> It's often as simple as reminding students that we are responsible for one another's success by shifting the goal from "finish the exercise" to "ensure we've both learned how to finish the exercise".
Then it ends up with faster student trying to explain to the slower one and failing. While the slower one still does not really have an option to do it independently and think it through, until they get home. This pair thing is great if you are the faster one or the one with better initial knowledge. It really does not work well if you are the weaker one.
I have been both on occasion, sometimes I was behind and other times advanced. Classes where I worked alone gave me much more then the ones where I was paired with someone better. When I was paired with someone slower, it was good for my ego and I remembered more from trying to explain (if I did that).
> the slower one still does not really have an option to do it independently and think it through
This is a good point, and a constraint of the institution. When I was the slower student, I was blessed with the inordinate chutzpah to shamelessly ask faster students for explanations ad nauseum. I was never concerned with time, deadlines, assignments, nor grades: I was maximizing my understanding at the expense of anyone who would entertain my curiosity.
I took my time in a way that most students, perhaps reasonably, feel they can't afford to. I wish all students felt as entitled to knowledge as I'd been raised to feel—and as my instructors suggested!
As a professional, being the weaker pair has presented fantastic opportunities to observe and learn from senior developers. I pity the remote junior who interfaces with an infinitesimal fraction of the fidelity I've enjoyed.
In short, "never be the best player in the band" remains sound advice for persons of my bent... in accommodating institutions.
> I was blessed with the inordinate chutzpah to shamelessly ask faster students for explanations ad nauseum.
That is NOT thinking it through independently. That is someone explaining it to you again and again. Those two are not the same at all. Thinking it independently means that YOU think about issues and actually personally figure it out them.
> I pity the remote junior who interfaces with an infinitesimal fraction of the fidelity I've enjoyed.
Although offtopic, honestly, the primary reason to pity them is that they are massively micromanaged compared to what we had and get only negative feedback. Modern process is a senior that will tell them everything they had done wrong, then he throws a bunch of personal preferences that pretend are objective wrongs ... and they rarely get positive feedback or thanks.
> When I was the slower student, I was blessed with the inordinate chutzpah to shamelessly ask faster students for explanations ad nauseum.
This assumes that the other person has a "thinking style" that is compatible with yours, and that thus the explanations are helpful for you. For example if the other student is "sufficiently advanced" from you, it can happen that this is not the case.
> This assumes that the other person has a "thinking style" that is compatible with yours
No one has a thinking style compatible with mine. Communication is difficult, but the whole point is to share adopt novel ways of thinking. By the end of the conversation, both participants' "thinking styles" have changed.
Sure, some folks' lexicon and mental models might overlap more, but there's no one (speaking English) from whom I can't learn. Reminds me of that old line "you can't get there from here!" which I always considered funny, but you're saying it's true?
Wish I knew more about these "thinking styles" you're talking about, because I've never met someone I couldn't communicate with (in English).
> Wish I knew more about these "thinking styles" you're talking about, because I've never met someone I couldn't communicate with (in English).
It is plausible that you are sufficiently smart and thus never (or at least rarely) had such problems.
To give an extreme example: when Grigori Perelman published his papers about his proof of the geometrization conjecture, even experts in his area had a lot of difficulties understanding his proof (and thus verifying the correctness of it). Only after multiple groups of mathematicians came up with better understandable versions of the central arguments of his proof, (see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Geometrization_co... and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Poincar%C3%A9_con... ), they became convinced of the correctness of Perelman's proof.
This was clearly a particularly marked example, but in a school pupils of very different IQs and thinking styles are present. So I wouldn't say that this problem (pupil not understanding another pupil's solution) is uncommon at schools.
Perelman? I always thought his proof was self-evident.
Kidding!
For papers, yes, there's a lot of difficulty. I'm not sure it's possible to demand sense from a paper in the way that one can from a discursive partner.
As Emmanuel Levinas puts it in his "Toward the Other" (1963):
> This makes no sense. Our text must be understood in another way. I
worked hard at it. I told my troubles to my friends. For [the text] requires
discourse and companionship. Woe to the self-taught!
Admittedly, he immediately follows:
> Of course one must
have good luck and find intelligent interlocutors.
So if I were to accept his authority, I'd have to forfeit my position entirely!
> No one has a thinking style compatible with mine. Communication is difficult, but the whole point is to share adopt novel ways of thinking. By the end of the conversation, both participants' "thinking styles" have changed.
I can either focus on difficult conversation parts or at topic at hand. Cant really do both.
So, this means I will do only the social thing and wont get to be able to focus on what I was supposed to learn in the first place.
Then it ends up with faster student trying to explain to the slower one and failing. While the slower one still does not really have an option to do it independently and think it through, until they get home. This pair thing is great if you are the faster one or the one with better initial knowledge. It really does not work well if you are the weaker one.
I have been both on occasion, sometimes I was behind and other times advanced. Classes where I worked alone gave me much more then the ones where I was paired with someone better. When I was paired with someone slower, it was good for my ego and I remembered more from trying to explain (if I did that).