Estimation
A friend of mine forwarded an email chain from the Instructional Technology List Server at the University of Georgia(ITFORUM@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU). I will unabashedly plagerize the comments because they both hit a sore nerve and suggest a vision of education's future direction, which I support.
Mark Peterson described a conversation where he discussed the way technology changes what kids need to learn. For instance, today's kids are adept at using calculators (which are ubiquitous), but are not very good at doing math in their heads. He questions whether mental mathmatics is still relevant and, if not, what other things to computers/technology make irrelevant.
Alfredo responds, stating that, while he doesn't feel that math should be taught just because it's hard, he still doesn't think that complete dependence on a machine is the answer. He asks "What if you run out of batteries? What if I press a wrong button and am off by an order of magnitude? How would I tell?"
He suggests that there are some basic skills: multiplying two numbers smaller than 10 and being able to estimate that are essential. He goes on to state that a basic knowledge of math is needed to operate a calculator. For example, operator precedence and the distributive law.
His first calculator used "reverse Polish notation," which did operations without parenthese, but required careful adherence to entry order and operators, and also forced you to learn about "stacks," "pushing," and "popping." (Whatever they are - it sounds drug related to me, which makes sense. Math makes me want to use drugs too.) He suggests this as a way to encourage kids to learn basic math rules. He also suggest slide rules as a way to learn powers of ten.
Clark Quinn adds the following thought:
You may ask, "What does this have to do with androgogy, the focus of your life's work?" My answer is that it's painfully relevant. I'm a whiz at Excel, but can never make my sums right. I'm an adult with the inability to get Microsoft Money to balance my bank account. Why? Because I can't estimate or remember the order of operations.
9/10's of my problem is my own fault. As a snotty 10-year old, I sneered at those who relied on memorization and saw no reason to learn something that a calculator could do even better. Unfortunately, Alfredo is right about the math abilities required to use a calculator. Nonetheless, even as snotty as I was, I did have a point (though nobody could have forseen Excel or Money back in the mid-'80s.) Wouldn't it have been more relevant to teach me how to use a calculator, how to estimate and the order of operations? After all, I refused to learn to spell too. With the instant feedback of spellcheck, I've developed into a strong speller. To broaden the analogy, there are basic skills that you need in order to make spellcheck work. You need to be able to guess a substantial number of the phonemes and you must be able to differentiate between closely pronounced and spelled words (accept and except). Luckily, I learned these skills because my mom forced me to look up everything in the dictionary.
To take it one step further, with an easily accessible Internet, people are learning to remember tags: web pages (Wikipedia, dictionary.com, switchboard.com, thiagi.com) or keywords ("nutritional information: Snickers", "mathematics operator precedence", "treating poison ivy") than actual bits of information. Which is all to the good: I'm discovering that everything that I think I know, having heard it somewhere, is wrong. So, even the stuff I did bother to memorize is useless. Our performance development skills must adapt to these new realities.
Mark Peterson described a conversation where he discussed the way technology changes what kids need to learn. For instance, today's kids are adept at using calculators (which are ubiquitous), but are not very good at doing math in their heads. He questions whether mental mathmatics is still relevant and, if not, what other things to computers/technology make irrelevant.
Alfredo responds, stating that, while he doesn't feel that math should be taught just because it's hard, he still doesn't think that complete dependence on a machine is the answer. He asks "What if you run out of batteries? What if I press a wrong button and am off by an order of magnitude? How would I tell?"
He suggests that there are some basic skills: multiplying two numbers smaller than 10 and being able to estimate that are essential. He goes on to state that a basic knowledge of math is needed to operate a calculator. For example, operator precedence and the distributive law.
His first calculator used "reverse Polish notation," which did operations without parenthese, but required careful adherence to entry order and operators, and also forced you to learn about "stacks," "pushing," and "popping." (Whatever they are - it sounds drug related to me, which makes sense. Math makes me want to use drugs too.) He suggests this as a way to encourage kids to learn basic math rules. He also suggest slide rules as a way to learn powers of ten.
Clark Quinn adds the following thought:
"Jim Levin, with the advent of calculators almost 30 years ago, argued that the skill going forward would not be mathematics, but estimation (he's been ahead of his time in many ways). You don't want to trust a calculator if you don't know the right order of magnitude.
We invent tools to augment our thinking and take burdens off of us. So we don't teach shorthand anymore in school. I don't think the average person needs to learn to do long division by hand. You don't use it anymore."
You may ask, "What does this have to do with androgogy, the focus of your life's work?" My answer is that it's painfully relevant. I'm a whiz at Excel, but can never make my sums right. I'm an adult with the inability to get Microsoft Money to balance my bank account. Why? Because I can't estimate or remember the order of operations.
9/10's of my problem is my own fault. As a snotty 10-year old, I sneered at those who relied on memorization and saw no reason to learn something that a calculator could do even better. Unfortunately, Alfredo is right about the math abilities required to use a calculator. Nonetheless, even as snotty as I was, I did have a point (though nobody could have forseen Excel or Money back in the mid-'80s.) Wouldn't it have been more relevant to teach me how to use a calculator, how to estimate and the order of operations? After all, I refused to learn to spell too. With the instant feedback of spellcheck, I've developed into a strong speller. To broaden the analogy, there are basic skills that you need in order to make spellcheck work. You need to be able to guess a substantial number of the phonemes and you must be able to differentiate between closely pronounced and spelled words (accept and except). Luckily, I learned these skills because my mom forced me to look up everything in the dictionary.
To take it one step further, with an easily accessible Internet, people are learning to remember tags: web pages (Wikipedia, dictionary.com, switchboard.com, thiagi.com) or keywords ("nutritional information: Snickers", "mathematics operator precedence", "treating poison ivy") than actual bits of information. Which is all to the good: I'm discovering that everything that I think I know, having heard it somewhere, is wrong. So, even the stuff I did bother to memorize is useless. Our performance development skills must adapt to these new realities.
posted by Varda Lobanov | 1:41 PM
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