DailyDirt: Teachers, Pay Attention
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Great teachers aren’t exactly a plentiful resource, but the market for teachers hasn’t quite minted many millionaires from the scarcity. But maybe that will change soon. There are a bunch of projects that are aiming to create innovative educational tools, and some of these efforts could be hugely profitable in the future. Perhaps those who can, will teach.
- Peter Diamandis is planning to create an education X Prize. This prize is still in the planning stages, so this project hasn’t settled on what kind of effort to promote — an educational video game or some kind of crowdsourced classes… but whatever it is, it can’t be solely a technological solution. [url]
- Game developers are creating some entertaining apps that also try to educate or improve the lives of gamers. Edutainment could be the way to get more students engaged in learning… as long as the games are actually fun. [url]
- The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation sponsored a competition to create an automated scoring algorithm for grading student-written essays. This grading software is only the first phase of a larger plan, and there will be follow-up challenges for grading shorter answers and math/logic problems. [url]
- To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what’s currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]
By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.
Filed Under: education, edutainment, essays, games, peter diamandis, teaching, x-prize
Companies: hewlett foundation, kaggle
Comments on “DailyDirt: Teachers, Pay Attention”
Actually, these three developments all appear to involve non-teachers working on educational products. Which may (or may not) produce great results, but is unlikely to better reward “great teachers” — whatever their scarcity.
A really high-quality automated essay-grading application, for example, would be very useful. But it’s main economic effect would be to compete with the $10/hour grading-mills you find in Midwestern university towns.
Next up: The Hewlett foundation announces a contest to create an automatic judging system for their previous contest.
Good teachers are EXTREMELY rare
I probably had one or two truly good teachers in 16 years of schooling. It seemed that the harder the course material got, the worse the teachers were. Some of my best teachers where in my AP classes during high school.
I went to UCI for college and got a degree in Computer Science. I could never quite pay attention in class at UCI because the teachers moved at a slow pace and resorted to just reading slides. Also, they never cared about any of the undergraduate students and considered us more of a nuisance to them because they were required to lecture undergrads in between their research work. Even worse, more than 60% of the teachers I had in computer science seemed to have English as a second language, which made learning extremely complicated material very difficult. I spent most of my time just learning the material from Google or reading the slides themselves. Class was a waste of time.
It’s truly a pity that at such a reputable school for Computer Science we were given teachers that couldn’t teach for shit. We mostly had to deal with the teacher’s assistants rather than getting answers from the teacher’s themselves. Seriously, there needs to be some sort grading for how well teachers teach, and for god’s sake, can we get some teachers that can actually speak English? Also, their primary goal should be teaching students so we can actually learn something rather than tossing us aside in lieu of their research.
they gonna make one called “Washing your Wii”?? or “The big adventure out of the basement”??
lets teach!
Half of the 505 K-8 teachers surveyed said they use digital games with their students two or more days a week, and 18 percent use them daily.
Nearly 70 percent said that ?lower-performing students engage more with subject content with use of digital games.?
Three-fifths reported ?increased attention to specific tasks and improved collaborations among all students.?
Sixty percent said using digital games ?helps personalize instruction and better assess student knowledge and learning.?
Though most use Apple or PC computers, 25 percent said their students use iPads or tablet computers, and less than 10 percent use other mobile devices or video game consoles.
62% said games make it easier to level lessons and effectively teach the range of learners in their class.
So judging by the survey games are what teachers will be seeking for students. They will have to work on several platforms, and be for all ages/grades
From what I have seen many games produced and available tend to favor children in the lower grades. Generally locked down game pilot programs for the older ones.
I want to see better tools for teachers and students, and games for middle and high school. Less talk is what we need for now, many claim to be making this stuff so where is it?
lets teach!
Forgot to mention…
There are games out there but a few. The biggest gripe from teachers is price. It seems as though a few made games and expect teachers and students to pay dearly for them.
Here are the stats: http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/files/2012/05/jgcc_teacher_survey_chart_barriers.jpg
Edutainment could be the way to get more students engaged in learning… as long as the games are actually fun.
Back in the 90s, I was helping out my neighbors with their computer and their young son put in a request for the game The Oregon Trail. He told his mother about how they played it in school and how it was educational. I got them a copy of it, took it over, installed it, and the son started showing his mother how it worked. Within a minute or two of starting the game, he was on the hunting screen shooting at animals. The entire time I was there, that’s all he did with the game, shoot at the animals.
Yup, educational…
Re:
Wow so the only thing educational about the game was the fact he learned that animals are fair game if you have a gun.
wonderful. :/
Re:
More like the only part of the game he truly enjoyed playing was the shooting gallery mini-game, which is (as far as I know) the only part of the game that was like a traditional video game
The game is supposed to teach things like planning and resource management, but he was only interested in the part that required mostly mindless clicking.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved fast action video games too, but the point is that the game wasn’t hooking the kids like the designers intended. Sure, some probably liked it, but many just saw it as computerized schoolwork.
Teachers, Pay Attention
Teachers are less educated than their students, why not teach students to teach pick subjects early i.e. as soon as you start and see the developments in all fields.
Teachers, Pay Attention
Sort of like how in the old days parents taught their children their trade? If so that may work, but at what age? You could start a program to get parents to start teaching their children young, and then when they reach a certain age they decide. But I am not sure how this will work in this day and age because of labor laws etc. But in the classroom that would be too much because of the number of fields. Now they say to teach a child according to STEM Science Technology Engineering and Math. Teach the students this, and they will fit into any type of trade you throw at them. I am not sure how well this is going because of the downsizing going on.
the future of teachers
i like this little tid bit. the school district i work in pays starting teachers 27,000/year. yet, we require teachers to have a bachelors degree (conservatively $50,000/4 years), have special certificates, and have student teaching experience.
why? we rag on our teachers, but we aren’t exactly making it easy for the most highly capable to enter the profession. I remember when the valedictorian of my class decided to go to school for elementary education. everyone was up in arms. why would this smart person use their intelligence for such a painfully low salary? sad, but true.