Barnes, Don (D.J.Barnes@massey.ac.nz)
Fri, 19 Mar 1999 11:27:18 +1300
From: "Barnes, Don" <D.J.Barnes@massey.ac.nz> Subject: RE: Student interaction over Web or internet Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 11:27:18 +1300
List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
Details of current discussion: http://ifets.gmd.de/discuss.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have been a lurker on this list for some time and now that i am retiring I
can find a little time to comment.
I am interested in Robert's comments below as I have just come from what
could be called a statistics class and because of the situation raised by
Robert I too found in the past that students had the same problem of
expressing their porblems. The class is for technology stduents and they
find mathematics and statistics fairly daunting.
Over the last few years I have made several changes to the course and since
I am not a "statistician" myself I have spent a considerable time re writing
the course to move towards the physical understanding and at last I am
starting to get interaction. I have even changed the name of the course. To
use a quotation "You don't have to understand digestion to eat".
I think you are correct that as academics we often tend to use "exclusive"
terminology to demonstrate our "professionalism" and this provides the same
barrier for students as it does for the un-initiated. Whereas precise
terminology is important it is also important to provide a linkage to common
undertsanding so that students do not feel that they are unable to
communicate "their problems"and participate in discussion without appearing
to be "ignorant"
Just a thought
Professor D J Barnes
Professor Manufacturing and Quality System
Institute of Technology and Engineering
Massey University
Private Bag 11222
Massey University
Palmerston North
New Zealand
Telephone +64 6 350 5264
Fax +64 6 350 5604
Email D.J.Barnes@massey.ac.nz
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Lundquist [mailto:Robert.Lundquist@ies.luth.se]
Sent: Thursday, 18 March 1999 20:40
To: Multiple recipients of list IFETS-DISCUSS
Subject: Re: Student interaction over Web or internet
List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
Details of current discussion: http://ifets.gmd.de/discuss.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my attempts to stimulate students' discussion in statistics courses, I
have never really been successful. Part of the explanation probably lies in
a general "techo-illiteracy", but mostly it seems to be founded in poor
mathematical skills. The students usually can't express their problems in
either mathematical notation or in words - they can say that they
don'tunderstand, but not specifically what it is that they don't understand.
The lesson to learn seems to be that "language" is a crucial issue: the ones
involved in the dicsussion must be able to communicate in terms of the
language that their actual problems are stated in. Evident enough, but I
must admit that so far I for one have not really understood this.
Robert Lundquist
Div of Quality Technology & Statistics
Lulea University of Technology
Sweden
---------------------------------------------------------
Forum website: http://ifets.gmd.de/
Forum's contact person: kinshuk@ieee.org
Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.gmd.de/maillist.html
---------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------
Forum website: http://ifets.gmd.de/
Forum's contact person: kinshuk@ieee.org
Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.gmd.de/maillist.html
---------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Fri 19 Mar 1999 - 06:21:51 MET