TITLE: Go Home and Study AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford DATE: December 31, 2020 12:33 PM DESC: ----- BODY: In a conversation with Tyler Cowen, economist Garett Jones said:

... my job in the classroom is not to teach the details of any theory. My job is to give students a reason to feel passionate enough about the topic so that they'll go home for two or three hours and study it on their own.

Perhaps this is a matter of context, but I don't think this assetion is entirely accurate. It might give the wrong impression to the uninitiated by leaving an essential complementary task implicit. One could read this as saying that the instructor's job is purely one of motivation. Closures! Rah-rah! Get students excited enough to go learn everything about them on the own, and the instructor has succeeded. If you think that's true, then I can introduce you to many students who have struggled or failed to learn something new despite being excited to learn and putting in a lot of time. They were missing some prerequisite knowledge or didn't have the experience they needed to navigate the complexities of a new area of study. In principle, if they plugged away at it long enough, they would eventually get there, but then why bother having an instructor at all? So I think that, as instructor, I have two jobs. I do need to motivate students to put in the time and effort they need to study. Learning happens inside the student, and that requires personal study. I also, though, have to help create the conditions under which they can succeed. This involves all sorts of things: giving them essential background, pointing them toward useful resources, helping them practice the skills they'll need to learn effectively, and so on. Motivation is in some ways a necessary part of the instructor's job. If students don't want to invest time in study and practice, then they will not learn much. But motivation is not sufficient. The instructor must also put the student in position to succeed to learn effectively. -----