Re: What to teach (was: American students do poorly)

[Tim Burgess <tburgess@jaguar1.usouthal.edu>]

> you did in the past?  It occurred to me the other day that many of the
> INTERACTIVE classroom techniques that are all the rage today are perhaps
> really substitutes for what students USED to do in the past, ON THEIR OWN,
> during study sessions.  We now formalize such, spoon feed it to students,
> and use our very limited contact time to teach them basic study skills.

This is an interesting observation that is new to me.  You may be quite 
right concerning the interactive nature of study.

You also touch on the issue (not explicitly) of motivation.  I do 
fully agree that motivation, if we were able to measure it, would explain
much of the lack we see and assign to lack of ability and achievement.

I do not want to fight too hard. My career depends on a falling sky.  I
love studies that compare the top 15% of stundents in another country
to a no stakes full population cross section test of Math skills in our 
country.  IT makes for a fine first paragraph of any request....

Tim