Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!ukma!cwjcc!hal!nic.MR.NET!srcsip!shankar
From: shankar@src.honeywell.COM (Son of Knuth)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Student and Course Integrity
Message-ID: <14267@srcsip.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jan 89 18:52:35 GMT
References: <4550@homxc.UUCP> <4847@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <542@mccc.UUCP> <9208@ut-emx.UUCP> <5111@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: shankar@haarlem.UUCP (Son of Knuth)
Distribution: na
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center, Camden, MN
Lines: 23

In article <5111@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes:
>In article <9208@ut-emx.UUCP> nather@ut-emx.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes:
>>A majority of students (and many faculty) make no distinction
>>between memorizing facts and having a basic understanding of why the facts
>>are true, and how we know they're true.  Critical, deductive thinking seems
>>rarely to be taught except by accident.  Why?
>
>Maybe it can't be taught.

I think it *can be taught through two means.  First, teachers need to exhibit
such thought processes when solving problems in front of the class.  I've
had too many professors who solve problems by simply writing down formulas,
rather then explaining why they did it that way.  In some topics, it may
be beneficial to solve the problem incorrectly, and then have a class 
discussion on why that method is wrong.

Second and more importantly, intelligent homework assignments are the key
to developing thought processes.  I think homework assignments should 
include problems which force students to derive the simpler parts of 
future sections.  For engineering mathematics classes, for example, this
may mean optimization problems while teaching basic differentiation, so
that students can gain an intuitive understanding of what differentiation
really is.