for me, guessing the teacher’s password was a real ‘oh wow’ moment for me that changed the way i went about learning and approaching my classes. it definitely awoke an awareness that i, myself, was simply guessing the password most of the time and it illuminated that this was the way the lecture system primarily functioned in my classes. as a result, i feel i mentally ‘engage’ more with the material presented and think critically not only about the material itself but on the meta-level of how and why the material is being presented in the way it is.
this was most apparent in an abnormal psychology class where we were presented with case studies containing the story of an individual and then meant to diagnose that person according to DSM IV criteria. you might read about an eccentric individual who dresses in eccentric fashions, has occasional muscle tremors, and will ramble incoherently, jumping from topic to topic.
“aha! schizophrenia, disorganized type!”
and that was that.
there was no follow up on exactly what that meant. there was simply a bucket of symptoms with a label on it and lo-and-behold this person had a cluster of symptoms from that bucket.
though schizophrenia may be a poor example due to science’s weak understanding of it, this process was repeated across the board regardless of the mental ailment. this may simply have been due to the broad nature of the class and time constraints but i remember coming away with nothing but a bunch of labels and little understanding about what was actually happening.
for me, guessing the teacher’s password was a real ‘oh wow’ moment for me that changed the way i went about learning and approaching my classes. it definitely awoke an awareness that i, myself, was simply guessing the password most of the time and it illuminated that this was the way the lecture system primarily functioned in my classes. as a result, i feel i mentally ‘engage’ more with the material presented and think critically not only about the material itself but on the meta-level of how and why the material is being presented in the way it is.
this was most apparent in an abnormal psychology class where we were presented with case studies containing the story of an individual and then meant to diagnose that person according to DSM IV criteria. you might read about an eccentric individual who dresses in eccentric fashions, has occasional muscle tremors, and will ramble incoherently, jumping from topic to topic. “aha! schizophrenia, disorganized type!” and that was that.
there was no follow up on exactly what that meant. there was simply a bucket of symptoms with a label on it and lo-and-behold this person had a cluster of symptoms from that bucket.
though schizophrenia may be a poor example due to science’s weak understanding of it, this process was repeated across the board regardless of the mental ailment. this may simply have been due to the broad nature of the class and time constraints but i remember coming away with nothing but a bunch of labels and little understanding about what was actually happening.
link: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/08/guessing-the-te.html