26 degrees this morning, no walk, 78% humidity
Still cold, although high yesterday did get up to the low 40’s.
Watched an interesting “60 minutes” segment last night. One of the programs, about a man who became an opera singer (after being in jail as a 12 year old) whose incentive was teachers/counselors who believed in him.
In a way it ties in with the educational episodes on “The Wire” and testifies to the power of teachers over the “education machine” that whirls just to get kids out, not necessarily gets them educated or prepared for the life they will lead. Or perhaps better to say helps the students be what they can be.
It is a tough job that I wouldn’t want, and I certainly don’t have any answers, but I just feel it is too important to just give up on relevant education.
Kind of on a similar theme, I was interested to read about some studies involving “audiobooks” or podcasts versus actually reading the book or information.
One study found that more people retained more from actual reading than they did from audiobooks or podcasts. It was actually a fairly high difference, about 80% retention for reading versus 60% for listening.
That kind of surprised me.
However the article I was reading concluded that it may be better to listen to “light” material, while reading more complex material.
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i have kind of found the reverse to be true, but everyone is different.
What really works for me (on complex material) is to have both a written summary or written discussion to read before/after I listen to the material.
Ditto with on-line study. Although I haven’t seen any studies on the effectiveness of on-line courses, I think “on-line” schools are good for supplemental courses and material, “virtual schools” where all learning is on-line just can’t be that effective.
Even with “video chats”, the main element, discussion, questions/answers etc. is missing.
On the other hand, some of the best scholars have been on a 1 on 1 basis, that i guess could be video!
I certainly feel like education should include all elements of learning-video, on-line, audio, actual classroom etc., but strictly on-line learning etc. is not for most students, in my opinion.
Of course part of the problem is the profit motive (not bad in itself, but allowing it to run wild isn’t good), attempts to restrict some information etc. always is a problem in education.
That’s it for now, Monday, December 10, 2018.
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