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+--- Thread: Students Teaching Each Other (/thread-4070.html)
Students Teaching Each Other - Iceglade - 07-15-2014
Sorry if this is the wrong subforum for this thread, I wasn't sure whether it belonged in incidents or feedback.
Recently I've seen a LOT of students attempting to give lessons to each other. Given the recent temp server merge, I've been able to see exactly what goes on at school whenever I'm on build, and it's been kind of disturbing. From what I've seen, there appears to be a students hierarchy where some of them have gone far enough into our redstone 'curriculum' that they feel validated to teach other, newer, students concepts that they potentially don't understand completely themselves.
Only last night, I witnessed a lesson being given from student P to student Q. Student Q had recently gotten his rank that day, I should add. There were teachers on (myself included, I actually pride myself on my adder/ALU lessons more than most of my actual builds), but instead student P jumped in and began to teach student Q 'adder'. Not 'about RCA adders, the simplest addition algorithm', but simply 'about adder'. This is a problem in itself, but listening to the lesson in chat myself it appeared very vague. Were I student Q I would not have learned much from it myself, and in that case I certainly believe the other student himself would not come out of a lesson with any understanding other than the rote knowledge of that exact adder design. After the lesson was done, without giving student Q a break or a chance to ask questions (which is essential), student P jumped right into a subtractor lesson (teaching ones' complement before two's complement for some unfathomable reason). This entire scenario is one I see disturbingly frequently, and is counter-counterproductive to the ideals of the school server.
To note here: We don't just let members teach. We have a specific rank that requires community trust and prior teaching ability to obtain that gives even a MEMBER the opportunity to teach. And in some cases, as Nickster has pointed out, even some teachers have been lacking! (Although I've never seen this happen, but that's for a different thread). If this is the case, then it's even worse to have students teaching each other. As a hopefully dedicated-teacher-to-be once some order is restored on the server, I think this should be included as a server rule or guideline for students.
Thank you for reading.
-Ice
Addendum: I don't want to handle this with a poll, since I'm not exactly sure what measures should be taken. But I do believe that we need to do something.
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - EDevil - 07-15-2014
Just yes. Nothing more, 100% agreeing here.
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - LordDecapo - 07-15-2014
(07-15-2014, 11:50 AM)EDevil Wrote: Just yes. Nothing more, 100% agreeing here.Ummm ya.. I thin evil summed it up with that one.
I have seen student teach stuff to others that was INCREDIBLY far from the truth.
I am a teacher, but I do not like giving lessons as Student P always seems to wan to bud I when I'm teaching student Q something and tell me "oh now that won't work don't do that!!!"
student P is a student for a reason... I now know how my math teacher felt when I corrected them.. And I feel like a Douche (<Sry).
And Off topic... IMO, with ice glades posts recently trying to address issues, I officially give my nomination for him in next admin election..., just saying
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - greatgamer34 - 07-15-2014
I dont think there is a way of preventing students from teaching other students... :/
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - Iceglade - 07-15-2014
How do we stop ordinary members from teaching students? I think this is actually another good reason to merge build and school so that real teachers are more often available.
P.S. 1000th post
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - LordDecapo - 07-15-2014
(07-15-2014, 03:34 PM)Iceglade Wrote: How do we stop ordinary members from teaching students? I think this is actually another good reason to merge build and school so that real teachers are more often available.
P.S. 1000th post
Grats on the 1000th!
I think we just need to do the Tutorial forums as mentioned in another post, would solve many problems
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - EDevil - 07-15-2014
(07-15-2014, 04:36 PM)LordDecapo Wrote:(07-15-2014, 03:34 PM)Iceglade Wrote: How do we stop ordinary members from teaching students? I think this is actually another good reason to merge build and school so that real teachers are more often available.
P.S. 1000th post
Grats on the 1000th!
I think we just need to do the Tutorial forums as mentioned in another post, would solve many problems
I'll take a look at it, but given by the "high amount" of new active users (users who join ore and are also active on the forums) i don't think that thats the perfect solution either. Although it is a good idea. A very good idea :/
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - Guy1234567890 - 07-16-2014
We already have a tutorial sub forum! Help fill it out! But yes I completely agree: students teaching students is... well... it shouldn't be happening given how many people are here who already have a good understanding of the fundamentals. I agree that the teacher rank needs reforming, but the reason the teacher rank was created in the first place was to make sure those who were teaching knew what they didn't know and that they would only teach what they were capable of teaching. If for some reason this became common practice (to only teach lessons on topics which one already has a strong understanding of) then the teacher rank would not need to exist.
I guess the purpose of my post was to suggest that maybe a cultural change is possible such that people can self assess whether they are capable of giving a lesson, and that the standards to which we hold lesson giving can be ingrained in the society. Perhaps our more experienced members can give lessons on lesson giving to students and members so that when they feel compelled to give a lesson they are capable to do so, even if their rank doesn't explicitly say so.
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - Xray_Doc - 07-18-2014
Please stop pissing your pants over this. What are you going to do if they teach each other, make them sit in the timeout corner?
Sorry for being so harsh but this really doesn't seem like a problem to me.
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - Iceglade - 07-20-2014
I just find it funny how it comes up that the teachers aren't competent enough to teach, and then students who haven't made even made it on build just go ahead. I'm not 'pissing my pants'; notice this is in School Discussion and not incidents.
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - tyler569 - 07-20-2014
I don't think it's that teachers aren't competent, its that they all burned out on teaching within 3 days of the
students Wrote:helphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelpsession being on school is for teachers. The idea that some students know (for instance) adders well enough to teach newer students is not new, not unique to ORE, and not a problem.
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - Iceglade - 07-20-2014
(07-20-2014, 07:54 PM)tyler569 Wrote: I don't think it's that teachers aren't competent, its that they all burned out on teaching within 3 days of thestudents Wrote:helphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelpsession being on school is for teachers. The idea that some students know (for instance) adders well enough to teach newer students is not new, not unique to ORE, and not a problem.
Very true; I agree. With the incompetence I was referencing in particular this post, but that's probably not relevant anymore.
The only point I was trying to make is that we don't want students coming out with anything less than optimal understanding of a subject - for instance, adders. Important introductory concepts like these require a decent amount of preliminary understanding, and at the time of posting this I just had seen so many poorly delivered student to student lessons that I at least wanted to spark a discussion. It's certainly not a priority and there's probably no solution, but misunderstandings are bad and if a student does teach a lesson they should at least make sure to do it correctly.
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - jxu - 07-23-2014
(07-20-2014, 06:01 PM)Iceglade Wrote: I just find it funny how it comes up that the teachers aren't competent enough to teach, and then students who haven't made even made it on build just go ahead. I'm not 'pissing my pants'; notice this is in School Discussion and not incidents.
(07-20-2014, 07:54 PM)tyler569 Wrote: I don't think it's that teachers aren't competent, its that they all burned out on teaching within 3 days of thestudents Wrote:helphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelpsession being on school is for teachers. The idea that some students know (for instance) adders well enough to teach newer students is not new, not unique to ORE, and not a problem.
I don't think members who become teachers realize that it's their responsibility to put up with this. Teachers may be burned out, but students will get absolutely no benefit from teachers not teaching or being angry. In fact, it only ruins the teachers' credibility. The feeling of wanting to help someone else is natural and if a teacher can't provide that, then a student will.
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - newomaster - 07-24-2014
We have absolutely no control over weather students decide to try teaching each other or not. It is not technically the responsibility of ORE to stop student-to-student interchange of knowledge. We (ORE staff/teachers) cannot prevent a student from passing false or confusing information if they choose to do so (besides halt it if we see it within our premises, when we are able to). The students could just as easily hop onto another server and proceed.
Generally speaking, it is conclusive enough to say that anyone with the rank [Student] cannot be expected/trusted to know the material well enough to teach. It is therefore the responsibility of the student to ensure they get a good education by seeking out a proper instructor.
That being said, it IS the responsibility of ORE to provide such qualified instructors consistently. Teachers must know the material they are teaching (swallow your pride. If you don't know something, say so), and be readily available. We can only hope that by improving the system we use to teach we can also improve the student-to-student knowledge interchange.
Notice I didn't say remove. I think this interchange is important because students need to work together to strengthen their knowledge, through collaborative projects and discussion of the material. Teaching things to others is a great way to solidify your own knowledge (in fact, I highly recommend trying to explain your device to someone else if you're stuck, it works wonders sometimes).
What we don't want to do is give a student a false sense of accomplishment (for example, teach them to memorize an adder, but not how it works), which they then use to teach others for bragging rights. What we need to do is teach the students to understand the material well enough that they are able to (at least somewhat) effectively teach others if they choose to do so, which reduces this problem.
The other solution is to simply discourage students teaching other students. This can be done simply by stopping it on the server when we see it (correcting it is even better), and adding signs, etc. We should NOT make this a rule though (as I said above, student-to-student teaching CAN be good). Something like "Disclaimer: People with the [Student] rank are STUDENTS, not teachers. They do NOT necessarily know what they are doing. Learn from other students at your own risk."
I feel like a rework of the teacher system is in order. (It's a bit late for me right now, but I may refine some ideas from this thread into a nice list tomorrow).
tl;dr: We teach well, they teach well.
RE: Students Teaching Each Other - SoapyLynx - 07-25-2014
Ok, I have had this problem but I think the rank really don't matter to some teachers. I learned all my stuff from other student ranked people cause no teacher "has time" to teach me. There was one teacher ranked person thatwhen I asked if they could teach me, they said they don't know alot about redstone. I don't remember the name but the he/she said "Poor admin choice to give me this rank"