(Aside: Did anybody else have the story of The Little Engine That Could come to mind with this topic? Anyone? No? Okay.)
"You really should be doing more of the readings," it says.
"Watching movie reviews again!? Aren't there more important things you could be doing?"
"Get out and get going!"
These are things I frequently "hear" my conscience, or whatever it is, say to me when I'm neither intrinsically nor extrinsically motivated to do course work or some other task I feel obligated to do. I can't shut it up, and it's right waaay too often. It just never gives up trying to convince me to be a more disciplined student.
Typically, I get enough motivation from grades and wanting to establish a foundation for the future, however one does that, to keep me going. I wasn't very interested in learning about educational organization and leadership, but it was an easy 'A', and wasn't about to let a class like that tarnish my GPA. I also don't care too much for knowing the ins and outs of assessment, but that seems like something of which a teacher ought to have an understanding, so I pay attention and do the work.
Every once in a while, there's a class that just clicks with me. A source of motivation doesn't have to exist outside of myself. The instructor doesn't have to rely on saying things like "This will be on the test." to keep me going. I don't have to remind myself that it's a 4 credit hour course that will have a significant impact on my GPA. These courses are worth their weight in gold. (Hmmm... how do you weigh a class anyway?)
At the beginning of the Fall 2007 semester, I decided to take a TI Graphing Calculator short course. There were a few reasons why I was intrinsically motivated in this course. First of all, it wasn't graded. There wasn't the "I have to get an 'A'" motivation that usually exists. Furthermore, I chose to take the course without having to take it. I received an email, telling me about is availability, and I thought it would interest and benefit me. Along these same lines, the class proved indeed to be interesting, so my curiosity was simply enough to keep me engaged. The class had very visible applications because everything we learned could be immediately applied with the calculators in front of us. Using a calculator for stats work is fun, and I wanted to discover more than just what the instructor was teaching.
It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes learning in courses like this one so painless. I hesitate to say that intrinsic motivation stems entirely from curiosity or interest because those things are so vague and they mean such different things to different people. If curiosity and interest are the roots, then the role of teacher is that much more difficult and nearly impossible to master because there is no heuristic for creating a lesson that everyone will find worthy of their attention. At a certain point, it seems like the desire to learn has to come from within or from some uncontrollable source.
It all makes me think of what is "right." Everyone has a different take on what is right and what is wrong. Some argue that there is no such thing. Yet, I'd be hard-pressed to find someone who would say it's okay to kill people or steal from old ladies. It's just... wrong, right? What's our motivation to not kill or steal, though? Is it extrinsic or intrinsic or both. I think it would be pretty scary if the motivation were entirely extrinsic for us. If jail time or fines were the only thing keeping us from causing our fellow man harm, I think we'd be in really bad shape as a society.
C.S. Lewis writes quite a bit about the Moral Law in his book Mere Christianity. He argues that there is a law of right and wrong, known to all humanity and "hard as nails." We know of this law because of certain actions, such as genocide or stealing, we all just "know" are wrong. Thus, the moral law is known intuitively instead of through observation. We often break or ignore it. Breaking it causes us dismay and keeps us from that which would provide us eternal joy. It makes sense to me that a law like this would come from a source outside of myself. There is more than extrinsic motivation that drives my behavior, but I cannot point to anything of who I am as the source of the intrinsic portion. When I point to a source beyond myself, God in this case, choices of right vs. wrong and reasons for curiosity itself make more sense.
There are always more ideas to consider and more questions to ponder. We have the desire to learn because we don't understand everything around us but want to so badly. Sometimes school/learning/studying seems overwhelming to me. Extrinsic motivation isn't enough. There's something inside me that keeps me going even when I no longer think I can. It's beyond my control, and yet I like it that way.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Writing into my Own
One month has passed quickly. I've only written a little bit, and not anything spectacular, but nevertheless it's refreshing to be able to write about a topic and see where I go with it. Furthermore, I like the idea that somewhere, someone might actually read this. There's the possibility that what I have to say matters to someone enough that he or she will finish the first sentence and decide to read the second. I have creative control over something, which I feel I often don't have in my mathematics courses.
Sure, you can be fairly creative with proofs, but there's still a right answer, a target. I appreciate that most of the time because I like having a specific goal, but sometimes I like to determine my target by how I decide to launch. That's how I feel it is with blogging. I start off with a general idea of what I want to say, and then fire and hope that where I end up is somewhat meaningful.
Finding a balance between structure and improvisation is not easy for me in general. It's kind of the same with being analytical and intuitive. I take sure steps when it comes to solving problems, and don't often go off in directions that I haven't tested before. Blogging has let me do a little more exploring than I tend to do, and I think in the process I've "found my voice," as they say.
As far as connecting this to the class material, I think it's pretty easy to see how this subject matter connects to my life. Jerome Bruner's The Process of Education is something I would have expected to have been assigned in one of my education classes. So much of what he writes, I have read in other contexts the past 2 years. The ability of children to learn abstract ideas increases as they get older. There is a step-by-step way we tend to learn, even if we don't realize it. All children can learn something if you teach it at the appropriate level. These things I believe true; they affect the way I teach.
Just yesterday, there were some guests at my house's worship night. One of our campus ministers invited Thad, one of his friends who works at Salt and Light Ministries in Champaign, to talk to us about volunteer opportunities. Thad in turn invited along the executive director of Salt and Light, Nathan, and Nathan's kids. After the night was over and everyone was milling around, I decided to talk with the director's son, Benjamin, just to be nice and make waiting around a bit less dull for him. As I talked with Benjamin, I learned that he "used to be good at math" but now is "horrible at it." "Oh no!" I thought. "Another child destined to hate math!" I immediately took it as my mission during the time we had left to change his opinion about math and his abilities as much as I could.
My strategy was to present a problem I think is pretty interesting and shape it to fit his 4th grade understanding of things. The problem starts out dividing a line segment with points to make more line segments. A fourth grader can surely define the pattern as (# of points) + 1 = (number of lines), and Benjamin did. Then, I took it a step further to dividing a disk with lines. The pattern here can be defined recursively or empirically, though the latter would be very difficult for a fourth grader because it involves linear algebra. With the right questioning on my part, Benjamin came up with a recursive definition, no problem. We started talking about different dimensions of objects and other related topics, and the conversation kept going until he had to leave. When he left, he took the notes we had written and told me he was going to show his friends and teacher. For the foreseeable future, I don't think math will leave as bad a taste in his mouth as it did before.
The point I tried to get across to Benjamin, and what I'll try to communicate to my students, is that math is well within their reach. It's my job to make it accessible. Through quality questioning, I think teachers can turn any student into a good math student. Maybe not good in the sense that they get all the right answers, but good in the sense that they have the right approach; that they understand the methods of mathematics and can apply them to problem solve. Anyone can learn math; I believe that.
Sure, you can be fairly creative with proofs, but there's still a right answer, a target. I appreciate that most of the time because I like having a specific goal, but sometimes I like to determine my target by how I decide to launch. That's how I feel it is with blogging. I start off with a general idea of what I want to say, and then fire and hope that where I end up is somewhat meaningful.
Finding a balance between structure and improvisation is not easy for me in general. It's kind of the same with being analytical and intuitive. I take sure steps when it comes to solving problems, and don't often go off in directions that I haven't tested before. Blogging has let me do a little more exploring than I tend to do, and I think in the process I've "found my voice," as they say.
As far as connecting this to the class material, I think it's pretty easy to see how this subject matter connects to my life. Jerome Bruner's The Process of Education is something I would have expected to have been assigned in one of my education classes. So much of what he writes, I have read in other contexts the past 2 years. The ability of children to learn abstract ideas increases as they get older. There is a step-by-step way we tend to learn, even if we don't realize it. All children can learn something if you teach it at the appropriate level. These things I believe true; they affect the way I teach.
Just yesterday, there were some guests at my house's worship night. One of our campus ministers invited Thad, one of his friends who works at Salt and Light Ministries in Champaign, to talk to us about volunteer opportunities. Thad in turn invited along the executive director of Salt and Light, Nathan, and Nathan's kids. After the night was over and everyone was milling around, I decided to talk with the director's son, Benjamin, just to be nice and make waiting around a bit less dull for him. As I talked with Benjamin, I learned that he "used to be good at math" but now is "horrible at it." "Oh no!" I thought. "Another child destined to hate math!" I immediately took it as my mission during the time we had left to change his opinion about math and his abilities as much as I could.
My strategy was to present a problem I think is pretty interesting and shape it to fit his 4th grade understanding of things. The problem starts out dividing a line segment with points to make more line segments. A fourth grader can surely define the pattern as (# of points) + 1 = (number of lines), and Benjamin did. Then, I took it a step further to dividing a disk with lines. The pattern here can be defined recursively or empirically, though the latter would be very difficult for a fourth grader because it involves linear algebra. With the right questioning on my part, Benjamin came up with a recursive definition, no problem. We started talking about different dimensions of objects and other related topics, and the conversation kept going until he had to leave. When he left, he took the notes we had written and told me he was going to show his friends and teacher. For the foreseeable future, I don't think math will leave as bad a taste in his mouth as it did before.
The point I tried to get across to Benjamin, and what I'll try to communicate to my students, is that math is well within their reach. It's my job to make it accessible. Through quality questioning, I think teachers can turn any student into a good math student. Maybe not good in the sense that they get all the right answers, but good in the sense that they have the right approach; that they understand the methods of mathematics and can apply them to problem solve. Anyone can learn math; I believe that.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Talk
Your favorite brand of mayo versus your favorite movie. One is probably a lot more appealing to discuss than the other, and for most I assume it's the latter.
Think about it. The topic of discussion is the key to a good discussion. Sure, your partner or partners in discussion matter. If I wanted to talk film, I would take Michael Phillips, the Chicago Tribune film critic, over just about anyone else because his expertise is unquestionable and I read his reviews regularly. But if you're about to have a discussion with any random sampling of 10 people on this campus, the topic of conversation will correlate most closely with the liveliness of the conversation, if there even is a statistic that can measure something like that.
When I meet someone, I always go for the most reliable conversation topic I know: that person. It's fairly simple and so effective. The best way to start a discussion with just about anyone is to talk about him or her. What does everyone in the world care about? Himself or herself. People, for the most part, really like themselves. Similarly, people really like to talk about what they really like. If you can be genuinely interested in whatever interests your conversation partner(s), you are in for a good conversation. I think the people you talk to will be at ease, too. I'm certainly not saying to fake interest (see: genuine), but only that if the goal is to find out what others think and to put them at ease for discussion, talking about them is typically a sure bet.
This tends to translate well in the classroom. Ask anyone to supplement their ideas and responses with personal experience, and you are likely to have plenty of hands raised. In our own discussion, the most lively and interactive topics of discussion have been the ones in which we have personal experience. (I've never seen people, myself included, so interested in talking about what they call their professors!) Secondhand experience, like "I have a friend who..." or "I read somewhere...," is great, and I don't want to diminish it, but nothing can replace experiencing or researching something for yourself.
Of course, there are always the quiet ones. The ones who listen intently and fail to contribute out of fear, pride, or feeling like they have nothing worthwhile to contribute. Sometimes, these people just need a personal invitation to join in the conversation. There's nothing wrong with that at first, but I'm not much of a pusher when it comes to anyone who doesn't call me "Mr. Matuch." I want you to be a part of the conversation. I want to hear what you have to say. I just don't want either of those things badly enough to continue to focus my attention on drawing you in. If I'm in a classroom, teaching high school math, and one student just doesn't talk, I'll keep trying different methods to engage. If I'm with people my own age, and one person just wants to sit on the outskirts of the discussion, I don't feel it's necessarily my role to keep yanking them in. Continuing to try to force someone into a discussion of which they want no part makes that person uncomfortable, makes the others who are engaged feel inadequate, and makes me feel tired. Allow me to let my interest in baseball show for a moment: three strikes, and you're out.
Discussion is how a great deal of learning takes place in college. I've learned a lot from talking with people in class and even more from talking to them in other public spaces. An interesting topic is a solid way to start. It's up to you and whoever else to decide where you want it to go. And if they don't feel like talking, you can see if Michael Phillips has some time free.
Think about it. The topic of discussion is the key to a good discussion. Sure, your partner or partners in discussion matter. If I wanted to talk film, I would take Michael Phillips, the Chicago Tribune film critic, over just about anyone else because his expertise is unquestionable and I read his reviews regularly. But if you're about to have a discussion with any random sampling of 10 people on this campus, the topic of conversation will correlate most closely with the liveliness of the conversation, if there even is a statistic that can measure something like that.
When I meet someone, I always go for the most reliable conversation topic I know: that person. It's fairly simple and so effective. The best way to start a discussion with just about anyone is to talk about him or her. What does everyone in the world care about? Himself or herself. People, for the most part, really like themselves. Similarly, people really like to talk about what they really like. If you can be genuinely interested in whatever interests your conversation partner(s), you are in for a good conversation. I think the people you talk to will be at ease, too. I'm certainly not saying to fake interest (see: genuine), but only that if the goal is to find out what others think and to put them at ease for discussion, talking about them is typically a sure bet.
This tends to translate well in the classroom. Ask anyone to supplement their ideas and responses with personal experience, and you are likely to have plenty of hands raised. In our own discussion, the most lively and interactive topics of discussion have been the ones in which we have personal experience. (I've never seen people, myself included, so interested in talking about what they call their professors!) Secondhand experience, like "I have a friend who..." or "I read somewhere...," is great, and I don't want to diminish it, but nothing can replace experiencing or researching something for yourself.
Of course, there are always the quiet ones. The ones who listen intently and fail to contribute out of fear, pride, or feeling like they have nothing worthwhile to contribute. Sometimes, these people just need a personal invitation to join in the conversation. There's nothing wrong with that at first, but I'm not much of a pusher when it comes to anyone who doesn't call me "Mr. Matuch." I want you to be a part of the conversation. I want to hear what you have to say. I just don't want either of those things badly enough to continue to focus my attention on drawing you in. If I'm in a classroom, teaching high school math, and one student just doesn't talk, I'll keep trying different methods to engage. If I'm with people my own age, and one person just wants to sit on the outskirts of the discussion, I don't feel it's necessarily my role to keep yanking them in. Continuing to try to force someone into a discussion of which they want no part makes that person uncomfortable, makes the others who are engaged feel inadequate, and makes me feel tired. Allow me to let my interest in baseball show for a moment: three strikes, and you're out.
Discussion is how a great deal of learning takes place in college. I've learned a lot from talking with people in class and even more from talking to them in other public spaces. An interesting topic is a solid way to start. It's up to you and whoever else to decide where you want it to go. And if they don't feel like talking, you can see if Michael Phillips has some time free.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Limits and Living with Others
On Monday, we talked about hand washing. Seems like a simple enough topic, right? "Everyone, just wash your hands. Do it." It shouldn't be much more complicated than that, and yet it is. Something most of us are taught from our earliest of years, to frequently wash our hands (especially after contact with "germy" things), is such a burden to doctors. In Better, an entire chapter is devoted to the subject. How do you get doctors to wash their hands more frequently? What efforts need to be taken to get a desired result? The hand washing battle looks like one that will never get to the conclusion desired by everyone involved, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth the time. It just means that hospitals and those individuals inside need to be more, as Gawande puts it, diligent. Diligence is key. Constant, earnest effort may not solve the problem, but it will get them close. (At least that's the hope.)
As a math major, I can't help but think of this situation in terms of calculus and limits. You can never reach a limit. It's impossible. But you can get close. Very close. We throw out the word "infinity" like we really understand it, but we don't. Some things are beyond our capabilities, beyond us, but we continue to reach for them with diligence. We will never reach perfect hand washing technique. I think I can assert that. Therefore, making progress is hard work both because it simply is and because we're working at something that will never be perfect.
This year, I am living in a house with nine other guys, just as I have done the past two years. While living with men who share my faith and some of my interests is a very rewarding experience, there are difficulties that arise. We have different schedules, so eating dinner together is usually impossible. We have different personalities, so finding activities to do together does not always work. Most frustrating for me in the past has been our different standards when it comes to cleanliness, specifically in regard to doing dishes and maintaining the bathroom.
I'm a neat freak. I enjoy cleaning and organizing. It didn't take long for me to discover that not everyone in the house felt the same way. As a house leader, I tried to impress upon people that we should each do our part to start the dishwasher and unload it after the cycle is over. Most people got the idea, but there were a couple that either didn't understand the message or rejected it (probably the latter). Despite our efforts to get everyone to do the dishes, the same 4 or 5 of us always ended up doing dishes and keeping the kitchen clear of messes. Our diligence didn't make a dent, and I'm sure we'd still be in the same situation this year if it weren't for changes in residents.
Despite failure to improve kitchen cleanliness, we actually managed to improve bathroom cleanliness. What was the difference? I think it came down to one event that some might say was drastic. Residents continued to leave their things all over the place even though we have a house rule that states community space must be kept clean. After weeks of diligence with no tangible results, the resident in charge of cleaning the bathroom once a week posted a message that anything left out in the showers or on the counters would be thrown out. Some ignored the message, and he later proceeded to clean up and put everything that had been just lying out in the trash. Our bathroom was much cleaner thereafter. Though some people were understandably ticked off having some of their things tossed out, they adopted cleaner practices thereafter.
The difference between the two situations in my house was the type of efforts made in each. I think sometimes, it takes a drastic measure to make change. You have to be careful with using these, though, because they can leave people more than temporarily peeved. Diligence can take us closer to where we want to be, but we have to be careful about how we get there.
(Responding to my previous post, I would say that bell curve grading is not the fairest method but is quite motivating. Also, when dealing with people's lives I think every effort should be made. There are some endeavors where it might just not be worth it at a certain point, but I don't think medicine is one of them.)
As a math major, I can't help but think of this situation in terms of calculus and limits. You can never reach a limit. It's impossible. But you can get close. Very close. We throw out the word "infinity" like we really understand it, but we don't. Some things are beyond our capabilities, beyond us, but we continue to reach for them with diligence. We will never reach perfect hand washing technique. I think I can assert that. Therefore, making progress is hard work both because it simply is and because we're working at something that will never be perfect.
This year, I am living in a house with nine other guys, just as I have done the past two years. While living with men who share my faith and some of my interests is a very rewarding experience, there are difficulties that arise. We have different schedules, so eating dinner together is usually impossible. We have different personalities, so finding activities to do together does not always work. Most frustrating for me in the past has been our different standards when it comes to cleanliness, specifically in regard to doing dishes and maintaining the bathroom.
I'm a neat freak. I enjoy cleaning and organizing. It didn't take long for me to discover that not everyone in the house felt the same way. As a house leader, I tried to impress upon people that we should each do our part to start the dishwasher and unload it after the cycle is over. Most people got the idea, but there were a couple that either didn't understand the message or rejected it (probably the latter). Despite our efforts to get everyone to do the dishes, the same 4 or 5 of us always ended up doing dishes and keeping the kitchen clear of messes. Our diligence didn't make a dent, and I'm sure we'd still be in the same situation this year if it weren't for changes in residents.
Despite failure to improve kitchen cleanliness, we actually managed to improve bathroom cleanliness. What was the difference? I think it came down to one event that some might say was drastic. Residents continued to leave their things all over the place even though we have a house rule that states community space must be kept clean. After weeks of diligence with no tangible results, the resident in charge of cleaning the bathroom once a week posted a message that anything left out in the showers or on the counters would be thrown out. Some ignored the message, and he later proceeded to clean up and put everything that had been just lying out in the trash. Our bathroom was much cleaner thereafter. Though some people were understandably ticked off having some of their things tossed out, they adopted cleaner practices thereafter.
The difference between the two situations in my house was the type of efforts made in each. I think sometimes, it takes a drastic measure to make change. You have to be careful with using these, though, because they can leave people more than temporarily peeved. Diligence can take us closer to where we want to be, but we have to be careful about how we get there.
(Responding to my previous post, I would say that bell curve grading is not the fairest method but is quite motivating. Also, when dealing with people's lives I think every effort should be made. There are some endeavors where it might just not be worth it at a certain point, but I don't think medicine is one of them.)
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Some ?s About The Bell Curve
It has been a while since I read the chapter in Better called "The Bell Curve." Still, I think I remember enough to be able to pose a couple of questions for others to consider.
First, do you think bell curve grading is the fairest way, or even one of the more fair ways, to assign scores to students?
Second, is there a point in medicine at which the effort you put in is no longer worth the fractional results? If not so in medicine, are there any endeavors where marginal improvements just are not worth the time?
I'll post very short responses to these questions at the end of my next post, which will be arriving soon. Of course, you may hear my answers in class tomorrow.
First, do you think bell curve grading is the fairest way, or even one of the more fair ways, to assign scores to students?
Second, is there a point in medicine at which the effort you put in is no longer worth the fractional results? If not so in medicine, are there any endeavors where marginal improvements just are not worth the time?
I'll post very short responses to these questions at the end of my next post, which will be arriving soon. Of course, you may hear my answers in class tomorrow.
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