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I don't believe that is the case. I first noticed this when I returned to school to work on my MAT. My younger classmates had zero ability to assess their own work. They didn't know if something was right or wrong without being able to check the answers in the back of the book. Often we'd walk out of an exam and they'd talk about how easy it was and they were sure they aced it only to see a look of dismay on their faces when they failed the test. They didn't seem to have enough sense to know what they didn't know. I didn't understand where this came from until I started teaching. If I ask a question in class out come the cell phones. They don't try to reason through the problem they want to google it.
This is something new. In fact it's one of the reasons I decided to move from engineering to teaching. Starting in about Y2K, I noticed that the incoming engineers had some similar characteristics that weren't good. They needed to be told what to do, told when it was right, and they needed to be patted on the back frequently or their self esteem went into the toilet. Year after year my boss chose not to hire the engineers in training that would come through our group. I asked him why and he told me he couldn't deal with having to pat them on the back just for showing up to work. That decision would come back to haunt him when in spite of not hiring new people for years he still had to make the same cuts all the other departments made. If he'd hired them maybe I'd still be an engineer. I was one of the last cut. .
I agree with you quite a bit on that. Mentioned in a earlier post about having to teach young engineers how to use a library. Not kidding. One example is I told one of them to do X. He Googled and of course found nothing. But rather than admit that, he made up something and submitted it. So when I brought it back to him and asked why he had not followed what I asked, he said it didn't exist. Then I gently suggested "try the library" (where I knew it was) and got the dear in the headlights look. So yes, I actually have our librarian give a class to new hires on using the library.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
We'll I was writing my own lab procedures in high school without expressly being taught how to do so. How many labs do you have to do before you get the idea of how procedures are written? I remember my mid term final VERY well. We walked in on Monday and the teacher gave us two test tubes. By Friday we had to tell him what was in them. While there were test stations set up around the room (with procedures on how to do each test) it was up to us to decide the order of the tests and whether or not we needed a separation in between steps. ...
My chemistry teacher did not teach us how to do this task. It was an application task. We had done labs throughout the semester using the tests and separation techniques we'd need. What we had to do was develop a flow chart of tests and separations that would allow us to identify the uknowns without running out of solution to test. Today I'd have to hold their hands, walk them through the process and then give them more of their unknowns because they blew it.
I would say you probably had an exceptional chemistry teacher, but there are very few like that. You will find a lot, perhaps most, schools around the country where there are few to no hands on labs for the students. They don't "do" lab; they watch the teacher, or worse are taught to Youtube it. The only hands on they get is more ghee-whiz stuff than any real chemistry. Even in many colleges it seems. A few years ago I sat in on a freshman course at a local college. The professor did all demos up front of the room and students were not even allowed to touch the equipment. Very different from my university experience which was very hands on.
These are college grads we're getting who don't know how to do a procedure or a write-up. In fact they will use the word experiment as justification for not writing a procedure. "It's just an experiment, a procedure would get in the way." It makes me want to just slap them silly.
I agree with you quite a bit on that. Mentioned in a earlier post about having to teach young engineers how to use a library. Not kidding. One example is I told one of them to do X. He Googled and of course found nothing. But rather than admit that, he made up something and submitted it. So when I brought it back to him and asked why he had not followed what I asked, he said it didn't exist. Then I gently suggested "try the library" (where I knew it was) and got the dear in the headlights look. So yes, I actually have our librarian give a class to new hires on using the library.
I would say you probably had an exceptional chemistry teacher, but there are very few like that. You will find a lot, perhaps most, schools around the country where there are few to no hands on labs for the students. They don't "do" lab; they watch the teacher, or worse are taught to Youtube it. The only hands on they get is more ghee-whiz stuff than any real chemistry. Even in many colleges it seems. A few years ago I sat in on a freshman course at a local college. The professor did all demos up front of the room and students were not even allowed to touch the equipment. Very different from my university experience which was very hands on.
These are college grads we're getting who don't know how to do a procedure or a write-up. In fact they will use the word experiment as justification for not writing a procedure. "It's just an experiment, a procedure would get in the way." It makes me want to just slap them silly.
I don't think my chemistry teacher was exceptional. Expectations of students were different. As I said, we were not taught how to write procedures but after following so many of them we figured it out. We figured out the reasons you do some things before others. We actually thought about things instead of just looking them up and copying what someone else did. I have students who think but they are the minority. They do well in lab and don't flinch when I say they'll be writing their own procedures. The questions they will ask about said procedures are thoughtful while their peers want me to list the steps. We're now on the second generation growing up with the internet who can look up anything they want when they want. They just don't see a need to think.
Your example of young engineers is an example of what I'm seeing in the classroom. Both of us are dealing with the google generation and if the instructions aren't easy or right there they give up. They don't trust their own work....hence "It's just an experiment" that doesn't need procedures . They don't get that the company owns that experiment and it can't be repeated without good procedures. How to use a library is a great example because it's not just a few easy steps. It often requires asking the same question different ways to find what you want. I find my students can't do this and neither could the new engineers in the early 2000's. The ones my boss refused to hire permanently because he felt we were better off without them.
As a teacher I find that cheating is RAMPANT. When I catch kids cheating they tell me they weren't cheating they were just "Using their resources". They think it's ok to take someone else's work and pass it off as their own. They honestly think that FINDING it makes it theirs. They don't understand why I give zeros when I catch them. It's in my syllabus so they cant' argue but knowing that for every one I catch a dozen got away with cheating I think zeros are warranted. If they cheated on this assignment they probably cheated on the others too. The amount of time and effort I put into thwarting cheating is ridiculous and I know I barely make a dent in it. I make it painful when they are caught hoping that the next student will think twice.
Google ways to cheat. THIS is the generation you and I are dealing with. I don't think my teachers were exceptional. I think we just used our brains more. To me the internet is a tool. To them it's their brain.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 05-29-2016 at 07:12 AM..
They don't trust their own work....hence "It's just an experiment" that doesn't need procedures . They don't get that the company owns that experiment and it can't be repeated without good procedures. How to use a library is a great example because it's not just a few easy steps. It often requires asking the same question different ways to find what you want. I find my students can't do this and neither could the new engineers in the early 2000's. The ones my boss refused to hire permanently because he felt we were better off without them.
They don't seem to get that, or the need for repetition for statistical validity. Or for independent scientists being able to duplicate the results. The first, quickest answer is good enough. They don't seem to grasp that when we're dropping a million dollars into a test series, 20 minutes planning is not good enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
As a teacher I find that cheating is RAMPANT. When I catch kids cheating they tell me they weren't cheating they were just "Using their resources". They think it's ok to take someone else's work and pass it off as their own. They honestly think that FINDING it makes it theirs. They don't understand why I give zeros when I catch them. It's in my syllabus so they cant' argue but knowing that for every one I catch a dozen got away with cheating I think zeros are warranted. If they cheated on this assignment they probably cheated on the others too. The amount of time and effort I put into thwarting cheating is ridiculous and I know I barely make a dent in it. I make it painful when they are caught hoping that the next student will think twice.
Google ways to cheat. THIS is the generation you and I are dealing with. I don't think my teachers were exceptional. I think we just used our brains more. To me the internet is a tool. To them it's their brain.
I agree with everything you say, but also wonder how much of this is driven by the high stakes standardized testing empire? Heck, the schools around here spend more time teaching test taking techniques and using all their resources, it's easy to see that students don't understand the mixed messages. Right now there is a scandal brewing in one of the largest districts in our state about principals and teachers manipulating test data to get a good AYP score for the district. So the not so subtle message to students is that "using all your resources" is not cheating but an essential survival skill.
They don't seem to get that, or the need for repetition for statistical validity. Or for independent scientists being able to duplicate the results. The first, quickest answer is good enough. They don't seem to grasp that when we're dropping a million dollars into a test series, 20 minutes planning is not good enough.
I agree with everything you say, but also wonder how much of this is driven by the high stakes standardized testing empire? Heck, the schools around here spend more time teaching test taking techniques and using all their resources, it's easy to see that students don't understand the mixed messages. Right now there is a scandal brewing in one of the largest districts in our state about principals and teachers manipulating test data to get a good AYP score for the district. So the not so subtle message to students is that "using all your resources" is not cheating but an essential survival skill.
I learned this lesson well as a co-op working on paint formulations. One of the lab techs mixed a batch of paint and low and behold it delivered the desired results after MONTHS of trials. Unfortunately, he did not write good procedures and the experiment could not be duplicated. I don't know if they ever figured out what he did that made it work. It doesn't matter what you do if you can't do it again.
I don't think cheating is driven by high stakes testing. Cheating is about getting the best grade for the least effort. If anything it would lower your score on high stakes tests because you don't really know the material. My student's attitudes about what constitutes cheating is telling. They see getting answers from someone else, or getting a picture of a test before they take it, or use of technology to get test answers as "Using their resources" not cheating. To them it's about FINDING the desired information not about what they know or can do. They honestly think the person who FINDS it first on the internet is the smart one.
I don't think our cheating problem has anything to do with standardized high stakes tests. If anything cheating drags those scores down because the kids don't actually know the material they cheated on. I think cheating is rampant because it has become so easy with technology and they are used to being able to use technology. They honestly don't understand why they can't just look it up or get the answer from someone else because that's what they'll do IRL. This is what they do when they do their homework (IF they do their homework - I love my C and D students because they're not my cheaters. They earn their grades) so it's all they're prepared to do on the test. I think the problem is how easy it is to cheat and that they don't view using technology as cheating. They consider it a "resource". At the same time they are pushed by parents to get grades that will get them scholarships. So they cheat to get the best grade.
They kind of cheat on high stakes tests like the ACT and SAT because they take hour upon hour of prep classes and take multiple practice tests then retake the actual test until they get the score they want. IMO those tests are no longer an indicator of the student but rather how well the student prepared for the test. My district pulls kids out for multiple seminars on how to take the test and gives 4 practice tests before the actual test. Our scores are high and go higher when kids retake the test. It's all about test prep.
Since teaching cursive writing is being discontinued and memorizing multiplication tables is considered not necessary, what's the point of teaching anything? Whatever a young person wants to know they can find it on the internet.
A school's ultimate goal is to teach you to think critically. Some means of education like multiplication drills, may do more harm than good (it sets up math as a speed competition, not to mention rote learning drudgery), whereas learning why we use multiplication, and even better, see usable applications, let's kids understand the real meaning of math.
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It makes me want to just slap them silly.
