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From: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Student preparedness
Message-ID: <5343@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 13 Jan 89 00:20:29 GMT
References: <4893@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <6435@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <8125@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <2334@hou2d.UUCP> <533@eecea.eece.ksu.edu> <978@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Reply-To: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 28

In article <978@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> kolb@handel.colostate.edu..UUCP (Denny Kolb) writes:
>[responding to: should students be taught facts, or how to learn?]
>    How to learn!  People are seldom hired, especialy new college graduates,
> exclusively for what they DO know, but rather for what they CAN learn.  The
> more the students are encouraged to learn for themselves, the more valuable
> they will be to any prospective employer, and the farther, and faster they
> will advance in their career.  This is partly the reason why graduates with
> an MS are more valuable to prospective employers;  the whole point to an MS
> degree, IMHO is to learn how to teach yourself.

Well, depends on what level of work you're talking about.  If you look at
help wanted sections, at least in low tech areas, all they care about is
what you know, and how long you've known it.  (That's not the sort of
jobs MS's get anyhow.)
    But besides that, I think the real issue isn't whether to teach facts
or metacognition, it's how to strike a good balance.  Without some fact-like
material, there wouldn't be any reason for distinct subject areas.  Without
some teaching of how to learn, students would end up as large fact
repositories, but there would be no opportunity for progress or discovery.
I think the proper balance is to teach just facts, but to teach them in
such a way that the students can't learn without developing their
metacognitive skills.  Incidentally, by facts I don't mean things like
the value of pi, or how to integrate an arcsecant, or whatever.  I mean
concepts, things you can't look up in books, but are definitely knowable
in some sense, even if they can't be clearly defined.  I don't think things
that can easily be looked up in books should be taught.

                                               -Dan