Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

Missed this article when it first came out last summer.


August 19, 2009, 1:08 pm


Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

By STEVE LOHR

 
“On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

 

“The technology will be used to create learning communities among students in new ways,” Mr. Regier said. “People are correct when they say online education will take things out the classroom. But they are wrong, I think, when they assume it will make learning an independent, personal activity. Learning has to occur in a community.”

 

"Get to know your ..."

Another physician-patient story in which I keep hearing the word student instead of patient. 

From Thursday's Morning Edition, a piece 4-minute piece by Richard Knox that is well worth listening to.
Crusty Patient Helps Shape Doctor's Career. 

Mitchell says Dick taught her the difference between medical treatment and medical care.

"To be willing to follow your patient to where they want to go is an uncomfortable journey, and it changed me forever," she says.

She's no longer afraid, she adds, "to allow my patients to take me on their journey. Whatever expertise we have, the patient holds the wisdom of their life. And we need to be with our patients — really be with them."

Mitchell often tells the story to medical students and young doctors in training. Sometimes they say, "How will we have time to get to know our patients?"

Her response is: "How can you afford not to? How can you afford not to connect to your patient before anything else happens

The younger one's student is, the harder it is to be true to what Suzanne Mitchell says here. But if one believes it to be true for adults, then it must be true for everyone.

"What is a great teacher?" [take two]

Can you believe that Steven Anderson is copying me? 

A few weeks ago in "What, exactly, makes a teacher effective?" I posted a wordle derived from descriptions that students from around the world used in a UN-sponsored book. 

Not long afterwards, Steven Anderson had a twitter edchat on "What Makes a Great Teacher?"  His wordle is derived from words used by educators.

His offers an intersting picture of the other side of the coin.[Sadly blogger won't let me juxtapose them here]

"Scholarly Investments"

NY Times:  Fashion & Style


Scholarly Investments

By NANCY HASS

Published: December 6, 2009

Charter schools have become the “hot cause” for New York’s hedge fund managers.
 
 
Without understanding the politics of charter schools, I am for them based on their principle.  Similarly I am not against the concept of capitalism, at least in the way I understand it.
 
All the same, this article about the financial support that New York charter schools get from hedge fund managers was disconcerting in a way that I don't yet understand.  I will have to explore this in greater detail.

Robo.to

Robo.to is to video what Twitter is to text.  Say it in 4 seconds.  Sorry, GTG.

Do you realize that 4s means you will only get to see me brushing one tooth? [That should have been a second boot.  Or is it root?  Or maybe toot?

Pan balance manipulatives

In class today Tom, Jan and myself had a really productive discussion about binary operations on negative numbers.  We tossed around a whole bunch of analogies of how one could explain this seemingly elusive concept.  It was interesting how each one of us had our own internal image of the audience we would be teaching to, and and our own preferences for what we felt we'd find effective.

When I got home, I spent some time searching for tools to develop an applet for an idea I had.  If you search on the web, you can find a whole bunch of virtual manipulatives of the two-pan balance.  But I could not find any that allowed me to add a negative number to one side.  If you use a balance with shapes, imagine the negative numbers as helium-filled balloons.  So I want to develop or adapt an applet that can add balloons.  (Scuba divers will easily appreciate how bouyancy and ballast interact.  Thanks for explaining, Kaylan)

But then I discovered this thing I had never heard about before.  The four-pan balance. 

In the picture above, the inner pans represent adding negative numbers;  the outer pans positive numbers. The difficult-to-see white pointer on the central support points to the heavier side.  Adding negative numbers moves the pointer away from your side - i.e. your side just got lighter.

There are all sorts of games one can make up using this really nifty gadget.  Here's one I am mulling over for two players.  (Warning: it is not a beginnners' version)

1.  Each player gets 20 poker/checker counters.  10 black, 10 red.  You also need a 6-sided dice.
2.  A black counter is +1, a red counter is -1.  So your starting score is 0.
3.  On your roll, you have to move that many counters on or off your side of the balance.  For example, if you roll a '4', then you add or remove 4 blacks (+4,or -4).  Or add or remove 4 reds (-4, or +4).  Or you can add 3 reds and 1 black (-3 + 1=-2).  Or you can add 3 reds and remove 1 black (-3 - 1 = -4).  etc.
4.  Black counters may only be placed on the outer pans.  Red counters only on the inner pans.
5.  On your turn, if you equalize both the sides, then you get to take all the counters in the 4 pans, or give them all to your opponent.
6.  First person to a predetermined score (say 10) wins.

Feel free to make or suggest your own rules.