Creative Education – Evaluation of Students’ Questions as Method of Scoring

As we try to reach forth for a future where our growing generations are not only critical towards ideas but are creative and innovative, we need to address our archaic method of education.

Ultimately, a learned student will need to be investigative and inquisitive, with inquisitiveness as our primary instinct equipped with a sharpened investigative nature.

Oh, but how do we get that?

Let’s review our present teaching style. Everyone will agree that we are taught to memorize and then when tested, just regurgitate them (a term that we use affectionately use often) whenever questions asked have the keywords associated with what we remember. This method works well, yes, and there are definitely “critical thinking” components that are fitted in.. which of course is suppose to be a guide for curiosity to juice in, BUT it is not effective in really getting students the drive to learn how to think.

To tackle the issue, each student need to have the ability to ask questions – and there are such things as stupid questions.. unless stupid questions builds up to asking smarter questions, it remains stupid.

Great! So we know the obvious; to get students thinking, we need to get them asking. How do we evaluate that?

We will run the current formal lecture but evaluation will dramatically change.

If you’re running a formal education, here’s a proposal:

Students will have 3 main folders:
- Questions Folder: to compile all the questions a student asks, whether in class or outside of class while they do their homework / research / extra reading
- Answers Folder: this folder will contain pages from the Question Folder that has matching answers to it
- Notes Folder: Notes taken in class as well as external references and appendices that are collected throughout an academic course

Evaluation is quite simple. The bulk of the score weights are in the HOW students asks questions (therefore most evaluations are done on the Questions Folder – obviously).

The scores are based on the depth of the students’ questions eg. if student asks a definition question like “What is Photosynthesis”, they will get a medium score.. if students asks a more indepth question eg. “How does chlorophyll transform sunlight into food” they will get a higher score. Here’s then a taxonomy of question evaluation:

Ask examples: Lowest score given
Ask definitions: Medium score given
Ask explanations: High score given
Ask exploratory questions: Highest score given.

Total Weight Percentage: 70%

Exploratory Questions are questions that are related to the subject matter being taught but beyond the scope of syllabus.

The Answers Folder will fill in the rest of the 30%.

It is also important to encourage collaborative efforts, so if students wrote answers that they gained through teamwork effort (via simply asking, group study, asking other teachers, asking seniors), they should gain more points (from the 30%).

With that, I end a proposal about a rough guide to Creative Education.

Gap

Philip looked around him and saw that the maize encircling around him were just a hundred meters in circumference.

Looking at Uncle Ben, tall and bulk he suggested, “Why not we pitch camps here? Looks like there this clearing is fairly grounded and not much work needs to be done”

“Kid, I guess you didn’t get it what I was bringing you here for. It’s not a camping trip, son. We’re here to work”

Without much doubt Philip swung down the heavy haversack of tents and supplies to the ground and picked up a single sickle. “So, this is the gap that you were saying? This small clearing?”

*Chuckles* “Nope” Uncle Ben held up high, his own sickle towards the sunlight, that beams reflect of its blade. Then he pointed at the crop and said, “This clearing is not the gap, but the reason for this sickle is to make the gap smaller”

“The fields are ripe for harvest, but the workers are few”

Sins of the father – another analogy

Here’s another way to look at sins of the father.

Imagine your dad ordering food for you. The food took a long time to come. Your dad got impatient and rushed the chef, and the chef got agitated – and therefore spits into the dish. Food arrives and you get the food that was spat on.

Freewill – a Mechanism (simplified version)

* Be reminded that this is a thought experiment of how freewill works and how God plays a role in it. Not a certain doctrine or dogma.

Imagine yourself as a free moving, self-initiated pool ball on a pool table. Everyone and everything that you interact with are also pool balls that have the same abilities as you do… well, except for the objects around that is – for it is not the objects itself (your clothes, your job, your house, etc.) but rather the opportunity of interacting with it.

So, the foundational idea is set. You are a free moving pool ball and you interact with another ball by hitting it, the movements that happen after the impact is the consequence of your’s and others’ freewill movements.

The pool table (imagine a huge one) represent the world that we live in.

Notice that I have not yet included the cue stick. The person holding the cue stick (and there is only one) is God as He is the intervening factor to push opportunities (other balls) towards you or away from, clumping the balls closer to your side that you may definitely hit one, or displacing them far away so that you will not have much chance hitting it.

That is my way of interpreting “God has plans for you” and “God knows the future” and “God is in control” because being the cue-ist, He can see everything that is going to happen, and manipulate the game as He wants.

Therefore, FREEWILL is the power to move on your own accord but within a world that is limited within God’s sight.

A Worldwide Affect

If there is one emotion that you want everyone in the world to feel including yourself, what would it be and why?

A method of thinking

In method of thinking, one is to think in the same manner as scientists run their experiments.

Apparatus: Your Mind, Your Memory, Steady Attention and Some Concentration

Procedure:

1.  Scientist usually call this step the “Problem”. Basically it is something that is bothering you or something you find worth questioning.
2. Make an assumption about it or rather, come up with an answer for it. We usually cal this part the “Hypothesis” 
3. Assume that your hypothesis is wrong. That is to deny the answer you came up with just now. This component is usually called the “Null Hypothesis”
4. Explore your question by searching for answers… well, one simple way is to ask other people who you think knows. From gathering all their opinion, you can now roughly guess if their responses are about the same as yours. If it is the same, then your answer in (2) is correct (or at least follows the majority of who you asked). If it is not the same, check and see if your answer in (2) makes sense or not, if it does, then you need to investigate more and try things for yourself. 

The key ingredient to this method of thinking is really (3) whereby you assume that your (2) is wrong.. after all, before you learn something, you need to admit that you do not know. It is from this attitude that you may learn something beyond your own thinking. As Socrates said (I wonder if this applies here) “wisest is he who knows that he does not know”

How to get your kids excited about studying

A little suggestion, but this should best be instilled when the child is still very young.. most suitable when they just begin talking.

Simple really, just ask your kids this after they attend any form of learning centers or even watching a cartoon, movie or whatever:

” What did you learn ? “

On the surface, it helps your kids to express themselves, which effectively increases their likelihood of being able to communicate and socialize with their peers in the future as well as building their confidence. 

On a slightly deeper level, it allows you and your children to find out how inquisitive your kids are. By reporting what they’ve learned for the day, they reiterate what they found most interesting or most emphasized.. even bringing to remembrance what was not emphasized as much in their learning.

Ultimately though, the true purpose of asking that simple questions and other suggestive questions, is to draw out your child’s CURIOSITY. It is this sense of curiosity that will most definitely surely get your children excited about studying what they are studying or simply anything else that you asked them.

DISCLAIMER (as usual): this does not mean however that you child must be interested in anything you ask them too.. it is up to them to choose if either candy or broccoli will nourish them, although if it is really important for them to learn something, then it is probably a good idea to ask them further about why they do not take interest in that certain subject and strongly advise them to take up the interest anyway (this may be a little dangerous, nevertheless most commonly practiced)

Reactive Active Love

Alright, I don’t think I wrote the title accurately but surely, all the components which I want to talk about is in there. Recently I’ve been talking to a friend who was saying that she likes a guy because he likes her very much. When I asked her if she really like that guy, she said not really, it is only a form of reaction to his active feelings towards her – kind of like a passive move, my friend is a metal and that guy was just a magnet.

The point I’m trying to bring about here is whether or not love will grow in what I call a “Reactive Active Love” ? Is it reason enough to love someone just because they love us first ?

Marchen #1

Ok ok, let’s start something new. I like writing stories, and I’d like to share the passion with other people. Well, maybe I haven’t really show it.. these days just don’t have the discipline to write them.

Anyways, this post is to start the trend. What I will do is give a scenario and what you will do is to follow on the story in a telephone conversation style.

The scenario is that Maestro wanted to call his long lost ex-girlfriend (whose name he forgotten) and tell her how madly he is in love with her and wants to marry to her. Unfortunately though, he doesn’t know where she is right now and worse, her phone number has been changed since they “broke up” (NOTE the inverted commas and use your imagination). He makes a series of calls of whom he thinks can give him her number.

So then, what you need to do now is to write a short / long dialog on Maestro’s calls to random people. But no matter what, the call receiver cannot be his long lost ex-girlfriend.

Btw, “Marchen” means story in err.. German I think.

How to be Amused Easily & Lessen Pains (The Guide)

Yes, there’s a technique that you can use to get amused easily as well as lessen pains (of any sort) but of course, it is a very difficult technique and it has a high tendency to make you change your character and render you somewhat at a low later on (I’ll explain why it makes you low at the end of this post).

The reason why I said that it is very difficult is that it deals with both your mind and your emotions. This technique that will be disclosed soon is an expression of the saying, “Mind Over Matter” (incidentally, if your mother is one that always nag you about getting over bad habits and use that saying, just notice how it abbreviates and you’ll remember this technique even more).

Though it is nothing new, here’s the technique:

To Get Easily Amused : -

1. Lower Your Expectations – in fact, it is best not to expect anything , which is potentially dangerous because it melts your awareness to real physical dangers.
2. Avoid Unnecessary Anticipation – do not try to guess what is going to happen in a movie that you are watching, even if you guessed it right, always be prepared to be amused by getting the guesses right or well, if the movie makers are good enough, they’ll catch you off your thoughts.
3. Double Your Reactions Towards Something – if you are one that only chuckle and giggle at comedies, it is time to laugh heartily … not just an “lol’ or an “lols!” more like a “LOL!!!” or “HAHAHHAHA!!!” . This is also potentially dangerous due to the fact that if it is a feeling of fear, you might have double that and make it a phobia.

Lessening pain is the exact opposite of the above except for the last doubling technique : -

1. Heighten Your Expectations – people in general have two types of experiences when they encounter something, perceived and imagined. Perceived is really feeling the physical pain for lets say, falling knee first onto a tar road, while imagined is as it says, imagination. So then what you do to lessen pain is to imagine the worst pain you can think of (imagine) before you even face your immediate “pain antecedent”. Example: before getting an injection, don’t think of an ant bite, think of it as a snake bite! Of course there are potential dangers; one of which is that sooner or later, you will deaden your senses and feel no pain at all and secondly, if you cannot control this properly, the imagined pain might just haunt your mind – a confusion of the real and fantasy.
2. Anticipate Pain – Using the same principle as the above, you always need to anticipate anything that can hurt you and experience it with your imagination first before -if ever – facing the real thing. Danger is the same as the above.
3. Double Your Reaction Towards Something – Again this is an emotional aspect; you need to magnify your perceived experience. Realize that when someone who is scared of sitting in a roller coaster screams, they don’t feel as much terrified as if they just sit there and shut up – just ask them, all they remember clearly is screaming.  I haven’t really thought about the dangers of this yet though, just that if it is an injection, warn the injector that you’re going to scream, if not you wouldn’t know where the injection’s needle is going to land.

So then, why does it make you feel somewhat low? That is because when you try these techniques, you are actually changing your mindset towards your known logical thinking. You might feel slightly depressed because you don’t feel the way you initially think that you should. Remember that it takes some time before your conscious thinking actually sinks into your subconscious, which usually contains your thought patterns. But then again , after a while, you will justify why you’re using these techniques to yourself (I’m expecting pain because it will make me feel less pain later on) and it gets integrated in the way you think, so much so that it reaches your subconscious self.

All in all, if you can’t do all that, the best way is to always keep a still and calm mind.