week 7 dq

What feedback would I give my students (Elander, J., Harrington, K., Norton, L., Robinson, H., & Reddy, 2006)?

First determine what type of learner each student is. Do they need encouragement, do they need hard boundaries, do they need negatives to fight against (Nicol, 2014).

Some students need to be challenged: “you cannot do that”. To the student they take that as a challenge and strive harder to turn the cannot into a can. Some need vast amounts of encouragement, and support. Others simply need to be presented with solid and consistent boundaries from which to in effect match the equation the teacher has in their head about the progress of each student.

The student starts at x, needs to achieve y sets of goals, to end at z. Most if not all teachers have a z goal from the syllabus they need each of their students to achieve, some can achieve a small fraction of z and that is progress for them, others “bell curve” in the middle of the mean, and others either break the curve and or exceed the stated z destination (Svinicki, M., & McKeachie, 2014). The z students have the most problems with the teacher student dynamic, many teachers take the z students (students who have the ability to learn or have already gone past the syllabus z point in their education) and find nothing but frustration (Parameswaram, G. (2007). The teacher’s job is to provide what parameters each student needs; be it in the first category, second category, third category, or the beyond rare student who are in the z category.

Example of z students, Einstein almost flunked out of school a couple times. He was too bored with math to finish his assignments.

Alan Turing (who, the thing you are looking at right now he invented the O.S. for it. A hidden piece of history Hedy Lamarr designed and built the “gears” for Christopher, but Alan built the OS. Alan was also on the Freddy Mercury side of extremely gay. All those homophobic and misogynistic/antisemitic people out there who use computers are using machines invented/designed and built by 3 of the categories they hate the most) was on the extreme side of bullied, assaulted, and punished repeatedly for being in the Z category. In school he was doing advanced cryptography and playing physics equations with his friend while they are in basic math class. The teacher was trying to teach them about rational and irrational numbers, and they were playing with physics through cryptography.

Hedy Lamarr founded JPL, but she was not allowed to work in the field of Academics officially. Female Jew mechanical protégé, Nixon made his political bones off her by stripping her of any official connection with her bought and paid for founding of JPL. Examples of z type students. If you are lucky you will encounter at least one in your academic experience, as a student or a teacher. The normal techniques do not work. The carrot and stick does not work, nor will solid boundaries. Have to find out how to guide each one by each one. But betrayal is a huge deal, break the trust once and they will never fully trust you as teacher or fellow student again.

My last exchange in class with a specific teacher at my last school was metaphorically word for word in equation format exactly like the conversation “Young Sheldon” had with his new professor. His old friend is resting in a hospital. But his boss took over his class.

The teacher at the start of the class said “Sheldon, this is a very advanced physics class.” which Sheldon replied

“I know, and I will be right here in the front row if you need help.”.

The conversation at the end of that exchange switch to the field of cognitive psychology and it was almost dead on the money copied from our exchange. Although the exchange on TV was much, much nicer.

As a child in school in science class the teacher opened up the discussion to the class “class tell me, where do penguins hatch their eggs.” Since I knew the answer, I raised my hand. The teacher knew I knew the answer and knew there were several social butterflies in the class who did not like me. So, he said “ok, different question. How many people in the class think TR’s answer is correct.” About half the class voted no. In that class my main bully raised his hand, the teacher called on him. “why do you say no.” Bully “if it comes from him, he is wrong.”

Teacher “TR, what is the answer?”

“Penguins use their feet, specifically males. The female lays the egg, but the male uses his feet to hold the egg, then the chick.”

Teacher with an odd smile on his face “Class is TR correct or not. Raise your hands if he is not correct.”

Virtually the entire (popularity contest is the bully going to be more popular or is TR going to be more popular. Is the class going to be wrong just to be nasty to TR, or will good sense and logic prevail.) class voted I was wrong. It was a popularity contest, not science (Stewart, T. L., Myers, A. C., & Culley, 2010). Learning is hugely based on the social and popularity aspects of the situation, in some cases it is so dependent on the social and popularity aspects the other is a mild secondary at best.

Have to ignore the idiots and those who only think about performing measuring contests. Have to just focus on the scientific method, facts, evidence, etc. Let the popularity contest people play their games. They can play on the games they want to, just not around me/us.

I usually ignore most of the input from classes, I am 48 and have been working in and around the field of science most of my life. I studied independently from 19-36 before going to college. My parochial school experience was close to the definition of painful in the extreme. I got good at ignoring most things around me and focusing on the how to improve. Most of my experiences have been negative, not because my information is wrong but because my behavior patterns rub people the wrong way. I do my work, skim feedback, figure out what each teacher’s “things are”, and ignore most of the rest. The feedback I get is the extremes, I either get no feedback, really nasty comments, or I get “wow, your writing is amazing to read. I have little to say back, but it is interesting to read your thoughts.”

Emotionally I focus on the work, I focus on the work seeking positive feedback when I have a good idea or a good sequence of ideas. I feel good for example about 6 ish weeks ago or so I was having a conversation with someone not in class and the person saw my work on the Pyramids of Egypt. I had one spinal cord aligned, but there was a missing piece. The person said, flip the spine, align the other to the other side. After an hour of graphic arts work in PS the persons comments proved to be dead on the money correct. Which led directly to the city of Rome Schema Janus. I focus on the scientific discoveries not on feedback. My emotions are geared towards the discoveries and making connections, not on the popularity contests of class (Meyer, J. A., Fisher, B. J., & Pearl, 2007).

People like me learn that our emotional states operate different from mean (statistics) people. It is extremely easy for mean people to hurt our feelings, so we have to learn to ignore most if the input to not allow the openings. It is an instinctual thing, most mean people have less than no idea their comments can hurt our feelings so easily. Most could not care less their input hurts, some go “oh, my words hurt you, great, I need to get even for the times you made me feel stupid”.

references

Elander, J., Harrington, K., Norton, L., Robinson, H., & Reddy, P. (2006). Complex skills and academic writing: A review of evidence about the types of learning required to meet core assessment criteria. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(1), 71–90.

Meyer, J. A., Fisher, B. J., & Pearl, P. S. (2007). Students' perceptions of the value of a self-study writing assignment. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 34(4), 234–241.

Nicol, D. (2014). Good designs for written feedback for students. InM. Svinicki & W. J. McKeachie, McKeachie's teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed., pp. 109–123). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Parameswaram, G. (2007). Inclusive writing in a psychology class. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 34(3), 172–176.

Stewart, T. L., Myers, A. C., & Culley, M. R. (2010). Enhanced learning and retention through “writing to learn” in the psychology classroom. Teaching of Psychology, 37(1), 46–49.

Svinicki, M., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). Assigning grades: What do they mean?. In McKeachie's teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed., pp. 125–134). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.