Mark Guzdial: "They talk about how much students like it, and about how energized the faculty were about doing it, and how the challenge was getting these huge number of students to 'behave.' But did anybody learn?" Let's define our terms first. By 'learn' do you mean "memorized prescribed data'? If so, probably not. But it's hard to say that a course could be "one of the most valuable learning experiences of her life" if nothing was learned. It's hard to say people could write hundreds of blog posts, or write reserach papers, or participate in these discussions, without learning. The question isn't 'did they learn'? Of course they learned; they'd have to be inert rocks not to. The interesting question is, what did they learn? The short answer - probably - not just facts, but skills, abilities, intuitions, sensibilities and community. Hm, but these are pretty hard to measure on the end-of-course test. Mark Guzdial, Computing Education Blog, September 1, 2010 [Link] [Comment]

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