One more thing we need to stop pretending in education

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This only puts me at five so I am allowed to add it! (see yesterday's post).

#5 We need to stop pretending that if students can Google it, they do not need to know it.

If I tell my doctor a symptom and then he/she Googles it, the next symptom I will ask him/her to Google will be "extreme concern."

There are things our students should know about our discipline which will allow them to think about it creatively. Without that foundation, they will not be able to move any further in their thinking or be able to creatively put together ideas from other areas of interest.

It's one of our jobs to know what that foundation may be and help students understand it and how to build upon it. It's in the learning of that material that we get to be as creative and innovative as our ideas will allow.

So yes, there will be many times when I ask my students a question that they could possible Google and get the answer. It's the follow up question, the one that puts that idea or concept together with others, that's the goal for their thinking and can not be done by Google. Yet.

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