talk the talk

When we engage in any conversation, whether gossiping with friends over a glass of prosecco, making small talk with the cashier, or participating in a small classroom discussion about teaching styles, there is some level of learning taking place. You may have learned that Mary Sue didn’t earn her raise based on job performance alone, Derrick, your cashier, was having a wonderful day and your total for groceries was $ 48.12, and that it’s uncommon to come across some radical engineer with a high degree of nurturing teaching style and a knack for social reform.  Whether this information is of value is the determining factor which draws the distinction between talking and teaching.

Teaching is talking with the deliberate purpose of delivering information perceived to be of professional and scholarly value.

Though we learn new facts and tidbits from our everyday conversation, the person we learned from did not intend to transfer information of value therefore said person was not actively teaching. Teaching occurs when a person made the decision to deliver information to others prior to the start of conversation and is the result of effort and reflection.

Chlorophytum comosum

The ideal student/teacher relationship: Chlorophytum comosum, or better known as the spider plant.  Out of the plant grows a new plant.  It branches off and lands on the ground.  Still connected to the mother plant, it gains nutrients from the host while developing roots of its own.  It is possible for these roots to grow in water without the host plant, but the result will not be as full.  Can this be considered an analogy for an ideal student teacher relationship?  The teacher can provide a secure structure to work within and students branch out to develop roots of their own.  Influenced by the host yet unique to themselves, these students have the capability to flourish on their own and in time play the role of host or teacher to the next generation of students.

This may also help to explain the disparity of how a student becomes a teacher. Thus we respectfully submit our solution to the transient problem of the ideal student/teacher relationship.

Signed,

The Radical and Empirical

fierdeltreempirical.wordpress.com

radicalteachings.blogspot.com

it don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that swing

To put a little kick into Bernoulli and fluid mechanics, I had a professor who provided extra credit points for authoring an original song or rap about topics learned in class. Even more points could be earned for corresponding visuals such as music videos. The results were fantastic and the students were truly engaged. In a kind of double loop method, this professor had the students not only reflect on the topics learned in class, but also use their individual creative insight to generate an educational and amusing song.

introductions….GRAD 602

my general introduction:

I’m currently in my 2nd year of the PhD program in Mechanical Engineering. I suppose I want to be a professor when I grow up. 🙂

Metaphor for the teacher/student relationship – GRAD 602

Endless metaphors and analogies could contrived to describe the ideal teacher/student relationship. Inspired by the man who still managed the make the news this morning, 490 years after his death, I’ll attempt to make a more unexpected metaphor. The teacher is an object and the student is  CN II (cranial nerve II or the optic nerve). The teacher provides information and motivates curiosity. The student must take this information to their mind and make sense of it for proper understanding and knowledge.

“All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.” – Leonardo da Vinci

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