[PLUG] Self Analysis

[Nishit Dave]

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 10:42 AM, Sriram Narayanan <sriramnrn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Lest some students mis-understand what Nishit is saying here:
>
>  Students are exposed to technology and are students of technology.
>  Consequentially, their focus remains technology. If they were to see
>  how technology could be applied, suddenly they'd start to even study
>  in a different way.
>
>  While working in Nashik, I once taught a COM/DCOM programming course.
>  Most students had never written much code beyond basic assignments. I
>  was used to having to deal with that having been a mentor for B.E.
>  projects. So when I decided to teach the course, I chose to change the
>  rules a bit. One, every  session that we had together comprised of me
>  telling folks how the topic of the day was applied to solve real world
>  problems.
>
>  Another different thing was with the assignments : I encouraged
>  everyone to copy from each other, and to tell me just what they had to
>  copy and why. It was just fine if the class as a whole sent me a
>  solution, but individuals could send me separate solutions too.
>
>  This led to a higher degree of collaboration and learning (in my
>  observation), prompted people to speak up and to ask questions, and to
>  set out finding parallels in the real world.
>
>  People focus on that which they see in front of them.
>
>  Perhaps it's time for PLUG to try additional things at PLUG meets -
>  what we take for granted (real world problems), may be new stuff for
>  students (apply technology to solve real world problems) :)
>

Well, this deserves a Hall of Fame.  Thanks.