Eriz Mazur's Keynote at ICER 2011 - The scientific approach to teaching: Research as a basis for course design

I came across an interesting presentation by Eric Mazur on how to teach students physics better.

The perceived test result differences between gender is probably due to culture.

• The study tested American and Taiwanese students, and the gender difference among Taiwanese students was not significant.

Interactive teaching and engagement improves test scores.

• However, not all engagement is useful or helpful. For example, showing students physics demonstrations may have an adverse impact as students may remember the demonstration using the wrong understanding of the principles. Hence, when you show students something, be very aware of what they are taking away from what you are demonstrating.

Students like teachers to be clear.

Confusion is a good sign.

• It shows that the students are trying to make sense of what is being taught.

I wonder how this affects technical education (the supposedly more science, math and computing subjects) for girls.

Blog post:

http://computinged.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/eric-mazurs-keynote-at-icer-2011-observing-demos-hurts-learning-and-confusion-is-a-sign-of-understanding/

Slides:

http://mazur.harvard.edu/search-talks.php?function=display&rowid=1712&szrowids=&searchURL=function%3Drecent

Given that I teach tuition to 2 girls, this is interesting. I'm still thinking about how to incorporate this.

Anger: Getting angry at an educator's attitude

Recently, I received a call from a tuition agency for an assignment.

What really pissed me off was the comments that the previous tuition teacher made about the assignment.

I asked the person from the tuition agency whether anyone else had applied for the assignment. She told me about the conversation she had with another teacher.

Tutor Anonymous: "Normal tech ah? No hope lah.. Don't want to teach."

WTF?

I admit I'm not a good teacher nor qualified enough, but seriously.. that pisses me off.

You can state quite honestly that the student might have a lack of discipline in studying, lack of interest, little time management or prioritisation and the assignment is difficult.. etc but no hope?

To tutor Anonymous, if any teacher made that comment about your kid, what would you feel?

The student might just be better at business, making stuff, dance, design.. just not that interested in the standard curriculum offered by Singapore's education system.

Howard Gardner - Theory of Multiple Intelligences
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences