3-2-1 TUESDAYS WITH MS NIV

Issue #15 / October 20,  2020

 

Disconnected learning is not just difficult, it is fragile. Thus the case for conceptual learning. Right? Does it help us understand life in the 21st century? Does song, dance, art, poetry help? Does it make sense if the 12 year old composes a Rap while learning layers of atmosphere? When does play stop and creative thinking begin? Get some answers and find more questions for yourself,  in this week’s newsletter. Do some thinking with your hands while you make rockets, as you reach the And Finally… section.

Do share and subscribe. 

 

Three Images For The Week

For educator, parent and student. The Holy Trinity of Education.

Two Thoughts For The Week

‘You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.’ Jiddu Krishnamurti

‘I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.’ Albert Einstein

One Video For The Week

At the Serious Play conference, designer Tim Brown of the ‘Innovation and Design’ firm IDEO, talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play — with many examples you can try at home (and one that maybe you shouldn’t).

Guest Column

Vishnuteerth Agnihotri, Chief Learner at GenWise TalentDev Pvt Ltd.

Cooks Vs Chefs: A Case for Conceptual Understanding

Can we see an object in a completely dark room after some time? Where does the mass of a large tree weighing several tonnes come from…given that it started off as a seed that weighed just a few grams? Such questions can puzzle even the best among us. This is because developing conceptual understanding requires ‘connecting the dots’ between different things we learn, that are seemingly unrelated.

While the ‘exam economy’ places little value on conceptual understanding, for someone looking at long-term learning, it is clear that factual knowledge and procedural skills must be accompanied with conceptual understanding. Conceptual understanding is important, even if it takes more time initially, because-

1. Disconnected learning makes things more difficult than they need to be. e.g. a child not seeing the connection between ratios, percentages, fractions and decimals may resort to arbitrary procedures
2. Learning is fragile when disconnected. Without an understanding of foundational concepts, further learning is built on a weak edifice. Unlearning wrong ideas later can be quite painful. 
3. Aiming for conceptual understanding, requires active engagement with connecting different ideas  and builds the capability to ‘think from first principles’.

There is a striking example of the value of conceptual learning from a researcher, Liping Ma, who studied the different methods in teaching subtraction employed by US teachers vis-a-vis Chinese teachers. Take the sum

52 -19

In the US, students are expected to ‘borrow’ 1 from 5, subtract 9 from 12 to get 3 in the units place, subtract 1 from 4 to get 3 in the tens place to arrive at the answer of 33. In contrast in China, students would perform the same subtraction by ‘regrouping’ the numbers in question. Thus a student may perform the subtraction by doing (40 + 12)- (10 + 9)= (40-10) + (12-9)= 30 + 3= 33. 

Liping Ma found that Chinese students significantly outperformed American students on such questions on international tests like TIMSS. Her research shows that lacking an understanding of the procedure they were employing, American students tended to slip up; some students even felt anxious about the procedure because of ‘borrowing 1 from 5 and not returning it’.

Elon Musk has spoken about the importance of thinking from first principles, which is closely related to conceptual understanding in my opinion. He explains how thinking from first principles is needed to innovate and uses the analogy of a chef vs a cook to make his point.

“The chef is a trailblazer, the person who invents recipes. He knows the raw ingredients and how to combine them. The cook, who reasons by analogy, uses a recipe. He creates something, perhaps with slight variations, that’s already been created. If the cook lost the recipe, he’d not know how to cook the dish. The chef, on the other hand, understands the flavor profiles and combinations at such a fundamental level that he doesn’t even use a recipe. He has real knowledge as opposed to know-how.”

To sum up, there’s nothing wrong with being a ‘cook’; in fact we all need to be ‘cooks’ in many areas of life, following certain recipes. But there may be areas in life where we want to be chefs…. we want to be trailblazers, and for that we need to work towards conceptual understanding and developing the capability to think from first principles.

If this post has piqued your interest, you could take the Science & Math ‘Concepts Quiz’ at https://bit.ly/ConceptQuiz (for kids) or https://bit.ly/ConcepTest (for grownups). You can also contact the author of this post at vishnu@genwise.in and read a longer version of this post at https://bit.ly/GWconceptual .

Parent Speak

Geetha Upadyayula is a passionate freelance writer who believes that life is the biggest teacher. She has two beautiful daughters who inspire her every day.

https://www.juggernaut.in/search?q=geetha%20upadyayula

I vividly remember my earnest effort to establish transparency with my nine-month-old firstborn. I would always keep her informed about what errands I was running and when I would be back. I firmly believed I was setting a tradition of dialogue between us, one that we would keep alive forever.

The unjust ask of having only picture-perfect conversations with our children could be the cause of disappointment and anxiety among both parties. It is the difficult and messy arguments that have defined my relationships with both my daughters. The fact that we aren’t scared of having them is the key to an honest road ahead. Innumerable heated discussions, hours of chatting and catching up, and incessant laughter over silliness have resulted in building trust.

We have made it a point to constantly work around the house, and have found our shared joy in cooking with the kitchen being the fulcrum of our home. Outsourcing these jobs, though seemingly economical, can prove very costly in the future. We’ve learnt and advocated the dignity of labor, self-dependence, awareness, mutual respect, and the joy of resourcefulness. Seeing our children as little people who can be taught to be responsible, kind, and considerate can set very different prospects.

In today’s world of instant gratification, another significant tool I’ve found is the art of saying no. The dwindling number of practitioners of this art is directly proportional to the guilt-ridden minds of parents. I believe children need parents to be parents and not just friends. Knowing when to step in and step back has helped me immensely in striking the right balance between being completely permissive and overly strict.

I had read somewhere, many years ago, that our children come through us but not from us. They are with us but they do not belong to us. We don’t own them. More than twenty years and two children later I truly appreciate the essence of those lines. I have learnt that the only way to gain respect is to show respect for your children and treat them as you would want to be treated.

Student Voice

Here’s what you get when you have fun when you learn. Rap along with these two Grade 7s, Ridhi Jain and Jinal Manihar – atmospheric eh? Enjoy.

Clouds are the roof,

Air is the breath, 

If Troposphere wouldn’t be there,

We would all be dead.

The clouds are clear,

In stratosphere,

Less turbulence, the more jets fly, 

Here the famous ozone lies 

will we need woolens the higher we go!!

Oh no-no-no.

Then comes the naughty layer,

Which is called the mesosphere,

It extends upward to a height,

Most meteors burn-in might,

Darkness all over,

It gets colder.

Now it’s the ion layer,

Which is called the thermosphere,

Many satellites orbit the sphere,

And the auroras occur here.

Then extends the exosphere,

Up in the air.

• By Jinal Manihar

Atmosphere Atmosphere Atmosphere 

Today we are gonna talk about atmosphere
The first layer is the troposphere
It has life giving AIR here

With rain bearing clouds everywhere.
Atmosphere Atmosphere Atmosphere 

2nd layer is the stratosphere
It has the hot air balloon in the sky, airplanes flying by
Atmosphere Atmosphere Atmosphere 

3rd layer is the mesosphere
It has the shooting stars looks like a beautiful dream that we are waiting for hours
Atmosphere Atmosphere Atmosphere 

4rth layer is the thermosphere
It has the aurora having 

 Amazing light from its reflection
Atmosphere Atmosphere Atmosphere 

The last layer is the exosphere
The last layer is the exosphere 

Having the spacecraft and the satellite in the sky

So that we can watch cricket matches live.
Atmosphere Atmosphere Atmosphere

Life giving, life saving feature!

• By Ridhi Jain

Showcase

Kiran Bir Sethi, Col Sathya Rao, Saraswathi Padmanabhan, Shailaja Rao, Mubeen Masudi, Divanshu Kumar, Pratibha Narayanan… what do these names have in common? A vision for education. Each of them are thought leaders in this space and tell a story of how they are continuously toiling to make their vision a reality.

I have started a series of podcast : In conversation with Nivedita with educators of today. Those who are breaking boundaries and setting a new paradigm in education. These are short, 20 – 25 minutes of insightful conversations that give a peek into their journeys from vision to action.

These video podcasts are available on my YouTube channel. Here is the link.

https://youtube.com/user/NiveditaMukerjee

Please subscribe and share with fellow educators and edupreneurs. Suggest to me as well names of such leaders who ought to be featured in this series.

And Finally…

Rocket that flies without noise and fire! check out this fun activity with Ms. Sonal.

3-2-1 Tuesdays with Ms Niv  is a newsletter for you to subscribe and enjoy your learning journey with me. Most of you would have been too busy to track trends in education, ponder on most relevant thoughts or deliberate on career choice, parenting or pedagogy. Find it all here. This week, it consists of:  3 images, 2 thoughts and 1 video.

For whom? Students, educators and parents

When? Every Tuesday

Where? my blog post, register with your e-mail id, it is free.

If you want to contribute an article, are organising an event, have a product that you think can be reviewed and/or featured in this news letter, please feel free to write to me at : niveditamukerjee10@gmail.com 

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