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posted by Rohan D'souza at
9:42 PM
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2 comments
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
MATHS
Maths learning is a big problem with both students as well as teachers. The fundamental reason for this being the fact that maths has to do very less with what a new student already knows, unlike history or science or English.
The student is updating a lot of his existing knowledge with concepts of structures and entities unlike ever before. Maths as per me is the real beginning of visualization. A student begins creating or re-producing unique patterns that he cannot see, feel or compare easily to what exists. Although this becomes a common place for him after few years.
How can ‘maths’ be taught in a simpler fashion. That could aid students, atleast in their early stages. I am making two assumptions based on my experience and psychology. Cognitive psychology speaks a lot about human beings having very similar structures to learn/understand/react. We are a lot more similar than we think we are. And hence though there might be people more adept at something like analysis and number crunching. Most of us learn and relate in a very similar fashion. A proper structure learnt out of analysis might be very helpful to getting to the desired level of users being both interested in maths as a subject and having a better style of learning.
From my experience I remember helping a younger friend of mine learn basics of accounting. My efforts in the beginning, where in vain. He was fresh out of school and just couldn’t relate to accounts. Not having any previous experience at teaching people helped me in finding new ways of teaching. Instead of presenting step by step task flow kind of teaching.
I began teaching in a macro-level approach. So this is the entity, when you do this to it this happens, and when you do that – that happens. Arriving at gross profit and understanding the nuances of debit/credit became a lot easier for him. And he soon dint need me to teach him anything anymore. He began relations to data and could use any of the rules to get smarter.
I was wondering if this can be applied to maths even at basic levels. Where various changes to the states of numeric value ‘2’ with addition, multiplication, subtraction etc are displayed.
These structures are learnt over a period of time. and hence it is easier for dads to figure out some of the stuff in maths that kids can't. I guess cognitive science looks at life in a very unique way, making us both humble and learnt at the same time.
The student is updating a lot of his existing knowledge with concepts of structures and entities unlike ever before. Maths as per me is the real beginning of visualization. A student begins creating or re-producing unique patterns that he cannot see, feel or compare easily to what exists. Although this becomes a common place for him after few years.
How can ‘maths’ be taught in a simpler fashion. That could aid students, atleast in their early stages. I am making two assumptions based on my experience and psychology. Cognitive psychology speaks a lot about human beings having very similar structures to learn/understand/react. We are a lot more similar than we think we are. And hence though there might be people more adept at something like analysis and number crunching. Most of us learn and relate in a very similar fashion. A proper structure learnt out of analysis might be very helpful to getting to the desired level of users being both interested in maths as a subject and having a better style of learning.
From my experience I remember helping a younger friend of mine learn basics of accounting. My efforts in the beginning, where in vain. He was fresh out of school and just couldn’t relate to accounts. Not having any previous experience at teaching people helped me in finding new ways of teaching. Instead of presenting step by step task flow kind of teaching.
I began teaching in a macro-level approach. So this is the entity, when you do this to it this happens, and when you do that – that happens. Arriving at gross profit and understanding the nuances of debit/credit became a lot easier for him. And he soon dint need me to teach him anything anymore. He began relations to data and could use any of the rules to get smarter.
I was wondering if this can be applied to maths even at basic levels. Where various changes to the states of numeric value ‘2’ with addition, multiplication, subtraction etc are displayed.
These structures are learnt over a period of time. and hence it is easier for dads to figure out some of the stuff in maths that kids can't. I guess cognitive science looks at life in a very unique way, making us both humble and learnt at the same time.
posted by Rohan D'souza at
2:08 AM
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0 comments
CMM Takes a 'U' Turn
When we speak of software development we look at the different methodologies that can help support our endeavors across different platforms. We got agile, iso, cmm, six sigma and so many others. And then we have the ‘U’ or usability as I call it which supports all of these very neatly.
Usability Maturity Model. Hmmm….
But as usability is growing as a practice and as an essential element of Software Development there are newer ways of looking at usability itself as a unique factor in business.
Link
Personally this is a great move, to give UCD a better shape amidst growing non-clarity
Some links for your enlightenment:
(BTW : I read that UMM is based on 18529)
http://www.idc.iitb.ac.in/~anirudha/institutionalizingHCI.htm :
http://www.usabilityviews.com/uv003824.html : the pdf link has a article
http://www.processforusability.co.uk/Usability_test/html/umm.html : the ISO 18529
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/eusc/r_usability_assurance.html
http://www.usability.serco.com/trump/documents/Maturity_assessment.ppt.pdf
http://www.kessu.oulu.fi/HCI2000_Jokela.pdf : A must read
comment anyways on what you think where usability or rather UCD is headed
Usability Maturity Model. Hmmm….
But as usability is growing as a practice and as an essential element of Software Development there are newer ways of looking at usability itself as a unique factor in business.
Link
Personally this is a great move, to give UCD a better shape amidst growing non-clarity
Some links for your enlightenment:
(BTW : I read that UMM is based on 18529)
http://www.idc.iitb.ac.in/~anirudha/institutionalizingHCI.htm :
http://www.usabilityviews.com/uv003824.html : the pdf link has a article
http://www.processforusability.co.uk/Usability_test/html/umm.html : the ISO 18529
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/eusc/r_usability_assurance.html
http://www.usability.serco.com/trump/documents/Maturity_assessment.ppt.pdf
http://www.kessu.oulu.fi/HCI2000_Jokela.pdf : A must read
comment anyways on what you think where usability or rather UCD is headed
posted by Rohan D'souza at
12:26 AM
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0 comments
