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I believe you have to write something out to truly learn it.

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With a couple of exceptions, high school was largely a joke. A&M was quite the splash of cold water on my arrogant face when I showed up in the Fall of 1985. As for the quoted, this is exactly how I got through Texas A&M. I'd have the lecture notes (or what I managed to write down during class), but then I'd get a pad of paper, a pen, and whatever textbook we were using and go through the material, writing down notes on everything necessary to learn what I needed for the next exam.

This is a process I continue to do to this day when I need to learn something that will be tested (such as a couple of AI certifications I recently earned).

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The article makes a pretty good case for less devices,

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fewer

Just read Anxious Generation.

Rubicante said:

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Ag98and03 said:

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btw why the pushback on smartboards in the classroom?

Would you rather teachers use chalk? an overhead projector and transparencies?

a projector?

wheel the tv in and use a vhs tape?

Smartboards can be rather helpful and a good tool to do the job.

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Poor children of today will never know the rush of delight that comes with seeing a tv being wheeled into the classroom.

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8mm movie project or GTFO

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This is funny. My kids (15 and 17) asked me about this a few days ago. I explained having chalkboards in all the rooms and overhead projectors with transparencies. Some teachers wrote directly on the projector with dry erase markers and then cleaned it off when everyone was on board with the material. My kids couldn't believe we didn't even have whiteboards at the time. (I started A&M in '93)

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I guess it depended on where your classes were. My engineering classes all had whiteboards, not chalk boards by my junior year, starting in fall of '89.

Though I did have one class in what is now the Rellis campus in a hangar with just a projector and a wall.

The technology in the classroom could be part of why students are not doing as well, but I'm not convinced that it is the main problem. The lack of attention spans created by technology/social media is a big part of it, but there are probably plenty of other societal factors at play as well.

Son went to the top performing public non-charter school in our state. Several years running top SAT/ACT score averages; US News and World Report top ranking in the state. The school is a public 'option school' allowed to carve its own path in many ways. The school founding documents require use of paper text books; 30 math problems every night; Core Knowledge (not common core) curriculum. Not a Stem curriculum, but students do so well in STEM that the school was named to the list of top STEM schools in the state. LOW use of technology (basically only what the District and State mandate). The school basically proves the old school methods work best, and can still provide very competitive STEM knowledge. Very happy our son went there.

AustinCountyAg said:

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the bigger reason for the educational downfall is lack of parental involvement in the children's life. Over half of the kids in schools these days are in a single family home and the parent is non existent.

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I can't speak for a single parent household, but when I was in school my parents were never really that involved in my school work. At best they'd ask if I had any homework, but that was about it. Fast forward to when my son was in school and he had classmates whose parents basically did all the homework with their kids starting in elementary school and helped them study on a daily basis, arranged tutors, SAT prep courses etc. and a lot of those kids failed to succeed in college. I think you either have to want to learn and gain knowledge or you don't and parental involvement only helps if the student truly wants to learn.

CDUB98 said:

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one safe place said:

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aggiehawg said:

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To this Ol' Dame can't say I am surprised Gen Z is largely ignorant and uneducated in the basics. Reading writing and arithmetic.

Bring back flash cards.

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And multiplication tables.

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They have ****ed up math so much. We had so much trouble trying to help our kiddo out in elementary with math due to the stupid way they forced the kids to answer. At least half the time she could tell us the answer from just doing it in her head, but trying to write out the dumb methodology got a short circuit.

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Amen. When my oldest daughter was in 7th grade, I came in from work and she was sitting at our dining room table, book open, papers everywhere, crying. I asked what was up. I figured she was tired and frustrated. She had basketball practice at like 6am, then school, then dance team after school. Didn't get home until around 7 or 7:30. She was crying because she couldn't figure out some math homework. I sat down, solved the problem. She began to cry again and said that isn't the way the teacher was teaching them to do it. I said I don't know how the teacher does it, all I can do is show her how I do it.

She went on to get a masters degree in math but quit teaching when some parent threw a rock and broke the back window of her then boyfriend's, now husband's, back window of his pickup that was sitting in her driveway.

akm91 said:

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This is funny. My kids (15 and 17) asked me about this a few days ago. I explained having chalkboards in all the rooms and overhead projectors with transparencies. Some teachers wrote directly on the projector with dry erase markers and then cleaned it off when everyone was on board with the material. My kids couldn't believe we didn't even have whiteboards at the time. (I started A&M in '93)

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I guess it depended on where your classes were. My engineering classes all had whiteboards, not chalk boards by my junior year, starting in fall of '89.

Though I did have one class in what is now the Rellis campus in a hangar with just a projector and a wall.

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Que?

When I was in engineering in the late 90s, there were still chalkboards in rooms. I think that is all Engineering Physics building had.

Dr. Kettleborough would make a damned mess of them every class.

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She began to cry again and said that isn't the way the teacher was teaching them to do it. I said I don't know how the teacher does it, all I can do is show her how I do it.

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Man, I feel this statement, right down to my soul.

It's Ted Kaczynski! Kidding, I agree tech is out of control.

What subject do you teach?

Any time I build something from scratch, I do calculations by hand, input into Excel and cross check against my hand calculations, and once I know that I've done it right there, I code it into Python on R and cross check that.

TRM said:

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Any time I build something from scratch, I do calculations by hand, input into Excel and cross check against my hand calculations, and once I know that I've done it right there, I code it into Python on R and cross check that.

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If I have an equation that has more about three operations or sets of parenthesis, I usually break it up into smaller equations to check the math. It isn't that I don't trust Excel. It is that I don't trust myself to properly key in a large equation in one line of text. About 15 years ago I set up a spreadsheet to calculate open channel flow in sewer mains, and I showed every variable. It gave me peace of mind and showed my work in case I had to share with someone else.

CDUB98 said:

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She began to cry again and said that isn't the way the teacher was teaching them to do it. I said I don't know how the teacher does it, all I can do is show her how I do it.

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Man, I feel this statement, right down to my soul.

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Same. My wife and I went through this many times with our youngest. The way the teacher wanted it done was so much more difficult and took way too many steps to get the same answer. And it wasn't steps with a purpose, it was unnecessary steps every damn time.

Fuzzy Dunlop said:

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CDUB98 said:

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She began to cry again and said that isn't the way the teacher was teaching them to do it. I said I don't know how the teacher does it, all I can do is show her how I do it.

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Man, I feel this statement, right down to my soul.

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Same. My wife and I went through this many times with our youngest. The way the teacher wanted it done was so much more difficult and took way too many steps to get the same answer. And it wasn't steps with a purpose, it was unnecessary steps every damn time.

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What comes around...

Early 1960s when "Modern Math" became the rage. First graders starting with sets. By third grad the "function machine". It was the perfect way to teach conceptual math..... IF you had teachers who actually understood conceptual math and wanted to teach it coupled with students interested in learning conceptual math. Otherwise it was just in the way of computing the answer.

From what I've seen the stuff now is kinda similar.

BadMoonRisin said:

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There's something that goes on in your brain when you write something down that does not happen when you type something out, I'm sure of it. I've always had to write things down when learning something new. Maybe I'm a visual learner.

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You probably are.

Everybody has different methods. I always hated the concept of having to memorize anything. Partly because I think it's dumb to try to force somebody to remember something, but also because I don't memorize for squat. Formulas, etc. - I had to write them down and if a test called for memorization I had a hard time with it as a result.

But that's also where I think teaching to how the real world works is far more valuable than trying to hammer knowledge into a kid's head. Teach them why something is done, the reason it is done and how it is done. But also teach them how to find the information they need to solve the problem because in the real world, that is what the bulk of any effort spent is spent on.

I had a structures prof at A&M that had every test as open book, open note, open homework. His mentality was that the second we are done with the class we weren't going to remember the formula on how to calculate the maximum axial load on a spiral wound reinforced column. But we would be able to use things like books or the internet to find the correct formulas and input the correct variables so that we got the correct answer. And to this day if I really had to, I could go through my book and find that information because he taught us how to use information to get the answer we need versus just trying to fumble our way through a formula to get an answer that may or may not be correct.

I also learn by doing - hands on type of stuff. There was a thread on here or the OB a while back lamenting the fact that so many people go to youtube to learn how to do a task. I didn't understand that mentality then and still don't. It is far easier for me to grasp how to perform a task by watching and doing than having somebody explain it to me or reading instructions that likely make no sense.

The point of memorizing things is to become more efficient so you can do other tasks faster. You can use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve triangles and use a number line to count 3 three times, count 4 four times, then count to 25, then look up the square root of 25 in a table, or you can just memorize a multiplication table that 3 squared is 9, 4 squared is 16, 5 squared is 25.

Just another data point....

'Film Students Can No Longer Sit Through Films'
https://calnewport.com/film-students-can-no-longer-sit-through-films/

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"I used to think, if homework is watching a movie, that is the best homework ever," Craig Erpelding, a film professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me. "But students will not do it."
I heard similar observations from 20 film-studies professors around the country. They told me that over the past decade, and particularly since the pandemic, students have struggled to pay attention to feature-length films.

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The presence of smartphones degrades cognitive patience because they activate neuronal bundles in our brain's short-term reward system that anticipate a high expected value from picking up the device. These bundles effectively vote for the distracting behavior, creating a cascade of neurochemicals that are experienced as motivation to grab the phone. After a while, due to a lack of practice, you lose your comfort with sustained attention altogether.

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Technology has been devastating to young people. They are zombies. They have the attention spans of gnats. They can't take their head out of their phone, are addicted to porn, have poor social relationships, don't know how to date or interact with the opposite sex.
I work at an elementary school and as soon as the bell rings you'll see kids as young as 2nd graders on their iPhone 17 with their heads buried in it.

GeorgiAg said:

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Not sure if I'm just getting old, but I think this technology is going to be our downfall.

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It is and AI is proving that more day by day.

Hogties said:

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When you have the knowledge of the world a click away on your phone you don't need anything in your head. Almost every Zoomer I've had any conversation of depth with on almost any subject (science, history, politics, civics, etc) leaves me shaking my head wondering what did they learn in school.

The answer is nothing. Most learned nothing. They are ignorant of basic facts and timelines because it's all knowledge that is spoon fed to them on a computer.

Total ignorance of geography, perhaps because they've literally never seen a paper map or atlas.

Total ignorance of history and the context for historical events. The level of history ignorance is shocking, just try to talk to a zoomer about history.

Turns out that having knowledge at kids' fingertips means having knowledge in kids' heads is beyond their grasp.

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This is incredibly depressing.

I think you're missing his point. I also have a terrible memory. I struggled as a biology major for three years because every test was really a test of your recall ability.

For me, being able to work with something hands on to solve a problem is a way more effective method for me to learn. And it does eventually stick once I'm able to manipulate what I'm working with. And that can be something like math concepts as well as physical items.

Public school is and has been garbage. Anything to reduce the number and footprint of government employees.

Computers don't stop students from missing assignments or failing to complete their work on time... and schools now build in study halls, intervention periods, and make-up opportunities every week. Despite that, the system continues to lower the bar. Students are often allowed to redo tests and assignments multiple times, deadlines are flexible, and some schools even enforce minimum grades so a zero doesn't significantly impact an average.

We receive constant email alerts about missing work, so there's more oversight than ever before. Even with all of these safety nets in place, it feels like students have almost no real risk of failure. When consequences are repeatedly softened or delayed, kids lose the incentive to put in consistent effort from the start. They've got no skin in the game....