memorization and working alone would not be happy. |
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2. |
Choosing academically oriented
courses would solve much of their problems and learning that being 100%
traditional and not developing teamwork ability for many is an economically poor
choice.
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Appendex 2 Example 1
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A. |
I used the system was used to some extent for five
years around the turn of the decade. |
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1. |
Subjects taught were Accounting I and II,
Economics I and II, and Statistics |
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2. |
Students were supplied all class notes |
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3. |
Better students came to class less than 1/3 of the
time. |
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4. |
See Flipping a Statistics Class Worked Well
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B. |
Results |
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1. |
Better students in Accounting and Statistics
learned more in less time with much less work, mainly because I didn't have the
stamina to keep up with my notes. |
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2. |
Average students learned about an amount equal to
what they usually learn. |
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3. |
Economics was the most difficult, parley because
the my notes and Internet materials were not that sophisticated. I have spent
the last 5 years making them better. |
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4. |
Quick Notes Course Outlines
were developed over twelve years and were used in
this project. |
Example 2
Sample of a teacher
unknowingly using the system |
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http://realteachingmeansreallearning.blogspot.com/2011/05/call-of-duty-and-calculus.html |
e-mail
Walter with examples or
suggestions |
Flipping a Statistics Class Worked
Well
Teaching Statistics to Open Evening College Students
by Walter
Introduction: After
years of traditional teaching to open enrollment college and junior college
students I switched to my now free
then inexpensive programmed textbooks Quick
Notes Statistics and Excel
Statistics Lab Manual. With
all the problems and their data sets written in Excel, many of the calculation
learning obstacle was removed. Many students were familiar with the text as they
had used the
free Quick
Notes Financial Accounting and/or the
free Economics
Interactive Class Notes with Links when
teaching my other courses. These books were also concise two-page outlines per
chapter followed by practice problems and complete solutions.
Methodology: Class one began with a 30
minute overview of material covered on the first on a disk take-home or
in-the-lab computer exam. We then adjourned to the lab with some of the better
students leaving to study the lectures on their own and do required work at
their leisure while the others joined me in the lab learn to use Excel
to calculate measures of central tendency. Lectures for a few nights were short
previews as labs sessions with me and a few students helping with procedures.
The class before thecomputerized
test using Excel was
a comprehensive 30 minute or so review where I again saw the better students and
after the review a few students were off to the lab to finish their
computerized lab set due before the test. The test was on a disk and also on
the lab server. This procedure was followed for tests on probability, on
hypothesis testing and on correlation plus regression.
Result: 1)
Being an honor system take-home or in lab computer exam resulted in the same
grade distribution as for
a traditional in class test where students did calculations. A large note
card/cheat sheet was allowed.
2) Using computers, more
material was easily
covered with less
work and anxiety.
3) Only
the better students learned more, much
more. Students for open enrollment college classes had for 35 years divided into
four groups.
Group one learned
central tendency but got
lost on probability. They completed the course requirements but never
really learned much. They passed with
low grades because of my
easy grading procedures.
Group two calculated
some probability functions. Hypothesis
testing was poor as
they ran into trouble deciding which Excel menu procedure to use for each of the
eight different problems on the take home/lab exam. I
had warned them that over 35 years grades always went down with each tests and
but many were still disappointed. Some of these adults worked really hard but
having to choose between finite and normal distributions, large and small
samples and then between one sample and two samples eventually led to mistakes.
Group three often
got the statistic correct but
then had difficulty determining to accept or reject the
no change null hypothesis. All
the studying in the world doesn't help because they had never really understood
what hypothesis testing was all about.
Group four had
one final hurdle to explain
what the answer meant. They
had correctly accepted or rejected the null hypothesis but what did it mean?
They needed to write in the analysis section that the new procedure was faster
or had less defects or the new diet was better/worse or else it was back to
group three and a B grade. Less
than six from a class of twenty-five got almost everything correct and
got a 4 points on almost every problem. A very few indeed got everything
correct. I used his system for about six classes before retiring in 2002.
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