Because of
a lack of new articles for commenting I decided to publish mine a little
earlier. I would like to discuss about teaching without textbooks with plenty
of serious rules.
Please look at this
video
http://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_dewitt_hey_science_teachers_make_it_fun.html.
You can
find in this video a few thesis:
- textbooks are not the way to get
young people interested in science
- the language of textbooks is truly
incomprehensible
- too accurate texts are impossible
to understand by students
What do you
think about them?
What do you
think about not strict teaching of a strict subjects? Is it a "brutishness
for science"?
When did
you read your last textbook (excluding textbooks of your supervisor ;-))? How
do you replace reading textbooks in your studying?
What do you
think about replacing textbooks by Internet?
Some of you
are teachers – what do you think about teaching without textbooks? When I
studied it was unthinkable, but it was in previous millennium. How is it today?
I would like to discuss about greater lessons than one hour per week as our
English, about greater courses like “computer networks”. Please, say about your
experiences both as students and teachers.
The first thing that came into my mind after watching the video was, that I would love to see the presented pattern applied to some scientific papers as well. I know - this is the case of "communication between scientists", so it needs to be accurate, but just imagine, how much more fun would it be to read them ;) .
ReplyDeleteRegarding the textbooks - in my opinion it is difficult to say, whether they should be replaced by something else...When I think about it right now I realize, that in computer science they have already been removed (to some extent). I mean - there is no point in buying books about some technologies, because things change so rapidly, that only the Internet can keep up. It is the teacher's role to show the direction and recommend some "further reading" for those, who are interested.
I do however use textbooks for example for learning new languages (but never only textbooks, because such approach makes the learning process extremely boring :) )
I saw a few serious lectures with teachers showing toys: for instance a model of a boat put on desk for emphasizing analogy with sailing. But these lectures weren’t strictly scientific but rather popular-scientific for non-experts.
DeletePersonally I still use textbooks for learning something about new technologies. A cause for doing it is that I don’t have a tablet or notebook and I like to read a few pages in bed before sleeping. I think that basis for some grounded technologies are still the same. When book only describes some technological aspects without showing ways of using them in concrete products/tools it may be used for learning by many years.
I agree with your opinion that there are some domains of knowledge that only Internet can keep up and buying textbooks does not make sense.
DeleteI agree that the textbooks in school sometimes (or probably 'usually' would be a better word) can be written in a way that is not suitable for the target audience. I remember that I had some issues with biology in primary school for this exact reason – I got bored of reading texts that were written using sophisticated language and made simple things seem so hard. I also see great benefits in using alternative ways of presenting knowledge, like making stories/presentations or other kind of visualizations that can create interactions between a teacher and his/her students.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I also think that in school books there should not be any misleading information. So for example: if some viruses don’t have DNA let’s not state that they do (just to make it simple). There are many ways of presenting information, and some can be achieved just by using different wording. So I do not think that too much simplification is good. Additionally, not all people like to learn the topics that they find interesting by using fun and casual comparisons. I can imagine my frustration if someone would start to teach me math by drawing “happy triangles” on the blackboard just to make geometry more fun.
If I’m the one who tries to teach others, I try my best to adjust my wording to the recipients. If someone is new to the subject, I try to avoid formal nomenclature and make a lot of references to everyday life, but if he is experienced in a specific field I know that he expects clear (and formal!) communication.
I would like to refer to your opinion about “too much simplification”.
DeleteI agree that “too much” is a good expression because it doesn’t show the strict border when simplification is too much. As I remember time of secondary school when I learnt classical Newton’s mechanics first time I didn’t think that this theory doesn’t work in areas where relativistic or quantum mechanics should be used because I didn’t know about existance of these areas. Maybe the same concerns viruses’ DNA. What do you think?
As you said. I think that it is not about making things simpler but about finding proper words to describe them. Sometimes textbooks contain sentences that are irrelevant regarding the main topic which only distracts the reader.
DeleteI think the reason why teaching with stories works so well is because people constantly verify how believable the story is when listening to it. In other words, they are checking the plot of the story against what they know about the real world. And that's what critical thinking is.
ReplyDeleteWhen you're reading a dry textbook written by experts, you just assume everything you're reading is correct. Even if you're not sure of something, you're better off assuming you're wrong and the text is right. That's the opposite of critical thinking.
Can everything be presented as a story? Maybe, but sometimes concise, clear and precise language is also needed. Especially for instructions, or when describing procedures, or in legal documents and students must learn to understand them too. I agree that knowing your audience is the key as has been said above.
Thanks for explanation why teaching with stories works. I think that it’s a very valuable opinion in this topic.
DeleteI always say that in school they should learn by fun:)
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion most of the textbooks are boring and written in that way that no one can understand them:)
I like the idea to explain some scientific subject in funny and simple way, and I agree with author that if you try to explain something to the kids you can miss some details because the key point is to understood the subject and make that subject interesting.
In my opinion not being funny is a one problem with textbooks. Second problem is impossibility for later reuse. I have a lot of problems with finding information in my daughter’s textbooks. Similarly I had two sets of books for technical subjects in my secondary school: one official for learning during lessons and one for real learning (where explanations was better than in the first set).
DeleteTextbooks is something you usually return to during your school year. How do you feel when someone insists on telling you a joke you already know? Imagine what would you fill if you had to read "funny stories in textbooks" again and again and again .... would that be funny you think? :)))
DeleteMake appropriate text books. Thats all. Teach the 13 year olds with pictures and funny stories, but introduce formal language to them, so they can understand the real science. This is very true. I remember the teachers (not just science) who were passionate about the topic and happy to be there. They made it fun and cared that I was learning. School comes down to memorization. When you have bullets vs paragraphs of "foreign" wordings, people are more likely to remember bullets. Have something straight down to the point, no need for emotional connection but if there is, it's just the better. When a person is able to understand something in a matter of seconds instead of 3-5 days than you know they are understanding and learning the curriculum well. No, the entire reason science is effective is because it uses precise measurements and wording not subject to interpretation. We shouldn't oversimplify or dum down the science, we should instead bring the students up to the level required to accurately comprehend and use the precise wording and methodology.
ReplyDeleteI agree that teaching on universities should be precise and accurate. But I’m not sure if we should use the same precise and accurate method in primary or secondary school when children and youths should more discover the world than study particular its aspects.
DeleteI can’t asses a relevance of sample with existence of virus’ DNA because I finished learning biology at primary school level 25 years ago. So my knowledge about DNA is only from TV and newspapers.
I find textbooks very useful and I am still using them quite often. For me it is the bes way of getting the full insight into the certain subject.
ReplyDeleteI do not trust internet as a huge amount of information is unverified and you can post there whatever you like, thus I think that textbooks and scientific articles are the best source of knowledge
I agree with mentioned by you problems with amount of information in the Internet and it’s verifiability. But on the other hand Internet gives new ways for knowledge delivery: videos, computer simulations, tests for continual self-examining etc.
DeleteMaybe if teachers choose appropriate sources in the Internet and authorize them learners won’t lose in the thick of information. I think that similar situation we have in the world of books. Many of them have a low quality but when we have to spend real money on them we often choose a better one.
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ReplyDeleteI think that better you understand some topic then simpler you can explain them. I also notice that for my favorite subjects in school I did not have to read any textbooks. I agree that quality of textbooks is low they are written using incomprehensible language and simple thinks are presented like rocket science. Storytelling is not a solution. Textbooks supposed to be simple, precise and logic. It also spouse to be presented in proper order, so the most important thinks should be presented or just introduced first. I remember my history lesson when my teacher always rapidly get into the details that except dates and places nobody knew what is going on. I really believe that internet improve a quality of school textbooks but not replace them. Unfortunately teachers in polish schools are not prefect (mainly due to low salaries) so good textbook can by last help for pure students. Internet as a source of (high school) knowledge is to wild and can by misleading. What I really do not understand (except of Conspiracy theory that publisher force government to keep "Status Quo" ) is why government supporting open source community do not provide high quality textbooks for schools in Poland.
ReplyDeleteI think that textbooks (including electronics ones) have some advantage over storytelling: they can be indexed what makes easier finding necessary information when we forgot it.
DeleteI think that there still is a place for good textbooks. Internet is quite common but not 100% coverage is provisioned yet. There are places that connectivity is present but is not enough to handle on-line education.
ReplyDeleteI think a textbook should present topics in understandable and easy way. You do not need to introduce funny stories to explain what matters with simplicity.
Maybe creating textbooks could be crowd-sourced and the changes introduced by people should only be moderated.
Having kids in high school I can assure you that present textbooks are not optimal. There is some content that is easy to learn although the topic is not an easy one but in the same time there are textbooks with easy topics written in hard to read an learn way.
Another thing is the availability of textbooks. I personally do not understand why there are no governmental websites with pdf textbooks available to download free of charge.