Pay attention to reasoning, problem solving, & the ability to probe unfamiliar ideas, rather than memorization.

On Jean Tower’s blog, K12EduBuzz, today she had a post about the importance of paying attention to reasoning, problem solving, & the ability to probe unfamiliar ideas, rather than memorization.

She was reviewing Ideas and Information, by Arno Penzias, Nobel prize winning physicist and former Vice-President of Research for Bell Labs.

Jean goes into details about how Penzias related a story about his son interviewing for a job, the question asked of his son, his son’s reasoning process, etc. and both Jean and Penzias make the following point – The job interviewer WANTED TO KNOW HOW the interviewee would solve this problem.  The interviewer DID NOT WANT A MEMORIZED ANSWER! (Not like an answer to a standardized test question that we force our children to learn.)  The interviewer wanted the interviewee to THINK -to know how to figure out a logical answer based on his perception of the situation, not a canned memorized answer!

Jean Tower says (and I agree!) this has a corollary lesson for education…” Let’s craft our work with students to reflect deep thought and avoid assessments that rely primarily on reciting back what they have read in a text book.”

Need I say more?

What do you do in your classroom to achieve this goal?

OR…

Are you merely teaching to the test?

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