No Burp Back Education

No Burp Back Education
Dr. Strange stated in his personal blog found at http://strangejpb.blogspot.com; "I am a vigorous opponent of "burp back" education. Yet it is endemic in our school systems, including our universities. Find some information that you think students should "know"; force it down them through lectures, readings, or even videos; give them a true/false or multiple choice quiz covering the facts you have determined that they "should" know; and ignore the fact that we have excellent evidence that people forget information (and skills) they do not use in just about the same amount of time that it takes them to learn those facts or skills!" The impact that "No Burp Back Education" has on me is that we must, must, must engage our students in activities that demand them to use their minds and think. What a waste of time to recite facts after facts and more facts that they will only memorize for a short time and then forget not long after they are tested on it. Many students can't even remember it long enough to pass the test. If teachers will make learning creative and encourage critical thinking, we will have better success. Technology has advanced and continues to advance as an extremely fast pace, let's use all the technology as teaching tools.