Forwarded from Hacker News
NL Times
Dutch rules will soon prevent schoolchildren from having a phone in the classroom
Children will soon be prevented from bringing mobile phones into Dutch classrooms. Sources close to the Cabinet confirmed that schools will have until October 1 figure out how they can arrange the restriction on their own. If that fails, national rules may…
🔥6👎2
I, along with my undergrad and postdoc friends, submitted our paper for review. Let's see if it goes through the peer review and gets published.
@noordievdev
@noordievdev
❤8👍5
On Higher Education - Part 1
With the recent developments surrounding the college admissions, I decided to make a post about it given our audience. Before we delve into the topic of affirmative action, we should establish what higher education is all about. What, in your opinion, is the purpose of higher education? According to Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and a philosopher, the purpose of higher education is not just to transmit knowledge and skills, but to empower individuals and foster critical consciousness. In Freire's view, traditional education offers a banking model, where teachers deposit information into passive students, treating them as empty vessels to be filled. He argued that this approach reinforces the existing power imbalances and does not promote genuine learning or liberation. Instead of the banking model, he offers a problem posing model where students are encouraged to become critical thinkers and agents of change (Liberal Arts comes the closest to problem posing method of education imho).*
But in reality, we are still stuck with the banking model of education where schools and colleges deposit information into the passive receivers, students. I took a history class in the Spring semester where the professor used to lecture for 75 minutes straight. To make the matter worse, she had a 10% participation grade. This was coming from a professor with more than a decade of experience. Looking back, that was the most effort I put in a course evaluation.
It make you wonder, if that is the case with experienced scholars, what do you expect from new PhD grads breaking into the academia? Interestingly, university does not offer training on how to teach as all professors are expected to have their own teaching styles.
With the current banking model, higher educational institutions produce rule abiding workers who don't practice critical thinking, and only a handful of them would set out to change the world (This sentence is obviously exaggerated). The cycle repeats itself because without a college degree you can't get a "good job" with a fairly good compensation. That, fortunately, is slowly changing, and in the second part of this post, I'll focus on that, elite colleges and what you get from studying at one.
*Taken from Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed."
@noordievdev
With the recent developments surrounding the college admissions, I decided to make a post about it given our audience. Before we delve into the topic of affirmative action, we should establish what higher education is all about. What, in your opinion, is the purpose of higher education? According to Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and a philosopher, the purpose of higher education is not just to transmit knowledge and skills, but to empower individuals and foster critical consciousness. In Freire's view, traditional education offers a banking model, where teachers deposit information into passive students, treating them as empty vessels to be filled. He argued that this approach reinforces the existing power imbalances and does not promote genuine learning or liberation. Instead of the banking model, he offers a problem posing model where students are encouraged to become critical thinkers and agents of change (Liberal Arts comes the closest to problem posing method of education imho).*
But in reality, we are still stuck with the banking model of education where schools and colleges deposit information into the passive receivers, students. I took a history class in the Spring semester where the professor used to lecture for 75 minutes straight. To make the matter worse, she had a 10% participation grade. This was coming from a professor with more than a decade of experience. Looking back, that was the most effort I put in a course evaluation.
It make you wonder, if that is the case with experienced scholars, what do you expect from new PhD grads breaking into the academia? Interestingly, university does not offer training on how to teach as all professors are expected to have their own teaching styles.
With the current banking model, higher educational institutions produce rule abiding workers who don't practice critical thinking, and only a handful of them would set out to change the world (This sentence is obviously exaggerated). The cycle repeats itself because without a college degree you can't get a "good job" with a fairly good compensation. That, fortunately, is slowly changing, and in the second part of this post, I'll focus on that, elite colleges and what you get from studying at one.
*Taken from Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed."
@noordievdev
🔥8👍3❤1
Yusuf Abdurakhimov
We Are Uzbekistan 🇺🇿 @TenxStartuper
Startup ecosystem is growing so fast in Uzbekistan, Optimus Prime had to do an intro video himself.
@noordievdev
@noordievdev
🔥9❤4🙏1
🔥14😭3❤2🌚2🗿2
Will be visiting Washington DC on a school program in August. Let's meet up if you're around.
@noordievdev
@noordievdev
❤20🔥1
❤3🔥1😭1
ChatGPT for Android is out:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.openai.chatgpt
@noordievdev
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.openai.chatgpt
@noordievdev
👍5
On Higher Education - Part 2 (Part 1 here)
In the first part of this post, I talked about what higher education is now and what it should be. In this post, I'll focus on elite colleges, and why everyone is obsessed with going to one. This post is written from an international student's perspective and would look very different for US citizens.
If you are competent enough to study on your own, you can learn anything online they teach in any top tier colleges. Then why, prey tell, are you obsessed with going to an elite institution? 3 words: Opportunity, Reputation, Connections. These higher educational institutions provide an abundance of resources so there's always something for every student. I'll give you an example. I was doing econ research with professors from the main campus in DC, but they couldn't employ me due to work authorization rules between the US and Qatar. So I applied for research grants and got around $5k. All I had to was to submit a 1 page research proposal. And I have gotten a few of these throughout the years. Reputation is another key selling point for colleges as you'll get have the "s/he went to X college so he must be good" credentials. Lastly, connections and friends you will make at these colleges will last you a lifetime.
Going back to the main point of this post, it is sad to see the US Supreme court putting an end to affirmative action as the program tried to improve the racial gap in colleges. There were discussions about the legacy/donor admissions in top tier colleges and how that, instead, should be the center of discussion. But if you think about it, these entities are private institutions, and can do whatever they want with their policies as long as they don't severely harm the average student. These institutions are hubs for rich kids to hang out, but at the same time, they allow students like you to get into these circles and make connections that might change the trajectory of your life.
@noordievdev
In the first part of this post, I talked about what higher education is now and what it should be. In this post, I'll focus on elite colleges, and why everyone is obsessed with going to one. This post is written from an international student's perspective and would look very different for US citizens.
If you are competent enough to study on your own, you can learn anything online they teach in any top tier colleges. Then why, prey tell, are you obsessed with going to an elite institution? 3 words: Opportunity, Reputation, Connections. These higher educational institutions provide an abundance of resources so there's always something for every student. I'll give you an example. I was doing econ research with professors from the main campus in DC, but they couldn't employ me due to work authorization rules between the US and Qatar. So I applied for research grants and got around $5k. All I had to was to submit a 1 page research proposal. And I have gotten a few of these throughout the years. Reputation is another key selling point for colleges as you'll get have the "s/he went to X college so he must be good" credentials. Lastly, connections and friends you will make at these colleges will last you a lifetime.
Going back to the main point of this post, it is sad to see the US Supreme court putting an end to affirmative action as the program tried to improve the racial gap in colleges. There were discussions about the legacy/donor admissions in top tier colleges and how that, instead, should be the center of discussion. But if you think about it, these entities are private institutions, and can do whatever they want with their policies as long as they don't severely harm the average student. These institutions are hubs for rich kids to hang out, but at the same time, they allow students like you to get into these circles and make connections that might change the trajectory of your life.
@noordievdev
👍11🔥6❤1
Aerial view of Education City in Doha, Qatar. You can see West Bay from a far-off distance.
Credits: qf.org.qa
@noordievdev
Credits: qf.org.qa
@noordievdev
🤩8👍6🔥5