School spies on kids through student laptops

[--Pete]

Hi,

But I do think one of the failings of our education system is too many synthetic problems for the sake of easier teaching. You need to not only teach the knowledge but how to apply it is as well.

I'm with you there. I also think that too much emphasis is put on problem solving and too little in understanding in many technical fields. One question like, "Explain the properties of Maxwell equations that led to the special theory of relativity and how that theory resolved the problem. Extra credit for discussing earlier partial solutions and their failings." is worth fifty "Events A and B (blah, blah) in a reference frame moving (blah blah)." for testing and fostering an understanding.

I don't think calculators should be allowed for everything in those disciplines, but I do think it's good to do some problems, where real world numbers just get ugly because that is what they do, and then you can allow the software to handle that work for you.

Years ago I read in a book whose name and author I no longer remember: "Once you've designed the road, you can use a bulldozer to push the dirt around. Once you've solved the problem, you can use the computer to push the numbers around." In the BC (Before Calculators) days of my youth, we learned to just carry the numbers through, or assign them to a parameter. First, we solved the problem, then we did the arithmetic. It didn't matter if the numbers were made up to be easy or a real world mess except at that last step.

Of course, if you're talking about problems that are not solvable analytically (high pressure fluid dynamics comes to my mind -- but then again, that was my field), then the use of computer codes is valuable. Still, it is good to understand both what those codes do and how they do it or you might just be back to the GIGO problem. And crash a package on Mars.

The trick on that is the balance.

Indeed, it usually is.:)

--Pete