Random/Interesting/Weird

[Malcador]

2 hours ago, Amentep said:

But if you think students learn from testing, you don't understand testing.

Well, you do learn to cope with stress and terror.

[Amentep]

16 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Well, you do learn to cope with stress and terror.

Still not the point of the test, just a bonus side-effect.

[Malcador]

7 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Still not the point of the test, just a bonus side-effect.

You don't know some of my professors

[Hurlshort]

Test taking is a skill that can be developed through practice. The student has learned the content, now how do they demonstrate that knowledge? 

Of course, it is just one way to demonstrate it and I dislike how much weight we give it.

[Gfted1]

Jury Awards Man $450k For Firing Over Unwanted Birthday Party, Panic Attacks (tmz.com) 

[Amentep]

15 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

Test taking is a skill that can be developed through practice. The student has learned the content, now how do they demonstrate that knowledge? 

Of course, it is just one way to demonstrate it and I dislike how much weight we give it.

Testing is a tool, but it shouldn't be the only tool used.  I really think multiple measures give the best view of the student.

And standardized tests shouldn't be used for anything other than what they're designed to do.

[Gromnir]

7 hours ago, Amentep said:

...

*sigh*

you missed your fellow mod's attempt at humor. 

18 hours ago, Gromnir said:

jic amnesia or early onset dementia presents and people forget how concerns were already addressed.

is what we wrote 'cause when hurl posted this same exact stuff last summer, a few individuals had difficulty with, "the field’s basically just a 100 years old" observation.

example:

please note the date, yes?

to help those with the misunderstanding...

the "new" issue were a groundhog day topic, and recognizing that the 100 year issue would likely be resurrected, we were preemptive driving a stake into its heart, which o' course prompted a predictable tricycle drive-by from the most predictable o' sources.

*shakes head sadly*

am admitted saddened when literal the only person who gets it is tricycle mod.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by Gromnir
added a "recognizing" and removed clutter conjunction

[Sarex]

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/twitter-elon-musk-buy-company-b2064819.html

[Sarex]

So a lot of movies that Hans Zimmer did involved a bunch of ghost writers.

https://graphcommons.com/graphs/5a6fb290-275d-4e17-9ffb-69916acac704?auto=true

[Raithe]

A curious find of an article from last year: https://travelnoire.com/sundown-towns-2021

Edited May 3, 2022 by Raithe

[Raithe]

 

[rjshae]

On 4/18/2022 at 12:27 PM, Amentep said:

Testing is a tool, but it shouldn't be the only tool used.  I really think multiple measures give the best view of the student.

And standardized tests shouldn't be used for anything other than what they're designed to do.

I believe it's called "homework". 

[Gorth]

24 minutes ago, rjshae said:

I believe it's called "homework". 

The effectiveness of homework as a learning tool ranks up there with tax breaks for the top 1% being good for the economy when it comes to urban legends. I wish somebody had told my teachers that

 

https://evidenceforlearning.org.au/the-toolkits/the-teaching-and-learning-toolkit/all-approaches/homework-primary/

 

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

The effectiveness of homework as a learning tool ranks up there with tax breaks for the top 1% being good for the economy when it comes to urban legends. I wish somebody had told my teachers that

 

https://evidenceforlearning.org.au/the-toolkits/the-teaching-and-learning-toolkit/all-approaches/homework-primary/

 

dunno. am most assured not a supporter o' busywork; doesn't benefit student. however, in theory, a teacher who provides meaningful homework will receive useful feedback as they review homework, yes? an educator may look at homework as a way to gauge what lessons is successful and which is failing with a class before the students is compelled to take an exam and prove what they learned. also am suspecting the value o' homework as a basic survival skill might be misunderstood. unless things has changed much in the past few years, you don't get homework in university, grad school, med school, law school, etc. however, the study load at elite universities and post grad institutions o' learning increases substantial compared to even the most arduous high school homework regimen. am suspecting there is a shock to the system awaiting a student who had little homework in high school, and then sudden realize they need put in multiple hours o' work studying for every in-class hour if they wanna succeed at a decent university.  

am agreeing that almost none o' the homework we had to do in high school felt useful. even so, am not confident our feels represents what were useful 'bout homework. educators should be able to glean meaningful feedback from homework and homework is no doubt a basic life skill for anybody planning to go to a demanding school o' higher learning. am also guessing that if Gromnir anticipates less salient benefits o' homework, there is likely additional positives if is used appropriate as 'posed to mere busy work.

HA! Good Fun!

[Malcador]

They check your homework in the US ? Here they assigned problem sets or whatever but generally didn't care if you did them.

[Gromnir]

17 minutes ago, Malcador said:

They check your homework in the US ? Here they assigned problem sets or whatever but generally didn't care if you did them.

we were assigned near nightly homework for every class (save gym and the like) which were then graded. homework represented a not insignificant % o' our total grade for a course but considerable less than tests. however, keep in mind our high school years occurred in the 80s. @Hurlsnot would have a better idea o' how things work nowadays.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[rjshae]

3 hours ago, Gorth said:

The effectiveness of homework as a learning tool ranks up there with tax breaks for the top 1% being good for the economy when it comes to urban legends. I wish somebody had told my teachers that

 

https://evidenceforlearning.org.au/the-toolkits/the-teaching-and-learning-toolkit/all-approaches/homework-primary/

 

You're... full of it, I'd say. 

[Hurlshort]

20 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

we were assigned near nightly homework for every class (save gym and the like) which were then graded. homework represented a not insignificant % o' our total grade for a course but considerable less than tests. however, keep in mind our high school years occurred in the 80s. @Hurlsnot would have a better idea o' how things work nowadays.

HA! Good Fun!

 

There is some pushback against homework nowadays, but there are still a fair amount of teachers that rely on it heavily. We have plenty of evidence and studies that show it isn't a great tool, but the tradition stands. Oddly enough, gym class has become more academic since the days of Grommie pummeling his classmates in dodgeball.

I'm not anti-homework, but I find that it is too often just busywork. As a parent I'm also very aware that these kids have little time during the week to get homework done. My daughter is often up after we've gone to bed finishing French homework. I'd rather her get to bed.

[Amentep]

My understanding was that homework was originally supposed to be a guide for what the student needed to study and then for the instructor* to see if the students were actually understanding what was being presented to them.  I imagine the idea of grading homework came as a way to disincentivize not doing the homework and thus not giving the instructor a chance to correct or redirect lessons before tests.

I was never a fan of required homework, but would often do some homework until I felt I understood the material.  I still remember an instructor who not only wanted us to do homework but also required us to outline chapters the way she described and to hand-in the outlines.  I can't learn from outlining the chapters, never have been able to, so I refused to do it as it would take me longer to complete for no benefit.  She sat me outside of her class so I wouldn't receive instruction since I 'couldn't follow instructions' stating that I would fail her class as I was not getting her instruction.

Then she got mad at me when I aced her tests every time.   She got her revenge later though...

*remember that in small schools for many years, multiple classes could be in one room, and older students would assist the younger if not directly involved in the teacher's lesson.

[Azdeus]

3 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

There is some pushback against homework nowadays, but there are still a fair amount of teachers that rely on it heavily. We have plenty of evidence and studies that show it isn't a great tool, but the tradition stands. Oddly enough, gym class has become more academic since the days of Grommie pummeling his classmates in dodgeball.

I'm not anti-homework, but I find that it is too often just busywork. As a parent I'm also very aware that these kids have little time during the week to get homework done. My daughter is often up after we've gone to bed finishing French homework. I'd rather her get to bed.

The only homework I ever did in school was when the social sciences teacher told us to read news for the next class, I didn't get penalized for not doing homework either.

[Raithe]

To be fair, the telescope is observing x-rays emitted by the gas outside the black hole's event horizon and converting it to visible wavelengths. That's the picture. Then it's being fed into this sound-creating algorithm.

 

Space.Com - How Black Hole observations were turned into sound

Edited May 5, 2022 by Raithe

[Gorth]

On 5/4/2022 at 6:57 AM, Raithe said:

A curious find of an article from last year: https://travelnoire.com/sundown-towns-2021

I had to find a wiki page through google to find out what a "Sundown Town" is. Scary reading.

[Gorth]

Space... the final frontier. To boldly go where no criminal has gone before! (cue 60's TV music)

https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/05/05/outlaws-in-orbit-canada-to-introduce-a-new-law-to-punish-astronauts-committing-crime-in-sp

 

Nowhere is safe from the Canadian Mounties anymore

 

Canadian astronauts who commit crimes on the Moon could face punishment under a new law that extends the country's criminal jurisdiction into outer space.

The "Civil Lunar Gateway Agreement Implementation Act" is a piece of legislation added on to the country's 2022 federal budget, which passed its first reading in Canada's House of Commons - the lower house of parliament - at the end of April.

 

 

[Raithe]

 

[Gorth]

We're getting stupider apparently... human brain sizes having reached their apex about 3000 years ago. So why is human brains going to be a thing of the past?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220503-why-human-brains-were-bigger-3000-years-ago

Before reading the article, I had some funny thoughts, like dumbification caused by social media or Rupert Murdoch to be the culprits... but in hindsight, even Murdoch isn't 3000 years old (close, but not quite).

Then I thought, maybe it's evolution in action, according to the principle 'use it or lose it', which is living beings losing body parts and functions that doesn't see enough use to justify their existence.

Turned out my second guess was a bit closer than the first one... the article speculating that humans are like the cranium-rats from Planescape: Torment. We do more group think and think less individually when living in large collectives and then the 'use it or lose it' principle kicks in