3. The science of teaching¶
Notes on technical pedagogy.
Ideas¶
“Overarching education” (plenty of math and fundimentals, aimed at systemic thinking,
practical applications derived later) is expensive method of teaching.Student motivation is scarce, information is abundant. Teaching is a guidance (esp masters level).
Can teach programming first, and followup with more solid math second, if ever (programming allows experimenting).
Need open source textbooks, able to update and share parts of text as well as interactive excercises. Static site generators are not fully there yet.
Links¶
10 rules of teaching by Greg Wilson (@gvwilson) starts with rule #1 “Be kind: all else is details.” More detail is at teachtogether.tech.
Nick Huntington-Klein proposes a course structure based on statistical programming, and causal inference/research design, with regressions postponed.
So, my class that goes at the *beginning* of the econometrics sequence, and focuses entirely on two things: statistical programming, and causal inference/research design. That's it.
Allen Downey has a presentation about teaching physical modelling and sequencing of math and programming.
A few weeks ago I led a workshop at Harvard on "Using computation to teach everything else"https://t.co/dUawT1D3Ah
The slides for the workshop are athttps://t.co/m641iBRumK
Including my favorite provocative slides: pic.twitter.com/3sRb32LNAI
4. Very introductory courses are good for building student confidence and making simple things simple. They prevent gate-keeping (maybe a reason why they are attacked). See a thread by Rochelle Terman on teaching computational social science.
Technical writing¶
… is important, needs practice and has little substitute. Hard to learn/teach.
Some links:
Teaching at…?¶
Just to start tracking issues in academic careers, education system and economics profession.
Publishing and promotion - tyranny of top 5¶
American colleges and equal opportunity¶
Let’s start with basics I’ve written about in many places, including all three of my books.
(1) Americans have *never* agreed on equal opportunity for education for all, let alone for higher ed.
The fact that the Pell Grant was created hardly implies consensus.
Seminar attitudes¶
3 types of seminar comments/attitudes I have observed in economics:
*How can we improve the world?
*What can we learn?/intellectual curiosity
*How can I show I'm smarter than you?
Let's have less of the last one.
❤