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Assorted links
1. The emancipatory power of the American hotel
2. The ideological migration of Christopher Hitchens
3. What do we understand about recessions?, by Bob Hall, via Mark Thoma
4. What should the World Bank know about governance?, starring Acemoglu, Rodrik, North, Fukuyama and others
5. When learning by example backfires
6. Update on auction-rate securities
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 25, 2008 at 12:54 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
I just read the New York Times article linked to discussing teaching by example. I think the author of the article (and possibly the authors of the study -- I can't tell) completely missed the point. "Teaching by example", as epitomized by the 'two trains' example in the article, was never meant to facilitate the student's learning, but rather to complicate it, to see if the student could actually apply the math to a 'real-world' situation. The purpose of such concrete examples is not to help the student learn the math, but rather to learn how to apply the algebra he has learned. The idea that a teacher uses the 'two trains' to teach algebra (rather than how to use algebra) is absurd.
I couldn't access the article so I can't tell if this misapprehension derives from the NYT or the study. The conclusion cpould conceivabl make more sense in the context of the liquids and tennis balls examples than the trains example, so it's possible that the NYT author just used a bad example, although the quote from Dr. Kaminski seems to imply the contrary.
Posted by: ZJA at Apr 25, 2008 2:29:55 PM
Looks like you scooped D-Ed Reckoning.
Posted by: TGGP at Apr 25, 2008 3:26:59 PM
Ditto x10, ZJA! That's exactly what I was thinking.
Was the confusion from the NYT or the study? Let's not kid ourselves. When was the last time a journalist got something this complicated right?
Posted by: Person at Apr 25, 2008 7:48:29 PM
Regarding Hitchens, this is by now a boring cliche, with him being a bit
late to the game. After all, many of the older neocons, such as Irving
Kristol, were Trots before they were neocons. Hitchens has been just a bit
slow to follow an old and well-worn path.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Apr 25, 2008 8:26:02 PM
Hitchens is interesting because he's not really a "neocon", and that he's still an angry-at-God atheist, and one who is angry at all Gods, not just the Christian one. He's actually more consistent than most political atheists - he's angry at various religions in proportion to the atrocities committed recently in their name, which means that he's much angrier at Islam than at Christianity.
Posted by: Anthony at Apr 25, 2008 8:57:45 PM
Yeah, people really should base their political philosophy on what is chic and entertains you. If I discovered that other people believed what I believe before I believed it, I would definitely take steps change that belief so as not to bore onlookers. And what's with that drinking? Authors have been doing that for years too! He is soo late to the party on that one too.
Posted by: at Apr 25, 2008 9:00:44 PM
