Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Lazy?

On Fri, 18 Oct 2002 07:26:27 -0500 Tina Fanetti wrote:

I assigned my students in my astronomy class an observing project.
Basically all they have to do is plan a night of observing for the
date they are assigned.

I have told them that I have put all sorts of wonderful resources on
reserve for them in the library, like star charts etc.
They look at me like I am crazy and then ask me if it is on the web.

Herbert H Gottlieb wrote:

Using the www.google.com search engine, I just typed in two words,
"start charts". In a few seconds many star chart resources were listed
on my computer screen. One of these provided free star charts for
the current night . Perhaps the strudents were correct and should be
complimented for their insight.

I'm with Herb on this one.

There's a lot more to this than laziness. Despite the etymology,
IMHO the goal of homework is not to make the students work. It
is to give them the skill that comes with experience in solving
problems. If they can solve problems with less work, so much
the better!

Students (and teachers) need to break out of the work-for-work's
sake mentality. Instead, consider what it's like in the real
world (as opposed to the classroom): If the boss or the customer
asks you to do something, they don't care how hard you sweat
doing it. They just want it done, the sooner the better.

It's not like I'm opposed to libraries; I practically lived in
the library back in high school (before there was a web). I
had a deal with the teachers: as long as I got good grades,
I could go to the library instead of sitting in class and
being bored.

Since high school, I've spent on average less than two
hours PER YEAR in libraries. Nowadays almost anything worth
knowing is on the web somewhere. The skill of figuring out
what's authoritative and what's not is a valuable skill for
students to work out.

I've thought about this a lot. I sometimes analyze the server
logs for my own website, and it's quite clear that a lot of
hits come from kids who fired up a search engine and typed
in (sometimes literally) the statement of their homework
problem, e.g.
"I+need+to+write+about+cause+and+effect+and+give+examples"

I marvel at how unsophisticated that query is, but upon
reflection I don't see anything to complain about. After
all, the query worked! It got the kid to a treatise on
cause-and-effect that's IMHO clearer and more sophisticated
than anything likely to be found in a school library.

I would be very worried about a student who was content
to do things the hard way when an easier way was
available.

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of Hypatia, Hume,
Kant, Borges, or MacLeish.

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.