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Can teachers teach stuff outside of the curriculum/syllabus?


XRay
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I mean, I know they can for sure, but I am wondering what the boundaries and limits are and how flexible lesson plans are.

For example, I remember asking my high school English teacher to teach us more words so we can be more eloquent, much to the chagrin and evil stares of my classmates, and we ended up with having to learn 10 new words per week and we get tested on the words at the end of the week with spelling, definition, and write a sentence using each word (I believe we were allowed to use multiple vocabulary words per sentence so we can reduce the amount of sentences we have to write). I do not think my vocabulary expanded significantly, but I did learn some really fun and useful words like quagmire and zephyr. Zephyr is also one of my favorite words. Looking back now, I think I should have asked the teacher to reduce it down to 5 words per week so it does not feel like we are just cramming info into our heads and then forgetting it later. I think it would also be good to recycle past vocabulary to reinforce the words that we learn.

For another example, I wished I learned about Triangle of Power in math, but it was not taught in schools back in my day and I am not sure if it is being teached right now. Below is the video on the subject that I recently stumbled upon again. I am not really sure how to explain it properly, but just seeing that new way of math notation feels so powerful and it makes a lot of sense, and I think it is something that should be taught in schools to make math easier. The new notation just looks simple, intuitive, and elegant.

But yeah, @Specta and @Johann, how often do you guys deviate from your lesson plans? Do you guys ever get requests from students to teach them something that is not part of the curriculum? Have you guys ever learned something exciting in your field and you feel like you just have to teach it your students even though it deviates from the lesson plan?

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As a college professor, I have complete freedom to teach however and whatever I want. Most people, including my department chair, don't even know a thing about my subject matter. I do stress to my students that the bottom line of every class isn't necessarily about knowing facts, but about problem solving. This is why I don't require they memorize anything, because anything they need badly enough to memorize will stick with them inevitably anyway.

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4 hours ago, Johann said:

As a college professor, I have complete freedom to teach however and whatever I want. Most people, including my department chair, don't even know a thing about my subject matter. I do stress to my students that the bottom line of every class isn't necessarily about knowing facts, but about problem solving. This is why I don't require they memorize anything, because anything they need badly enough to memorize will stick with them inevitably anyway.

At this point you could make a meme about how college professors emphasis the problem solving skills over the specific material. "Problem Solving™" is my nomination.

I gotta hand it to you though, that's a really thoughtful way to ease the burden on the students. Take it from a college sophomore, memorization is the last thing I want to spend time doing when I could be completing assignments or reviewing study guides.

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6 minutes ago, PeaceRibbon said:

At this point you could make a meme about how college professors emphasis the problem solving skills over the specific material. "Problem Solving™" is my nomination.

I gotta hand it to you though, that's a really thoughtful way to ease the burden on the students. Take it from a college sophomore, memorization is the last thing I want to spend time doing when I could be completing assignments or reviewing study guides.

Is it something everyone says and does? I guess I'd be surprised cuz the other professors at my college don't teach that way. I'm way more laid back than any of them and tell my students things like to just go back to bed if they're too tired to get anything done (especially since they can come to the afternoon class).

The thing about memorization is that unless your work deals with emergencies, you shouldn't be expected to memorize everything, so long as you have a way to get the information you need. So, all my tests/etc are open note, open book, open computer, and I give the long questions out a week beforehand so they can take time to think about/discuss them.

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24 minutes ago, Johann said:

The thing about memorization is that unless your work deals with emergencies, you shouldn't be expected to memorize everything, so long as you have a way to get the information you need. So, all my tests/etc are open note, open book, open computer, and I give the long questions out a week beforehand so they can take time to think about/discuss them.

I like long questions (as long as it is not a whole bunch of long questions) or assignments that involves some kind of analytical work. Feels more engaging than multiple choice questions. I remember my economics professor giving out mostly assignments that have a few questions and we have to summarize our answers within a page or two. We still have to use equations and do math from time to time, but he generally keeps them to a minimum and use easy numbers in multiples of 10s, 100s, 1,000s, etc. so we know how use the equations without bogging us down with pointless work.

Edited by XRay
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On 4/9/2020 at 9:30 PM, Johann said:

Is it something everyone says and does? I guess I'd be surprised cuz the other professors at my college don't teach that way. I'm way more laid back than any of them and tell my students things like to just go back to bed if they're too tired to get anything done (especially since they can come to the afternoon class).

The thing about memorization is that unless your work deals with emergencies, you shouldn't be expected to memorize everything, so long as you have a way to get the information you need. So, all my tests/etc are open note, open book, open computer, and I give the long questions out a week beforehand so they can take time to think about/discuss them.

On a course to course basis they won't just say it in isolation, but if you press a teacher about why you need to learn something on a practical level they usually say something to the effect of "its about the thought process that goes into it." Or at least, that's what I've noticed. I did have this one math professor who I pressed to give examples of where any sane person would use certain kinds of precalculus math, and she actually gave compelling scenarios. She's awesome. 

Edited by PeaceRibbon
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1 hour ago, PeaceRibbon said:

On a course to course basis they won't just say it in isolation, but if you press a teacher about why you need to learn something on a practical level they usually say something to the effect of "its about the thought process that goes into it." Or at least, that's what I've noticed. I did have this one math professor who I pressed to give examples of where any sane person would use certain kinds of precalculus math, and she actually gave compelling scenarios. She's awesome. 

Ah, since my field deals with environmental protection (endangered species, oil spills, etc) and emergency management (stuff like COVID or a hurricane), I teach them using specific scenarios and even a bit of role playing in positions like mayor, fire chief, hospital chief, etc. It'd be harder to make the materials not relevant. Just as an example, one assignment has them model the blast radius of an overturned tanker trailer filled with explosive chemicals somewhere in their town, and determining approximately how many people and what systems would be affected.

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