The world is coming to an end. There are many wrong ways to teach computers.
Some computer teachers fill the board with formulas and concepts in order to show the studentshow much they know about computers. The students walk out dazed. They are often not very impressed by the vast knowledge exhibited by the teacher. They are more likely to be impressed by the fact that this subject is hopeless. They are confounded by its immensity. They are also frustrated by the fact that they only wanted to know how to use the computer.
Other teachers offer a brief introduction to an application or language, and then ask the students to figure out an exercise on their own. The students may work on it, or consult with each other during or after class. At the end, they often do (sort of) of know the answer. They have invested tremendous effort in order to gain very little knowledge. With that kind of assignment, who needs a teacher?
Other teachers do the opposite: They spoonfeed the students. They distribute pages with precise directions of which keys to click, step by step, in order to achieve a certain goal.
The students glance back and forth, first at the page, and then at the screen following the instructions.
No learning takes place with this method. Some students actually memorize the sequence of clicks in order to pass the course, but they do not understand what they are doing.
Except for technician's courses, there is rarely any instruction of how to deal with mistakes, problems, errors, or things that go wrong. Students cannot even identify problems for the support staff. Lessons are presented in an ideal situation. If a computer breaks down then the student is taught to move to a working computer.
Most of these problems result from poor teachers. Most of them are experts in computers. They have studied about and interacted with computers for a good deal of their lives. They are out of their element when they are asked to relate to live human beings. They cannot explain concepts to people. Artificial intelligence means more to them than human intelligence.
These computer teachers know precisely how to relate to computers. They can type in the necessary instructions in order to achieve the best results. They sometimes forget that people have to be given different instructions.
Still others may be superb teachers, but they don't know enough about their subject matter. They do the best they can, but the students have little to learn.
These computer science teachers learned from experience. Perhaps they learned how to use the computer at a later stage at life. They did not study computer science.
The ideal teacher knows about computers and also about how to teach. They learned how to teach, and they experienced computer skills. Those teachers are rare indeed.
Please log off
- Source unknown
When it breaks down
More about teaching
More articles about computerization
Find out about Jewish and Hebrew forums
Are you required to read this article for a course? Do NOT print out the article. It is copyrighted.
Your exercise for this article is as follows:
Copyright © David Grossman. World rights reserved. This article may not be printed, forwarded, reproduced, or copied in any way or in any medium without written permission from David Grossman.
