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[mainiac]

One suited to my personal educational needs, obviously.

Yes, but which track would you want to be suited to?

[sluissa]

I'm getting the impression that mainiac is thinking that these tracks would be like "dumb kids track" "average kids track" "smart kids track" When in fact it's more of a "Finger counting math works best for these kids." "Pencil and paper math works best for these kids." and "Calculator math works best for these kids." With the goal that all the kids end up at about the same point at the end of any of the tracks. The paths are different, the goal the same.

[wierd]

Bingo.

[mainiac]

When in fact it's more of a "Finger counting math works best for these kids." "Pencil and paper math works best for these kids." and "Calculator math works best for these kids."

He specifically said Germany.  The country with the vocational education tracks.

[wierd]

No, I said "More like the German system".

More is a subjective adverb. It means exactly what i said. It is more like the german system than the one we currently have, in that it identifies and tracks students. It is unlike the german system, in that we do not want different end points.

Please stop being obtuse.

[mainiac]

Please stop being obtuse.

Dont say something misleading and then call someone obtuse.  If you are discussing education and telling students what they can and cant do and you bring up Germany and you dont want to discuss the distinctive quality of the German education system then be specific.

Please stop being rude.

[wierd]

I did not intentionally mislead. If I had said I wanted the exact copy of the german system, that is what I would have said we should do.

eg:

"We need to copy what the germans are doing."

Instead, I said "more" like what the germans are doing, with the implied caveat that should have been contextually obvious, given the rhetoric i had written prior, that the goal is getting the entirety of the student body up to the desired level of understanding mandated by government. (eg  one end point.)

The one going half cocked was yourself.

[mainiac]

I did not intentionally mislead.

I didn't say it was intentional.

Please stop being obtuse. :p

[Frumple]

... the caveat wasn't contextually obvious, no. Also maniac did not say anything about intention, just that it was misleading. So... yeah.

and ninja'd, but okay.

[wierd]

We could contiue to argue over who slighted who here, but that would be unproductive.

The misunderstanding has been cleared up. That's what's functionally useful here. let's move on from there.

[mainiac]

Glad to see that no one was obtuse and it was in fact just a miscommunication.

So the idea of using teaching methods according to student needs sounds intuitively appealing.  Is there any evidence that it does anything?  I mean a lot of times learning is about deliberately confronting your weak spots.

[wierd]

Most of the more successful "inner city" school initiatives make use of such tactics.  I would say that the answer is yes.

[Frumple]

No clue about statistical data and whatnot. Just about every teacher I've personally spoke with on the subject says they get better results when they can actually tailor things a bit, though, for what it's worth.

If I had to recommend an area of the US education system to check and see if it's making a difference, I'd probably recommend adult school programs as a possibility -- they tend to be a bit more flexible in how they can approach teaching their students, from what I understand. Unfortunately, I'm fairly sure the data gathering in that particular area is... not as good as it could be.

[mainiac]

Do any of the unsuccessful school initiatives use it?  Is there an effect beyond the Hawthorne effect?

No clue about statistical data and whatnot. Just about every teacher I've personally spoke with on the subject says they get better results when they can actually tailor things a bit, though, for what it's worth.

Is that an initiative though?  Isn't that what everyone has been doing all along?

[Vector]

I actually read recently that the "learning styles" thing does not bear out statistically at all.