The process of learning is an incredible thing, which is why bad teachers put people off learning - and unfortunately that can happen at an early age. Understanding pedagogy, can help ensure you become a life long learner.
For me when people say something is “intuitive” they have just forgotten how they learned the skill that made that thing “intuitive”.
Teaching is tough to do right, STEM subjects even moreso. Not because of the difficulty of the topics, but rather the learning curve. In most subjects, the learning curve is a function, in STEM subjects, it’s a step function. Everyone has experienced that “ah-ha” moment in science, or programming: when a concept clicks into place and it just makes sense. That’s where STEM teaching gets dangerous. How do you teach “ah-ha” moments? It’s a tricky problem that relies on breaking down the large stair step with a bunch of smaller ones, which don’t always exist. As an educator in STEM, you have to guide the student without revealing too much. It’s very difficult because it’s hard to think back to the way you did before the “ah-ha” moment.
But it gets even trickier. There is a danger in STEM education that sneaks around: loss of confidence. Right after an “ah-ha” moment, your confidence surges, giving you enough to (hopefully) work until you can figure out the next step. But what happens if you never get that “ah-ha” moment, but an exasperated peer or tutor or teacher (or a well-meaning peer) just tells you the next step? You never get that confidence boost, in fact it drags you down. Now the next concept looms even greater, and the lack of confidence makes it even harder, so they look it up, or ask a classmate. Now, they have little confidence in their skills and little enjoyment of what they are learning.
Granted, it’s not just one time that this happens and some is ruined, but if you get a bad teacher early on in a field, that can cripple you. I learned most of this from a class called “CSC 302: Teaching Computer Science” at my school, and the professor commented “Bad teachers in every field can turn students away, but it’s almost unique that in STEM it just takes one bad (but not terrible) teacher to do catastrophic, albeit well-meaning, damage.” I’m doing my senior project on teaching intro to comp sci courses and it’s really interesting. As a side note: the tutors at our school are amazing mostly because they going through some great interviews and training to make sure they facilitate the “ah-ha” rather than provide it.
Thanks for this. Agreed, and it’s one of the things that seldom gets thought about. I feel like there’s principles of general education, which STEM could benefit from paying more attention to. I almost want to blame the artificial sciences/humanities split that some academics believe in… But that feels like jumping to conclusions.
I think it’s more a problem with the stigma that gets placed with “the other majors” that causes majors to close off from each other, and then not share information. Luckily the school I’ve been studying at, Cal Poly, doesn’t seem to have that. My senior project is also with a professor from the College of Education. I think the separation helps encourage the correct teaching model, but the social aspects that come along with it may not be worth the benefits.
CS suffers from an idea that floats around that “If I did it, I can teach it” which is (instead of being doubted) supported by the community. There are exceptions like the 8808 MPH write-up, but thanks to the internet if feels like there are common when they are uncommon.
The process of learning is an incredible thing, which is why bad teachers put people off learning - and unfortunately that can happen at an early age. Understanding pedagogy, can help ensure you become a life long learner.
For me when people say something is “intuitive” they have just forgotten how they learned the skill that made that thing “intuitive”.
Teaching is tough to do right, STEM subjects even moreso. Not because of the difficulty of the topics, but rather the learning curve. In most subjects, the learning curve is a function, in STEM subjects, it’s a step function. Everyone has experienced that “ah-ha” moment in science, or programming: when a concept clicks into place and it just makes sense. That’s where STEM teaching gets dangerous. How do you teach “ah-ha” moments? It’s a tricky problem that relies on breaking down the large stair step with a bunch of smaller ones, which don’t always exist. As an educator in STEM, you have to guide the student without revealing too much. It’s very difficult because it’s hard to think back to the way you did before the “ah-ha” moment.
But it gets even trickier. There is a danger in STEM education that sneaks around: loss of confidence. Right after an “ah-ha” moment, your confidence surges, giving you enough to (hopefully) work until you can figure out the next step. But what happens if you never get that “ah-ha” moment, but an exasperated peer or tutor or teacher (or a well-meaning peer) just tells you the next step? You never get that confidence boost, in fact it drags you down. Now the next concept looms even greater, and the lack of confidence makes it even harder, so they look it up, or ask a classmate. Now, they have little confidence in their skills and little enjoyment of what they are learning.
Granted, it’s not just one time that this happens and some is ruined, but if you get a bad teacher early on in a field, that can cripple you. I learned most of this from a class called “CSC 302: Teaching Computer Science” at my school, and the professor commented “Bad teachers in every field can turn students away, but it’s almost unique that in STEM it just takes one bad (but not terrible) teacher to do catastrophic, albeit well-meaning, damage.” I’m doing my senior project on teaching intro to comp sci courses and it’s really interesting. As a side note: the tutors at our school are amazing mostly because they going through some great interviews and training to make sure they facilitate the “ah-ha” rather than provide it.
Thanks for this. Agreed, and it’s one of the things that seldom gets thought about. I feel like there’s principles of general education, which STEM could benefit from paying more attention to. I almost want to blame the artificial sciences/humanities split that some academics believe in… But that feels like jumping to conclusions.
I think it’s more a problem with the stigma that gets placed with “the other majors” that causes majors to close off from each other, and then not share information. Luckily the school I’ve been studying at, Cal Poly, doesn’t seem to have that. My senior project is also with a professor from the College of Education. I think the separation helps encourage the correct teaching model, but the social aspects that come along with it may not be worth the benefits.
CS suffers from an idea that floats around that “If I did it, I can teach it” which is (instead of being doubted) supported by the community. There are exceptions like the 8808 MPH write-up, but thanks to the internet if feels like there are common when they are uncommon.