J T wrote:TED Talk: Do schools kill creativity?
I loved that!
[rant]
In my 7th grade science class we follow the "Mario Theory."
I play SMB on the 2nd day of school to show the scientific method about making choices and trying them. If your choice doesn't work (aka walking into a goomba) you now learned one way not to beat the level. Even though you lost a life you still have two more chances and we expect that you don't make the same mistake twice.
The biggest problem I am having in my class is that students are having trouble doing activities and experiments. The problem they have is that they don't want to be wrong. I cant tell you how many kids turn in papers that have the answer they think is right and it doesn't match the data from their experiment.
So, this year the Mario Theory has played a different role in my class - we keep track of lives and get more of them. I am trying to teach my students that you are more than welcome to try something and if the results are not what you expected (aka wrong) they you still learned something - a way not to solve the problem and I hope you don't try the same way three times, then it's "game over". The statement that works the best is "if a scientist was always right, we would have a cure for cancer."
[/rant]
awesome.