Across 33 rich countries, only 5% of the population has high computer-related abilities, and only a third of people can complete medium-complexity tasks.
From the article it does seem that the failure of ability isn’t strictly related to computers per SE, but to an over all inability to think about the word problems given in an abstract and mathematically coherent way. They seemed to ask participants to solve what are essentially database query, reading comprehension, critical thinking, and logic problems in the context of an email suite. Word problems can be hard for anyone that hasn’t studied and practiced how to decipher them. It’s just that using a computer kind of forces one to confront those gaps in what should be a fundamental part of highschool education. Math and science classes aren’t just solving problems by wrote memorization or memorizing the periodic table, they are about problem solving. Lots of people fall through the gaps and don’t get that one special teacher who understood this.
I would agree with you here. From my experience, schooling doesn’t aim to teach critical thinking, or reading comprehension ad much as it should. The way tests and work are handled is more closely inline with memorization. Memorization doesn’t help people break new ground, or help develop the tools to begin troubleshooting, and tackling new ideas and problems.
Memorization typically ally only helps with solving problems we already have answers to.
From the article it does seem that the failure of ability isn’t strictly related to computers per SE, but to an over all inability to think about the word problems given in an abstract and mathematically coherent way. They seemed to ask participants to solve what are essentially database query, reading comprehension, critical thinking, and logic problems in the context of an email suite. Word problems can be hard for anyone that hasn’t studied and practiced how to decipher them. It’s just that using a computer kind of forces one to confront those gaps in what should be a fundamental part of highschool education. Math and science classes aren’t just solving problems by wrote memorization or memorizing the periodic table, they are about problem solving. Lots of people fall through the gaps and don’t get that one special teacher who understood this.
I would agree with you here. From my experience, schooling doesn’t aim to teach critical thinking, or reading comprehension ad much as it should. The way tests and work are handled is more closely inline with memorization. Memorization doesn’t help people break new ground, or help develop the tools to begin troubleshooting, and tackling new ideas and problems.
Memorization typically ally only helps with solving problems we already have answers to.