Winter 2015 - January to Apil 2015 - Updated 2018-08-26 14:02 EDT
What’s the point of education in a Google world?
Educational Experiences and Materials for the “Google World”: The Internet changes everything, including education. When students have access to the same information we have as instructors, it calls into question the nature of our classes and educational experiences, and the instructional materials we provide. http://ecals.cals.wisc.edu/2011/02/24/provost-seeks-proposals-for-socially-constructed-learning-experiences/
I see my job here at College as helping you learn to find answers, and remembering enough of those answers that you can pass a job interview (no Google allowed!) and be useful to an employer.
There is no particular shortcut to remembering the material so that you can demonstrate your skill at your job interview. You need to discover the material, work with it, and use it.
I do my job by providing:
I do not provide direct “answers” to your questions if I already gave you those answers in the lectures, class notes, or assignments. My job when you ask is to guide you back to those notes and assignments so that you can find or work out your own answers and remember them.
If you didn’t hear or remember the material when I presented it to to you the first time, it’s up to you to find the answers yourself the second time, and I will help you with that. I won’t actually give you the answers.
I am happy to clarify the notes, lectures, and assignments that I have made available to you. Most of the answers to your questions are already written there, collected over years of experience teaching this subject material. Your questions help me refine and expand the notes to be more clear and complete.
Helping you find the answers is my job; I do it for you as part of the salary paid to me by the College.
Actually giving you answers is called “consulting”, and my fee is $300/hr. See me after you graduate.
If you don’t understand something because the lectures and course notes aren’t clear enough, see an instructor in person in a scheduled laboratory period to talk about it.
Don’t ask me to explain course concepts to you in an email message; I’ve already explained the course to you in writing in the class notes and again in the lectures. If you don’t understand my writing, talk to me in person.
If you send me email asking me to explain some course material to you, I will always send you back to the class notes. Those notes are already my best written explanations of the course material. I will not copy those class notes into my email reply to you; I will ask you to read what I’ve already written.
If what I’ve written isn’t clear, you have to come talk to an instructor in person so we can try to find a different way to explain it.
Learning how to ask good questions is a skill you need to learn if you want to get help from other people.
If you want to ask a question by EMail, first read the document on how to Ask Questions and Report Problems so that your question can be answered.
My courses typically instruct 100-250 students. I am not able to provide you with individual instruction because you didn’t attend lectures, didn’t take lecture notes, didn’t read the class notes, or didn’t do the assignments. I will always send you back to the class notes and assignments if you haven’t read them.
After you have read the notes I’ve already written, I would love to discuss the material with you and help clarify it.
If you need extensive individual help with course material outside of the time that I can provide in your weekly lab periods, consider forming a study group or investing in a course tutor.
On going to College:
In the end:
Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think. – Albert Einstein
P.S. I don’t open the door, either. I teach you how to do it.
Author:
| Ian! D. Allen, BA, MMath - idallen@idallen.ca - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| Home Page: http://idallen.com/ Contact Improv: http://contactimprov.ca/
| College professor (Free/Libre GNU+Linux) at: http://teaching.idallen.com/
| Defend digital freedom: http://eff.org/ and have fun: http://fools.ca/Plain Text - plain text version of this page in Pandoc Markdown format
Author Ian! D. Allen