Showing posts with label there. Show all posts
Showing posts with label there. Show all posts
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Is There Only One Right Answer A Challenge to the Teaching of Math and Science in Higher Ed
Is There Only One Right Answer A Challenge to the Teaching of Math and Science in Higher Ed
Many current promoters of MOOCs and other distance education models argue that higher education can be taught in a much more efficient way in fields like computer science, math, biology, and chemistry. According to high-tech educators, the main reason why these important disciplines can be streamlined is that there is only one right answer to questions and tests, and so a computer can easily grade these courses. On a most basic level, they claim that 2+2 will always equal 4, and thus, there is no need for creativity, critical thinking, or interactive discussions.
The problem with this logic is that it removes the STEM disciplines from any social, personal, or ethical context. In other words, students learn that math and science are impersonal, value-free fields founded on established, unchallengeable truths. While it is clear that students do need to learn basic formulas and concepts, all knowledge needs to be seen in its social and historical contexts. In fact, not only do we want students to think critically about the information they learn inside and outside of their classes, but we also need to train scientists and engineers to be innovative and creative. Moreover, with the increasing importance of issues like alternative energy, cloning, stem cell therapy, and climate change, science and math should be approached with ethical concerns front and center.
Purveyors of MOOCs like to say that online classes will not be any worse than the large lecture classes that dominate the undergraduate curriculum, and they have a point when they make this argument; however, we do not need a race to the bottom: what we need is to re-commit universities and colleges to spending resources on undergraduate instruction. Whether our goal is to compete in the global high-tech economy or train future citizens and responsible adults, higher education cannot be focused on simply transmitting and testing simplified facts and calculations. In fact, it is surprising that many of the most ardent promoters of MOOCs are themselves innovative computer scientists who think outside of the established box.
While China sends its students to American universities in order to build a creative class, it is ironic that the U.S. is seeking to dumb down its own curriculum. As I often tell my students, it is rare in life that you are confronted with one right answer or a simple multiple-choice test. Reality is far too complex for the reductive model of education that is often tied to MOOCs and a reductive vision of the STEM disciplines.
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Sunday, May 7, 2017
Is There Such a Thing As Slow Prototyping
Is There Such a Thing As Slow Prototyping
IDEO designer Keaton Herzer has written a terrific blog post titled, "What the hell is Rapid Prototyping?" Heres an excerpt:
It implies that there is an alternative?—?slow prototyping. I’m not aware of any design team that practices slow prototyping. That would be a waste of time and money for everyone and thatis super obvious. Let’s remind ourselves what the purpose of a prototype is: to test our ideas! History and statistics tell us that our ideas are wrong MOST of the time. So most of our prototypes will get thrown out after being invalidated. If that’s the case, why would we do anything but prototype rapidly? If you’re going to build a prototype?—?build it. Then test it. Then learn how bad your ideas were. Then do it again. I guess you could do that slowly if you wanted to, but I don’t see the point. There is no such thing as “rapid prototyping.” There is only prototyping?—?and you should be doing it rapidly.
I think slow prototyping does exist though, and its not a good thing. Consider how large companies engage in what they consider to be prototyping. They build a mock-up of a potential new product. However, they take quite some time to do so. They try to make it as "beautiful" as possible, as free of imperfections and problems as they can imagine. Why? They are actually trying to validate an idea that they have. Its a demonstration to others in the organization, often used to solicit resource commitments. Its not actually prototyping. Why is it slow? They do not want to hear lots of criticism. They want positive feedback, so they take lots of time to make it as "good" as they can. To me, thats the type of slow prototyping that does exist in many organizations, and it often is counterproductive. It inhibits learning and adaptation, and thereby prevents the type of rapid improvement that Herzer describes.
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Saturday, May 6, 2017
Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Feedback
Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Feedback
The Wall Street Journal reports today on the changing culture at Kimberly-Clark, maker of products such as Huggies diapers and Kleenex tissues. In this article, Lauren Weber writes the following:
"One of the company’s goals now is managing out dead wood, aided by performance-management software that helps track and evaluate salaried workers’ progress and quickly expose laggards... Armed with personalized goals for employees and large quantities of data, Kimberly-Clark said it expects employees to keep improving—or else. People can’t duck and hide in the same way they could in the past, said Mr. Boston, who oversees talent management globally for the firm. It has been a steep climb for a company that once resisted conflict and fostered a paternalistic culture that inspired devotion from its workers."
Weber goes to write that Kimberly-Clarks performance management system reflects a trend taking place in many companies, in which firms have eliminated annual merit reviews and replaced them with more continuous feedback. She cites examples such as Accenture, Adobe, and GE, all of whom eliminated traditional annual performance reviews. These firms have adopted real-time feedback systems for a number of reasons including, according to Weber, the belief that, "Millennial workers, meanwhile, demand more feedback, more coaching and a stronger sense of their career path."
My question is simple though: Can we take this shift to continuous monitoring, evaluation, and feedback too far? I keep hearing that millennials want more feedback, but Ive spent a ton of time around young people as a college professor. Im not sure any of us love being critiqued at every turn. We work on some projects that take some time to get off the ground. Some ideas require some time to take shape. In short, I think this shift taking place in corporate America raises some critical questions: Is too much early "feedback" going to quash some creative ideas? Are managers adept enough at offering constructive critique to make this type of real-time feedback system effective at many firms? Are we evaluating what truly drives success, or are we focused on what is easy to measure? Are we encouraging short term thinking when we provide real-time feedback, or are we making sure to keep long term objectives in mind?
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Thursday, March 23, 2017
Is There Too Much Worry About the Debt
Is There Too Much Worry About the Debt
In the March 15, 2010 TIME magazine article "Is There Too Much Worry About the Debt?," Zachary Karabell argues that the U.S. should not lose sight of the things that increase productivity and lead to real economic growth (which in turn, increase tax revenues): investment in physical capital (infrastructure, factories and machines), human capital (education and skills training), and technology.
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Sunday, March 5, 2017
Is there a helmet that protects against propaganda
Is there a helmet that protects against propaganda
I dont know about you, but Ive got a big ride coming up next weekend:
That means I have to train in order to meet my fitness goals® and achieve my personal best™. To that end, yesterday I scanned my to-do list, shrugged, crumpled it into a little ball, and fucked off for a ride:
This was my first "real" mountain bike ride since the doctor pronounced my thumb mended and ready for battle, and so I figured the wide gearing and plush tires of the Marin Pine Mountain 1 would help compensate for my rustiness.
As I scampered about the sun-dappled trails, I congratulated myself for shirking my responsibilities, and after awhile I stopped to enjoy a picnic lunch:
"Ah, this is the life," I thought to myself. "Except for this gluten-free bread, which pretty much sucks ass."
Go ahead, mock my diet. Hey, I suffer from middle-age onset wheat allergies, what am I supposed to do? Thankfully Ive eaten enough pizza and bagels for two lifetimes, so I suppose I can endure the rest of my existence without them.
By the way, astute readers will note Im using the helmet I bought when I visited Melbourne:
I chose it for two reasons*:
1) Being rusty, I knew that no harm could possibly come to me while wearing a piece of bicycle safety equipment that meets Australias rigorous standards;
B) My less dorky speed-biking helmet needs a new "retention system," which Ive been far too lazy to replace.
*[I actually only chose it for the second reason. In fact, the Australian helmets sheer bulk caused me to hit my head on one or two tree branches Ive ridden past countless times before without incident while wearing my more streamlined foam hat.]
Anyway, it was a delightful ride, and my rustiness only caught up with me towards the end of the ride when I got a little hung up on some rocks:
As I fell, I held my tender freshly-mended thumb in front of me while crying "NOOOOOO!!!" in slow motion, and in one deft move I removed my Australian helmet from my head and strapped it to my hand.
Thanks to all that nanny state magic from Down Under my thumb survived the tumble intact, and Im pleased to report I landed just shy of the disgusting stagnant swamp coated with the glimmering sheen of motor vehicle exhaust from the adjacent parkway:
Yay me.
Anyway, spills like that are the equivalent of slurred speech at the bar, in that theyre both signs you should head home now before you get into real trouble. So I pointed the fat tires of the Marin back towards the Bronx, stopping briefly in the park to expose my pasty mud-splattered legs to the sun:
And then switching to a completely different orange-and-gray bicycle for the school pick-up:
Between riding to and from the mountain bike trails of Westchester and hauling two children over the highest natural elevation in the Bronx on a 50lb bicycle its clear I am going to be unleashing some serious power on the Gran Fondont.
You have been warned.
Speaking of ride preparation, you know how everyones obsessed with #whatpressureyourunning? Well forget that. Because now its all about #whichdowntubeyourunning?
Am I the only person in the world who thinks that most bikes are adequately smooth, especially when it comes to riding on pavement? Weve got some spectacularly carpet-bombed streets in my neighborhood, yet I havent encountered the road surface that cant be adequately mitigated by some wider tires and perhaps a little bit of rider finesse--both of which seem a lot more straightforward than a bike that requires swapping out your freaking downtube:
Not to mention the inevitable disappearances when people lock their bikes up by that great big elastomer dong and the thieves just open them up like carabiners:
Alas, its only a matter of time before the gravel-riding set latches on to this exciting new technology and riders start carrying quivers full of different downtubes on their backs:
And the Softride:
In other news, its still Bike Month (wont it ever end?!?), and the misinformation campaigns and anti-cycling propaganda is coming fast and furious, like Mario Cipollini in the bathroom at a cocktail party. Consider this tweet from the Automobile Assholes of America, which marries good old-fashioned victim-blaming with the art of thoroughly brainwashed children in a downright offensive fashion:
(Via @Naparstek)
Yeah? Well Im guessing at least 90% of those bicyclists were killed by drivers, so the AAA can take that helmet and shove it up their ass.
Then, via a reader by the name of Geoff, comes this study that says bike share users need to wear helmets more...just because:
STUDY OBJECTIVE:
Public bikeshare programs are becoming increasingly common in the United States and around the world. These programs make bicycles accessible for hourly rental to the general public. We seek to describe the prevalence of helmet use among adult users of bikeshare programs and users of personal bicycles in 2 cities with recently introduced bikeshare programs (Boston, MA, and Washington, DC).
METHODS:
We performed a prospective observational study of adult bicyclists in Boston, MA, and Washington, DC. Trained observers collected data during various times of the day and days of the week. Observers recorded the sex of the bicycle operator, type of bicycle, and helmet use. All bicycles that passed a single stationary location in any direction for a period of between 30 and 90 minutes were recorded.
RESULTS:
There were 43 observation periods in 2 cities at 36 locations; 3,073 bicyclists were observed. There were 562 (18.3%; 95% confidence interval [CI] 16.4% to 20.3%) bicyclists riding shared bicycles. Overall, 54.5% of riders were unhelmeted (95% CI 52.7% to 56.3%), although helmet use varied significantly with sex, day of use, and type of bicycle. Bikeshare users were unhelmeted at a higher rate compared with users of personal bicycles (80.8% versus 48.6%; 95% CI 77.3% to 83.8% versus 46.7% to 50.6%). Logistic regression, controlling for type of bicycle, sex, day of week, and city, demonstrated that bikeshare users had higher odds of riding unhelmeted (odds ratio [OR] 4.4; 95% CI 3.5 to 5.5). Men had higher odds of riding unhelmeted (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4 to 1.9), as did weekend riders (OR 1.3; 95% CI 1.1 to 1.6).
CONCLUSION:
Use of bicycle helmets by users of public bikeshare programs is low. As these programs become more popular and prevalent, efforts to increase helmet use among users should increase.
Wait a minute. Why should it increase? Just because it can? This is like saying earmuff use on the New York City subway is low, and as mass transit ridership increases so should use of big fuzzy ear coverings. If anything the opposite is true, because as more and more people use bike share the less necessary helmets become. After all, cities become demonstrably safer for cyclists after bike share:
Late last week, several media outlets ran stories on a study published in the American Journal of Public Health that allegedly showed head injuries increasing in cities with bike-share programs. Kay Teschke, who studies city cycling at the University of British Columbia, read the news with great interest. Then she read the actual journal publication, and her interest changed to alarm.
"When I actually looked at the data, I thought, oh my goodness, the injuries actually went down," she says. "In the bike-share cities, the total number of injuries went down, and the number of head injuries went down."
The reason they dont use helmets in the Netherlands isnt because the laws of physics are different. Its because when everybody rides bicycles the streets get a lot safer.
Nevertheless, plenty of people want to scare you right off your bike and into the Hyundai dealership:
(Via Cheryl)
Nationwide, you’re more than twice as likely to die while riding a bike than riding in a car, per trip, according to a 2007 study led by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist Laurie Beck. Bike riding is also about 500 times more fatal than riding in a bus. Though Beck didn’t run numbers on subway and commuter rail systems, they may be the safest form of transportation of all. Despite a series of well-publicized accidents and maintenance issues, Metrorail and Metrobus reported just two injuries per million riders in 2015.
There you have it. Cycling is more dangerous than riding the bus, so you shouldnt do it.
And if that wasnt a powerful enough argument against commuting by bicycle, how about this one?
In addition to accidents, cyclists face another major health risk: Air pollution. Bike commuters inhale about three times as much air pollution as drivers, according to a 2015 study conducted in Fort Collins, Colo. For that study, commuters wore backpacks that measured their exposure to different kinds of air pollution, including carbon monoxide and black carbon. The Colorado State University researchers found that cyclists, due to their heavier breathing and longer commute time, ended up huffing far more pollution than drivers.
Bullshit. This is compelling just as long as you ignore the fact that riding your bike makes you fit, whereas sitting behind the wheel of a car while slurping coffee and scarfing drive-thru cuisine will send you to an early grave in an oversized coffin. Sure, thanks to our sedentary lifestyle the typical American needs to be buried in a piano case, but at least we remain safe and deeply in debt behind the wheels of our leased shitboxes that kill 30,000 people a year.
Make America great again?!? It already is, baby.
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