This episode will discuss the role confusion plays in learning, how it is we (people) try to avoid feelings of confusion, but how they are necessary in learning.
Here are a pair of videos by Derek Mueller about the efficacy (lacking) of technology in the classroom. Derek is not a Luddite, but access to information alone, no matter how flashy, is not what causes learning.
https://youtu.be/GEmuEWjHr5c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVtCO84MDj8
In Sugata Mitra's work, he shows that interest and communication between peers is needed in conjunction with access to information.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk60sYrU2RU&t
In this podcast, we bring together those ideas. To make your teaching more effective, exposing misconception, which exposes confusion, is required!
We explore a specific application of this philosophy, teaching square root arithmetic. It turns out that students do not understand two key mathematics concepts, and they both come into play when adding and subtracting square root numbers.
Students do not understand the order of operations or arithmetic. There are the 1%-ers, who get it. But most students have only learned to get right answers under strictly confined conditions.
