TEDTalks

TEDTalks and Responses

Arthur Benjamin's Formula for Changing Math Education

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Response:

To be quite honest, this video both enrages and intrigues me. Sometimes good ideas do that when a person is entrenched in a particular view. I haven't stopped thinking about it since the first time I watched it. On one hand, I agree that our curriculum builds to a pinnacle of calculus and I see that as a good thing. Calculus necessitates abstract thought and encourages problem solving and logical sequencing. On the other hand, loath as I am to admit it, Arthur Benjamin is correct. Our country is woefully deficient in its understanding of statistics.

"A number without a unit is ethereal and abstract. With a unit, it acquires a meaning--but at the same time, it loses its purity. A number with a unit can no longer inhabit the Platonic realm of absolute truth; it becomes tainted with the uncertainties and imperfections of the real world," (Seife, 2010, p. 10). Every day Americans are manipulated by misrepresentations in probability and statistics, and as we rely more on technology, we also seem to rely more on the certainty of numbers to prove just about anything. Americans are being manipulated because of our poor understanding of statistics and the dismissal of critical thinking that seems to occur concurrently with the illustration of a bar graph, which many people accept as "proof" of a particular assertion.

References:

Seife, C. (2010) //Proofiness: How you're being fooled by the numbers.// New York: Penguin Books.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?

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Response:

Sir Ken Robinson makes some excellent points in this video, such as his statement that children learn to be frightened of being wrong. When I am in class, I am adamant about having my students answer. The only wrong answer, I tell them, is no answer. If they give an answer that is incorrect, we all learn from it and I work extremely hard to provide an atmosphere in which there is no stigma attached to being wrong. This allows the student the freedom to analyze his or her own answer, to explain the reasoning behind it, to find the mistake and rectify it. Occasionally a student will display a startling insight into the problem while getting the arithmetic wrong, which galvanizes class discussion.

Another point that he makes addresses what I think of as neurodiversity: different styles of learning, different talents, different ways of being intelligent. This hits very close to home for me because my father is a very logical person, a sequential thinker and a list maker. My mother can build or fix nearly anything with next to no tools; she's an expert at jury-rigging and multi-tasking but because of an IQ test she took in high school, she is still-- nearly forty years later-- convinced she is not intelligent. I remember a particular high school IQ test all too well that had to do with sequential thinking: I was shown a series of cards with pictures on them and asked to put them in order. I told the doctor that the sequence depended on the story ... did the woman get out of her car, forget something, go back, and then go to the store? Did she go straight from her car to the store and back? Did she work at the store, go out to her car, and return later to go home? He said he could not tell me. I honestly did not know what they wanted me to say and became quite frustrated.

Because my parents are extremes at both ends of the spectrum in nearly every way, I learned to value divergent thinking and creative problem solving as much as logical thought and sequential processing. I try to tailor my lessons so that they address many types of intelligences and I desperately want students to value their own unique abilities and learning styles. Too many young people do not fit the mold of the "outstanding student" and their talents go unrecognized; this results in low self-eesteem and eventually, low effort and low income. I truly appreciate this diversity and believe we can all learn from each other. A nation of students with high self-esteem, recognized talents, and an expectation of success could lead to another Renaissance.

Alexis Ohanian: How to Make a Splash in Social Media

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Response:

I chose to watch this video because of a question I had due to EDTP 687: Once you've established an online presence, how do you connect with other people? I thought this was an entertaining and insightful look at the answer from one of the creators of Reddit. It was lighthearted and funny and didn't take itself seriously, which was part of Mr. Ohanian's message. His three key points are applicable not only online, but in the classroom:

1. Be genuine. 2. It's okay to take yourself less seriously. 3. You can't always control the message, and that's okay.

At first glance, many teachers would cringe at these points, particularly the third; however, if you want to encourage creative thinking, you have to be willing to loosen the reins. This does not mean posting inappropriate content on the web. This does not mean losing control of your class. It does not mean completely giving up your learning goal for the day. This only means that sometimes it is appropriate -- even beneficial -- to loosen up and let students explore material on their own, even if their way of getting to the main point is not the way you had mapped out carefully in your lesson plan, complete with flowcharts and anticipated questions and responses. Similarly, you cannot control people's reactions online, you can only learn to present yourself genuinely and appropriately, cultivate lightheartedness, and roll with people's reactions as they come in.

RSA Animate: Changing Education Paradigms

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Response:

Again, Sir Ken Robinson addresses the need for a new educational paradigm. The current paradigm is outmoded and stresses so-called academic achievement over non-academic achievement, which is to say that we emphasize intellectual intellegence over kinesthetic intelligence or artistic intelligence. While there may have been a need for this type of schooling during the Industrial Revolution, times have changed and continue to change at a pace so rapid that we cannot even predict what will prepare our students for future success. His contrast of aesthetic experience with anesthetic experience is one I had not considered before and I find it highly intriguing. He states, "We should be waking [students] up to what they have inside of themselves!" which is precisely what I am aiming for in my classroom. Sir Robinson highlights the way in which we separate subjects and students into discrete batches, encouraging conformity instead of creativity. He then mentions one of my favorite phrases -- actually the search phrase in my Twitter wiki, "divergent thinking" -- and quotes a study in which 98% of kindergarteners scored at genius level in divergent thinking but as they became more educated their scores deteriorated. This gives me hope because I believe that divergent thinking is the cornerstone of creative thought; when we encourage this practice in students and combine it with their awareness of their own unique strengths, balancing it with knowledge and critical thinking, educators might help produce a generation that could change the world.