This isn't what I'm used to

A note to students and parents:

The learning approach to the new curriculum represented by the modules has two features that are different from a "traditional" method that many are used to. The first feature is that the introduction to a new idea/topic/method tends to begin with a somewhat open ended question or problem with the intent that an initial exploration of the situation comes first from you, the student. This is significantly different from the approach where a teacher begins by teaching a technique or idea and then gives you problems and asks you to mimic the technique or apply the idea.

To get the most out of this approach, as a student you have to become an active thinker. When a problem comes along where you don't know exactly what to do (or don't have any idea what to do) you have to get curious and try things out and try to sort out in your own head what exactly is confusing. And, you have to be willing to stay in that space of being a bit confused and keep poking around and wondering about things. This isn't easy to do but it is important.

As an analogy, imagine someone hands you something that looks a bit like a cell phone but has screens on both sides, a bunch of buttons, some sliding pieces, some lights, and a bunch of other unfamiliar stuff. The traditional style of learning would be that you wait for someone to explain to you how it works or to hand you a user manual. The new approach is that you pick it up and start exploring it-- pressing buttons, sliding things around, talking to it, shaking it, etc, and noticing what happens and wondering about it. Then, only after a while, does someone come along and explain to you how to use it. The idea is that if you've wondered about what a particular button does (suppose you have pressed it a few times and noticed some things change but haven't quite figured it out) and then someone comes along and explains to you what the button does, you are much more likely to understand and remember that explanation then if you had never tried pressing the button in the first place.

The second feature is that ideas and techniques and concepts are not learned in one chunk. Rather they are introduced and worked on, and then revisited over and over again over time. So while you are learning/exploring something new, you will also be doing exercises (in class and for homework) for ideas and techniques that you've learned previously. The hope is that by keeping on coming back to things, you can fill in gaps of your initial understanding.