014 Two years ago Nova High School began to use interactive

[gaurav_techie]

Hi All,

As always your comments are greatly appreciated..

 

Thanx.

 

The following appeared as part of a newspaper editorial.

“Two years ago Nova High School began to use interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects. The school dropout rate declined immediately, and last year’s graduates have reported some impressive achievements in college. In future budgets the school board should use a greater portion of the available funds to buy more computers, and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.”

Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.

 

The statement claims that post using interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects, the school drop out rate declined immediately and that the previous year’s graduates have reported impressive achievements in college. Let us examine the statement from various perspectives.

 

Firstly, interactive computer instruction is a revolutionary method of imparting knowledge. Using the computer to impart education could involve the use of multimedia, simulation models etc. This on its own can enhance one’s understanding of the subject being learned due to the mode of presentation. However, there are some subjects to which interactive computer instruction cannot do justice to. For Example, learning Art requires constant interaction with a human interface. Learning how to mix colors, understand texture of canvas etc cannot be learned through interactive computing. In the case of Nova High school we are not given any information about the subjects being taught using interactive computing. We are not told about how dependant the school is on interactive computer instruction to impart knowledge to their students. Does the software conduct tests? Can it manage without a human interface to clarify what its content means?

 

Secondly, what subjects does the software aim to teach? What standards of Quality does the software adhere to? We are told that the college reported impressive achievements. What do these achievements imply in terms of a performance improvement by average students? The statement tells us that the drop out rate declined immediately, but did the performance of those would be dropouts improve? Further, we have statistics only for the past two years. Unless we have statistics for a few more years we cannot be sure of the long-term implications of computer instruction on important aspects of the curriculum. Hence we cannot infer whether there would be a high correlation between computer instruction and a fall in rates of dropouts and consequently a performance improvement.

 

In conclusion, the statement would have done well to give us more information in the lines of questioning mentioned in the above 2 paragraphs. Given the facts, we can say that the results of introducing computer instruction are at best encouraging. Hence, Nova school should introduce computer instruction in phases, carefully monitoring the results as the introduction takes place. As yet we are not able to predict the results of introducing computer instruction over a long period of time. However, the short-term results are encouraging.

 

 

[EasternM]

The following appeared as part of a newspaper editorial:

“Two years ago Nova High School began to use interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects. The school dropout rate declined immediately, and last year’s graduates have reported some impressive achievements in

College. In future budgets the school board should use a greater portion of the available funds to buy more computers, and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.”

Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.

The argument presented is not convincing. The author concluded that Nova high school had declined the drop out rate and students have impressive achievement because of using computer instruction from last two year. There are several questionable assumptions resulting in logical gap between the premise and the conclusion.

The major assumption in this argument is that the students and the teachers already now the use of computer. This argument is wrong because with out pervious experience student can not use the computer. For example, in Ann Arbor district school, it’s taken more than five year to teach student to use of computer in academic subject.

The validity of conclusion also depends on providing that the teacher or the management have not made any other decision to improve the school system. For example, Student are not going to drop out because school does not have computers or not using computer instructions. School achievement can not be only depend on computers.

Finally, even if the two assumptions discuss above are true, the argument should be unconvincing because without providing any evidence, it require guarantee that achievement was impossible without the help of computer instruction. For example, providing that students are trying really hard to get achievement but they fail due to not having computer instruction. And In future the result will be same due to computer instruction.

In order to make conclusion more persuasive, the author would have to demonstrate that the assumption discuss above are in fact true. Thus evidence providing that the teacher and the student have knowledge of computer, not any other decision made by school and all success was impossible without the help of computer instruction would tight the link between the premise and the conclusion. Without any discussions of these ideas, it is impossible to evaluate the conclusion.