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<blockquote data-quote="Max Warasila" data-source="post: 96862" data-attributes="member: 3845"><p>Re: Property Tax</p><p></p><p>For those of you that are just joining us, The Dread Pirates fumbled the ball on 4th down for the 3rd time in a row- no one seems to know why they keep going for it instead of merely punting it- and the Fisheads, once again, returned it to the the 10 yard line before stalling and kicking a field goal. Now that the Pirates have regained possession, they seem to be mis-reading the defense player by player and appear to be disorganized beyond our wildest dreams, while the Fisheads appear to be putting their third string players on the field, confident with their 91-3 lead.</p><p></p><p>Now, to continue on with the discussion.</p><p></p><p>As a current student, I am not very motivated to learn in the classroom environments I have been put in, even though I really do like to learn, as it makes everything you do in life easier. But when the course is taught by an irritating teacher, one without authority, or someone who doesn't really interest you in the material makes it very difficult to pay attention. This year, I had a teacher who I bona-fide could <em>not</em> listen to, even when I tried. His voice just kinda... faded into the background. God probably put to much reverb in his signal chain... *Sigh*</p><p></p><p>The standardized tests we take are a joke- many students don't ever show up for them, others abuse the unlimited time limit (... that's weird sounding), and the group I am in rushes through them because it's just the basic knowledge of the course- if you don't know it, it's something you either A- forgot or B- weren't taught in your particular classroom, by random chance. Not to mention that they are done as pseudo-final exams, as well as that the scores that the teachers can access are just scores- no details about the questions for... security reasons... apparently they don't want people cheating on tests that have already been put in the past. OH WAIT- I remember why: they re-use the questions because it's too costly and difficult to come up with new ones <em>every singe year.</em> Needless to say: they are practically useless except in saying how high a particular school rates overall out of all the ones who took the test on the test's scale. Nothing useful to educators, of course.</p><p></p><p>As for the overall issue of students vs. teachers and who must make interest in learning: it's both of them- but the school systems I have been exposed to have made it excessively difficult for either one of them. The best classroom experience I have had have been with teachers who do try and make it interesting, inspiring or show you the big picture. Magically, those classrooms have also been where I have learned and retained the most information.</p><p></p><p>Another thing to note is what I refer to as "teaching to the test," rather than "teaching towards the information on the test." These two styles differ in how information is delivered and what the apparent goals of the classroom environment are. In the first option, the daily goal given to students is "learn this information, it's important." The class then goes forward and the information is taught, applied and reviewed, then tested, and finally tested again at the end of the year after another week of review. Then, it is all promptly forgotten. In the second option, the daily goal given to students is "consider this/how do you do that/what if?" The class then moves on to exploring how to get to the idea, and the techniques to do so along the way, thereby applying and solidifying the information while keeping an interesting goal in the forefront of the students mind. Then, the information is tested and then reviewed and tested at the end of the year.</p><p></p><p>While there are many opinions on which option to choose, here is something interesting to consider that might make the better choice more obvious. In computer gaming, one of the highest rated and most praised franchises of all of the hundreds of games known to exist is the Half-Life series. The games have been praised for their unique storytelling, their immersive environments, the ability of the game to be played on many types of hardware, naturally how fun the game is- even when replayed numerous times, and how the game rewards skill at the game in many ways. The skill, however, has nothing to do with reflexes or good eyesight (though they do help), but rather with how adept the player is at solving the problems they are presented with. These puzzles are the heart of how the game plays, and they are the primary way in which a player learns. They subscribe to the "heres something to consider/how on earth do you do this/hey, what if this were to happen" mentality. For example, early in one game, the player has to find a way to remove a laser blocking the player's path. The laser is generated by a series of reflective surfaces (think science experiments with lasers, I'm drawing a blank on this one), and the player has a crowbar. Now, the game could have told you at some point that you can break all sorts of things with the crowbar, especially glass, but no. The game does not even inform you that "you can break something with this- ha-HAH!" but rather lets you figure it out on your own.</p><p></p><p>In other games, opportunities to be succesful are presented in ways that are obvious, but don't have to be used to finish the game. One of these examples is the ability to launch saw blades at approaching zombies with the gravity gun. In zombie levels, there are many of these laying around. But the game never tells you to use them. In fact, the game has given you many munition based weapons to beat the level with before hand, and it is possible to do so, even though you will constantly be low on ammo. Plus, the level in which this situation is first allowed to exist occurs right after you acquire the gravity gun, and has numerous saw blades, oil barrels, propane tanks and other fun things to throw around scattered everywhere. It's as if the game designers said "hey, what if..." and let you figure it out, while coaxing you in the right direction and giving you hinting little cues.</p><p></p><p>At the end of the game in which the gravity gun is introduced in, the gravity gun becomes your only weapon to defend with. The skills you learn throughout the game prepared you for this moment- unless you didn't use the gravity gun and just wasted all of your ammo. The game was there to teach you, and reprimand you when you "failed" these tests. It took on the second teaching mentality of teaching described, unlike other more popular, but less praised games such as the infamous Call of Duty, in which almost everything is given directly to the player. Also, the consulting corporation, Accenture, uses problem based training for <strong>all</strong> of the training done in their company, where a problem must be dealt with, and better ways of doing so are presented to trainees. Obviously, "teaching to the information on the test" works better. But what do we do as a country? We push the tests, and as a result, teaching is "done to the test." Disappointing, eh? Of course, the best teachers I've ever had have used the second technique. Go figure.</p><p></p><p>There's more here, but I think I might be channeling the TLDR.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Max Warasila, post: 96862, member: 3845"] Re: Property Tax For those of you that are just joining us, The Dread Pirates fumbled the ball on 4th down for the 3rd time in a row- no one seems to know why they keep going for it instead of merely punting it- and the Fisheads, once again, returned it to the the 10 yard line before stalling and kicking a field goal. Now that the Pirates have regained possession, they seem to be mis-reading the defense player by player and appear to be disorganized beyond our wildest dreams, while the Fisheads appear to be putting their third string players on the field, confident with their 91-3 lead. Now, to continue on with the discussion. As a current student, I am not very motivated to learn in the classroom environments I have been put in, even though I really do like to learn, as it makes everything you do in life easier. But when the course is taught by an irritating teacher, one without authority, or someone who doesn't really interest you in the material makes it very difficult to pay attention. This year, I had a teacher who I bona-fide could [I]not[/I] listen to, even when I tried. His voice just kinda... faded into the background. God probably put to much reverb in his signal chain... *Sigh* The standardized tests we take are a joke- many students don't ever show up for them, others abuse the unlimited time limit (... that's weird sounding), and the group I am in rushes through them because it's just the basic knowledge of the course- if you don't know it, it's something you either A- forgot or B- weren't taught in your particular classroom, by random chance. Not to mention that they are done as pseudo-final exams, as well as that the scores that the teachers can access are just scores- no details about the questions for... security reasons... apparently they don't want people cheating on tests that have already been put in the past. OH WAIT- I remember why: they re-use the questions because it's too costly and difficult to come up with new ones [I]every singe year.[/I] Needless to say: they are practically useless except in saying how high a particular school rates overall out of all the ones who took the test on the test's scale. Nothing useful to educators, of course. As for the overall issue of students vs. teachers and who must make interest in learning: it's both of them- but the school systems I have been exposed to have made it excessively difficult for either one of them. The best classroom experience I have had have been with teachers who do try and make it interesting, inspiring or show you the big picture. Magically, those classrooms have also been where I have learned and retained the most information. Another thing to note is what I refer to as "teaching to the test," rather than "teaching towards the information on the test." These two styles differ in how information is delivered and what the apparent goals of the classroom environment are. In the first option, the daily goal given to students is "learn this information, it's important." The class then goes forward and the information is taught, applied and reviewed, then tested, and finally tested again at the end of the year after another week of review. Then, it is all promptly forgotten. In the second option, the daily goal given to students is "consider this/how do you do that/what if?" The class then moves on to exploring how to get to the idea, and the techniques to do so along the way, thereby applying and solidifying the information while keeping an interesting goal in the forefront of the students mind. Then, the information is tested and then reviewed and tested at the end of the year. While there are many opinions on which option to choose, here is something interesting to consider that might make the better choice more obvious. In computer gaming, one of the highest rated and most praised franchises of all of the hundreds of games known to exist is the Half-Life series. The games have been praised for their unique storytelling, their immersive environments, the ability of the game to be played on many types of hardware, naturally how fun the game is- even when replayed numerous times, and how the game rewards skill at the game in many ways. The skill, however, has nothing to do with reflexes or good eyesight (though they do help), but rather with how adept the player is at solving the problems they are presented with. These puzzles are the heart of how the game plays, and they are the primary way in which a player learns. They subscribe to the "heres something to consider/how on earth do you do this/hey, what if this were to happen" mentality. For example, early in one game, the player has to find a way to remove a laser blocking the player's path. The laser is generated by a series of reflective surfaces (think science experiments with lasers, I'm drawing a blank on this one), and the player has a crowbar. Now, the game could have told you at some point that you can break all sorts of things with the crowbar, especially glass, but no. The game does not even inform you that "you can break something with this- ha-HAH!" but rather lets you figure it out on your own. In other games, opportunities to be succesful are presented in ways that are obvious, but don't have to be used to finish the game. One of these examples is the ability to launch saw blades at approaching zombies with the gravity gun. In zombie levels, there are many of these laying around. But the game never tells you to use them. In fact, the game has given you many munition based weapons to beat the level with before hand, and it is possible to do so, even though you will constantly be low on ammo. Plus, the level in which this situation is first allowed to exist occurs right after you acquire the gravity gun, and has numerous saw blades, oil barrels, propane tanks and other fun things to throw around scattered everywhere. It's as if the game designers said "hey, what if..." and let you figure it out, while coaxing you in the right direction and giving you hinting little cues. At the end of the game in which the gravity gun is introduced in, the gravity gun becomes your only weapon to defend with. The skills you learn throughout the game prepared you for this moment- unless you didn't use the gravity gun and just wasted all of your ammo. The game was there to teach you, and reprimand you when you "failed" these tests. It took on the second teaching mentality of teaching described, unlike other more popular, but less praised games such as the infamous Call of Duty, in which almost everything is given directly to the player. Also, the consulting corporation, Accenture, uses problem based training for [B]all[/B] of the training done in their company, where a problem must be dealt with, and better ways of doing so are presented to trainees. Obviously, "teaching to the information on the test" works better. But what do we do as a country? We push the tests, and as a result, teaching is "done to the test." Disappointing, eh? Of course, the best teachers I've ever had have used the second technique. Go figure. There's more here, but I think I might be channeling the TLDR. [/QUOTE]
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