Re: [Fhsst-authors] Curriculum worries

[Mark Gilbert]

I know I turned out unable to find the time I'd originally hoped to for
this project, but taking a brief coffee break and reading an unusually
close-hitting topic, I thought I'd give my brief opinion as well as ask
a couple questions that come to mind.  It is coming from a
non-contributer, I don't expect nor want it to be given equal
consideration as a contrib'er, but it's here for those who want it:

On Fri, 2004-08-06 at 12:58, Mark Horner wrote:
> http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=105&art_id=vn20040805053558435C155715
> 

Hmms.  So the primary new problem here is that a number of areas are not
as near completion as they would be, for reasonable practicality, or
even close, with respect to that '06 ultimatum.  Correct?  And
secondarily, that even areas which may be relatively close to completion
in the sense of content encompassed in some form are still not very
useful, because they are not integratable, being in inaccessible form to
the common teacher (the example cited in the above article being
upperclass biology, I may not be redescribing it very well).  Also
correct?  These are the impressions I'm thinking from, if they're wrong
or confused and you dont mind taking the time, I would appreciate any
necessary correction.  I'm especially uncertain about whether the
biology issue is about obfuscation (my first impression from the
article) or undercoverage.  For now I'll assume the former.

> I know that the maths authors have been struggling to get a document to 
> work from. Sam has made one after struggling through the "official 
> syllabus" for days.

Is this an example of the official syllabus being too dense or
obfuscated to be accessible, or is it about undercoverage/vagueness?  Or
is this actually not too bad, and you were just citing what Sam did and
why?  I'm afraid I'm awefully 'out of the loop'.

> I think that by writing a text which has sufficient real-world examples 
>   and essays with some projects we can argue that our text meets all the 
> criteria in the curriculum document. In outcomes based education a lot 
> of structure is up to the teacher.

---[Edit]: Relatively lengthy musing upon the semantics of textbook
structure, its necessity, and its forms follows:

Hmms.  I agree with the usefulness of projects and the like for
longer-term interest support structures, and for diligence consistency
facilitation, so to speak.  However, I would be wary of understructuring
as well, due to the further below.  I would advocate enough structure to
enable successful student-chosen learning 'trails' (for lack of a better
word at the moment - I can't get over the analogical appropriateness of
Sun's java learning trails with dependencies on the fundamentals that
give necessary guidance, but independence of java sub-topics / interests
/ specialties that give necessary freedom), even when there is not much
teacher guidance available (a situation I'm rather familiar with), while
keeping the post-basic topics as independent as possible, using
extension.
I should try to explain better what I'm thinking of when I say 'using
extension'.  What I mean is, topics B and C may at the textbook level
depend on topic A if A is really fundamental (like, an example
conceptually (not meant to match the book in development) trigonometry,
calculus, statistics and combinatorics may all depend, directly or
indirectly, on arithmetic, without the knowledge of which no student
would stand a chance).  The reason we don't leave this link unresolved
(and thus, totally up to the teacher's discretion), is because a student
without this guidance, or a teacher who was unable to figure out the
dependency on  his/her own, is very likely to shoot himself in the foot
(like American students I see often who embark on, for example, real
analysis, without the slightest knowledge of basic set theory, and of
course don't get very far before this stops them sharply).  A student
shooting himself in the foot scenario that sticks in my head: he (or
she, I'll use just he hereafter simply for brevity's sake) finds a
post-basic topic interesting (a very good thing), for example nuclear
engineering, and dives right into the little trail someone contributed
about ne. Having been given no indication by the structure of the
textbook that while he needn't learn about the other peer trails, say,
stellar dynamics, he does need to learn the fundamentals of field
theory, he reads through the introduction, and the exciting career
essay, becoming more and more thrilled, and then hits the next page
where the material begins, and it looks like nothing more than spilled
ink to him.  None of it even so much as sounds familiar, much less makes
any sense to him.  His excitement is striken down, his self-esteem may
hit a new low if he feels like he _should_ be able to understand it, and
(I know the scenario may seem rather exaggerated to some, but the point
is real) now there's one less future physicist in the world.  This is
even more pertinent for fhsst than for commercial book providers, in my
opinion, because I imagine that in times I hear a biography about a
world-renowned scientist who made his way from humble roots in a rural,
almost forgotten town of SA, to being one of the leading scientists in
the world, culminating with the acceptance of his nobel prize, I believe
that more likely it will be the student who found the spark of
fascination and fostered the drive to make it on his own than a student
who had nothing but the very best teachers who guided him in all his
studies and made sure he did his homework.  A bit of an imagined
obsession perhaps, but this is why I think that invocability and
maintenability of interests, and therefore some level (though minimal)
of textbook structure, is quite desirable for fhsst.

Back towards the topic at hand, and more briefly, a teacher shooting
himself in the foot: The teacher has this textbook with no apparent
structure, pretty much just a nicely bound stack of perfectly good
pieces of material.  He's also got this handful of pages talking about
his outcomes and how it he should be pondering the integration of
available material in a manner optimal...etc, etc.  He does his best to
sort it all out and make sense of his guidelines, but if the textbook
gives too little structure, even though it may be good for the most
experienced 10% of teachers in a field to be able to customize their
methods all the way, the rest are as likely as the student to find
themselves, sooner or later, hitting a brick wall because of something
overlooked earlier on.  I guess the teachers' exams are supposed to
reduce this, but from the sound of things I take it that this may not be
as safely relied upon as possible.  Anyway after shooting himself in
foot and running into brick wall, in order to correct it, the teacher
must waste class time with the overhead of backtracking, and helping
students who may be confused because the dependent relationships between
certain concepts, even just which formula belongs where, are obfuscated
to a degree.  This all puts more stress on the teacher who is already
struggling to cope with a brand new system.

And finally back on the topic of the extension (rather than the more
common dilation) structure, this means that while the guidance provided
by structuring for fundamental dependencies keeps both student and
teacher from making any show-stopping oversights, the minimization of
interdependancy between post-basic topics protects the teacher's freedom
to do most of the remaining of the structure, where teacher-freedom is
also most desired, it seems.
Whether the best idea is
- when possible rather than Topic C depending on completion of Topic B
while both depend on Fundamental A, have basic parts of C depend only on
the basic parts of B, with each topic's material referencing
dependencies in A directly.  -
or is
- when as-yet-unresolved dependencies arise, dereference the material to
keep topic arrangement flexible for the teacher and unintimidating for
the student -,
I would guess depends on the case.  I would imagine that relatively
small amounts of coverage duplication would be acceptable for the
elimination of the constraint and overhead associated with structural
dependencies, while for larger breadths of depended-upon material the
former, 'bridged-chains' method would be a more time and
resource-friendly compromise which would also give teachers the freedom
to break up otherwise expansive structures into manageable and possibly
better integrated units.  The bridged chains uses greater amounts of
structural support (references within the text, divisions of units into
parts, etc.) than all three of negligible, dialtion, and
dereference-based structure, but by doing so allows the structure itself
to be much more flexible, for teacher and student. Dereferencing is the
opposite, a reduction of structural supports, because it is also a
reduction of structure itself, with the key term being unit/topic
self-containment.
Both the chains and the dereference ('blocks' might be a fitting term)
patterns serving to preserve a student's ability to pursue any given
interest with as little 'distraction' (disruption) as possible, as well
as a teacher's ability to do similarly with the class layout he
chooses.  Also, because there _is_ some structure already at the lowest
levels, the teacher finds himself with _more_ structural freedom, in the
sense of not having to worry about every little detail of the materials,
in turn allowing him to focus on the structure of his course's
curriculum.  This is in the interest of outcomes based education, no?

(I never intended to rattle on to such an extent, I hope that at least
some of it is of some value, even if by no other means than
counterexample in reply.  If not, I apologize for taking your time.)

> 
> I also feel we should cover all topics that we would like to know before 
> starting university/college. If they only teach a subset of the topics 
> thats fine - but then at least we've allowed for expansion. We also have 
> content which is then more applicable internationally.
> 

I spent much more time replying to the last paragraph than I'd intended;
I'll try still to be very brief.  I absolutely agree with this.  Lack of
standards development or lack of time to rework based on developed
standards poses quite a set of constraints, but I feel (and I think you
agree) that even if fhsst cannot at first present a thorough or
perfectly integrated exposition of a given topic, it is important that
the book _enable_ the student to pursue those areas whenever possible. 
"Appendix: Reference for Other Related Fields and Studies" with little
besides (possibly even a subset of) - a brief field career profile,
topic relations list/diagram, maybe a related essay, and annotated
bibliography for finding out more info - may appear like an admission of
failure to some people, but by _enabling_ the student, I think it is the
most worthwhile value-to-timerequired resource that a textbook can
provide.

> My wish is that a student (picture rural student, badly equiped school 
> etc.) who was diligent enough could teach themselves from our books to 
> pass the written exams.
> 

Having experienced less than desirable schools myself, and worked with
students who've had it far worse than I ever did, I again couldn't agree
more.  Less than fully competent, motivated, and prepared teachers are
the norm in every country I can recall seeing them in, even when there
is not a huge new program being implemented with systems and standards
that hardly exist.  Not to be construed as an underestimation of the
difficulty or importence of the job, just to point out why I agree that
enabling students to grow of their own accord is so vital.
Some of those I've worked with astonish me to this day with such an
incredible drive, diligence, and zeal.  I've learned that it is not in
spite of the fact that they're from some of the least education-inducive
backgrounds, but rather _because_ that's where they're from and they
pushed beyond those barricades.  So yes, I personally couldn't agree
more with your vision, Mark.

> Just some thoughts.

Same here.  I wish I could be as concise as you, though; I feel like I'm
practically spamming with a message this long.

Best regards
-MG