Advertise Job alerts Subscribe Newsletter Accueil français Search Articles All content UA Home > Columns & Opinions > Do students understand what you are saying? Search Jobs Browse Career Resources Print Comments (1) Post a comment Email Reprint Share Advertisement Featured Jobs Director - School of Social Work Renison University College - University of Waterloo Husky Energy Chair in Offshore Engineering Memorial University of Newfoundland, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science Vice-President - Research University of Northern British Columbia Canada Research Chair - Tier 2 (Primary Health Care) Université Laval, Faculty of Medicine Assistant/Associate Professors - Electrical and Computer Engineering The University of British Columbia, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Historians rewrite Canada’s citizenship guide 1. How to ask for a reference letter 2. Do students understand what you are saying? 3. Canada's newest law school 4. Episode 3 of Escape the Ivory Tower: the ever-changing job market 5. Most Read Most Emailed Most Commented March 14, 2012 Do students understand what you are saying? Your discipline’s jargon could be an impediment to learning. by Calvin S. Kalman For the student taking a particular subject for the first time, the language and epistemology are akin to a foreign culture. “Language tells us what the world is made of, not because language somehow accurately captures a world independent of language, but because it is the heart of dealing with the world, “wrote Bruce Gregory in Inventing Reality: Physics as Language. “When we create a new way of talking about the world, we virtually create a new world.” The student works in a different paradigm than the professor, and he or she does not understand the meaning of technical words that they encounter in the classroom. Here is what philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had to say about it (in Philosophical Investigations): I am explaining chess to someone; and I begin by pointing to a chessman and saying: “This is the king; it can move like this … and so on.” In this case we shall say: the words “This is the king” (or “This is called the ‘king’”) are a definition only if the learner already knows what a piece in a game is … We may say: only someone who already knows how to do something with it can significantly ask a name. There is an analogy between a student entering a university class and an anthropologist spending time among a Native group in some remote part of the globe. The students’ culture (ontology, epistemology, sociology) is very different from the culture assumed by the professor. “At best,” wrote Ibrahim A. Halloun (“Mediated Modeling in Science Education,” Science & Education), “students resign themselves to the authority of teacher and textbook and learn things by rote only to satisfy curriculum requirements.” At best indeed! Many years ago I attended a workshop given by Graham Gibbs, a noted expert on study skills. He related the following experience: He had been asked by a noted historian to help his class with note taking. The professor spoke about voyages to North America. The professor was such an engaging speaker that Graham Gibbs forgot why he was at the class. He seemed to even smell the salt water carried by the wind. With a start, he remembered why he was there and looked around the class. Surprisingly, at even the most interesting parts, students were staring out the window! This revelation led him to tear up his notes. Do students understand what you are saying? | University Affairs http://www.universityaffairs.ca/do-students-understand-what-yo... 1 of 3 12-03-21 8:45 AM