2015考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：电子教学

　　2015考研英语复习正是强化复习阶段，考研英语阅读在考研英语中占了40分，所以考研英语阅读是英语科目中重要的一项。新东方名师范猛老师曾建议过考研生需要坚持每天泛读10-15分钟的英文原刊。强烈推荐了杂志《经济学人》.杂志中的文章也是考研英语的主要材料来源.希望考研考生认真阅读，快速提高考研英语阅读水平。

　　Electronic education

　　电子教学

　　Flipping the classroom

　　电子教学——跃然于教室间

　　Sep 17th 2011 | LOS ALTOS | from the print edition

　　Hopes that the internet can improve teaching may at last be bearing fruit

　　但愿旨在改善教学互联网终能修成正果

　　THE 12-year-olds filing into Courtney Cadwell’s classroom at Egan Junior High in Los Altos, a leafy suburb of Silicon Valley, each take a white MacBook from a trolley, log on to a website called KhanAcademy.org and begin doing maths exercises. They will not get a lecture from Ms Cadwell, because they have already viewed, at home, various lectures as video clips on KhanAcademy (given by Salman Khan, its founder). And Ms, logged in as a “coach”, can see exactly who has watched which. This means that class time is now free for something else: one-on-one instruction by Ms Cadwell, or what used to be known as tutoring.

　　Egan初中坐落于硅谷郊外郁郁葱葱的洛斯拉图斯，那里12岁的孩子们选了Courtney Cadwell老师的课程，他们每个人都从手推车里拿一部白色笔记本电脑，然后登陆到KhanAcademy.org网站去做数学题。Cadwell老师用不着再给他们上课，因为学生们已经在家看过了Khan教育网站上的各种授课视频(该网站得名于其创始人Salman Khan)。Cadwell老师以“指导老师”的身份登陆便可以对每位同学的学习进度了如指掌。这样一来，课堂时间就可以留作他用，Cadwell老师可以给学生们作一对一的指导，也就是相当于平常说的家教。

　　So Ms Cadwell, in her own web browser, pulls up a dashboard where KhanAcademy’s software presents, through the internet, the data the children are producing at that instant. She can view information for the entire class or any individual pupil. Just then she sees two fields, representing modules, turning from green to red, one for Andrea, the other for Asia. Ms Cadwell sees that Andrea is struggling with exponents, Asia with fractions. “Instead of having to guess where my students have gaps, I can see it, at that moment, and I walk over to that one student,” says Ms Cadwell, as she arrives at Asia’s chair.

　　于是，Cadwell老师在自己的浏览器上调出了Khan教育软件，它可以通过网络即时传输孩子们的学习数据，这样她就可以看到整个课堂或者每一个学生的信息。就在这时，代表教学模块个两个板块的由绿变红，分别显示出了Andrea和Asia两位同学。Cadwell老师发现Andrea不太会做代数题，而Asia的在做分数题时遇到了困难。“我用不着去猜学生们哪里会有问题，我可以即时发现并走到学生的面前去做单独辅导”，Cadwell一边说一边走到了Asia的座位旁。

　　While the other pupils continue to work at their own pace and at different problems, Ms Cadwell now spends a few minutes just with Andrea and Asia. Soon Andrea has an epiphany and starts firing correct answers, getting, in KhanAcademy’s jargon, a “badge”, then going “transonic”. A few minutes later, Asia also gets a “streak”. She lets out a shriek. Ms Cadwell, with a big smile, is off to another pupil. “The growth in these kids is just staggering,” she says. “This is the future. I don’t see how it couldn’t be.”

　　其他同学继续按照自己的节奏去攻克不同的难题，Cadwell老师则用几分钟的时间指导Andrea和Aisa。很快Andrea恍然大悟并火速的写出了正确答案，用Khan网站上的话说，她得到了一个“徽章”，然后开始了“超音速”的进步。几分钟之后，Asia叫了一声，她也突然“灵光一闪”。Cadwell老师笑容满面并走向了其他学生。“孩子们取得了惊人的进步，”她说，“将来用这用教育模式，在我看来未尝不可。”

　　This reversal of the traditional teaching methods—with lecturing done outside class time and tutoring(or “homework”) during it—is what Mr Khan calls “theflip”. A synonym for flip, of course, is revolution,and this experiment in Los Altos just might lead toone. For although only a handful of classes in thispublic-school district tried the method in the lastschool year, many other schools, private and public,are now expressing interest, and the methodologyis spreading.

　　这颠覆了传统的教学方法，这种模式利用课下时间听课，用上课时间作辅导或是做作业。Khan先生谓之曰“反转互换(flip)”，它的近义词就叫做“革命”(revolution, 兼有翻转和革命的意思)，而洛斯拉图斯的这次教学试验有可能带来一场革命。虽然上一个学年在这个公立学校校区内试用了这种方法的班级还在少数，但很多其他学校，不论公立私立都表示出了兴趣，这一方式正在向外传播。

　　Indeed, philanthropists such as Bill Gates have such high hopes for the new method that theyhave given money to KhanAcademy, a tiny non-profit organisation based in Mountain View, nextto Los Altos. This means that the more than 2,400 video lectures, on anything from arithmeticand finance to chemistry and history, will remain free for anybody.

　　像比尔盖茨这样的慈善家对这种新模式寄予厚望，他们为Khan学院募集资金。Khan学院很小，地处洛斯拉图斯旁边的山景城，是一个非盈利机构，也就是说囊括了从数学金融到化学历史等学科的2400多个教学视频会免费提供给所有学生。

　　If KhanAcademy were merely about those online lectures, of course, it would be in good butlarge company. Increasingly, teachers, professors and other experts make their talks availableonline: on iTunes, YouTube or university websites. Some, such as Michael Sandel at Harvardwith his philosophy lectures, have become minor celebrities. More and more sites exist purelyto spread learning—some free, such as AcademicEarth.org; others not, such asTheGreatCourses.com.

　　当然，若是Khan学院只仅仅提供网络课程，那它就有一大帮的同行了。越来越多的老师教授和其他专家都在iTunes、YouTube或是大学网站上上传了他们的讲说。一些人已经小有名气，比如哈佛大学的MichaelSandel教授。那些专为传道授业的网站也与日俱增，有的是免费的，比如AcademicEarth.org网站，有的则是收费的，比如TheGreatCourses.com网站。

　　Watching lectures online, or on a smartphone or iPad on the go, has advantages, as Mr Khanhas discovered from the huge number of comments he gets on his site. Children (or adults, forthat matter) need no longer feel ashamed when they have to review part or all of a lectureseveral times. So they can advance at their own pace.

　　在Khan先生浏览他的网站时，上面的诸多评论让他发现，上网、用智能手机或是用iPad聆听教学课程会有很多优势。孩子们(其实也包括大人)用不着因为要多看几遍课程视频而感到没有面子。因此，他们可以按照自己的节奏来安排学习。

　　But lectures, whether online or in the flesh, play onlya limited role in education. Research shows that thehuman brain accepts new concepts largely throughconstant recall while interacting socially. Thissuggests that good teaching must “de-emphasiselecture and emphasise active problem-solving,” saysCarl Wieman, a winner of the Nobel prize in physicsand an adviser to Barack Obama.

　　然而，无论是在网上还是在课堂中，这些课程都只能起到有限的教育效果。研究表明，人脑主要是通过在互动中不断回忆来接受新鲜概念。这也就是说高质量的教学必须像CarlWieman说的那样，要“弱化老师授课，着重鼓励同学主动解决问题”， Carl Wieman是物理学诺贝尔奖得主，也是奥巴马总统的顾问。

　　To KhanAcademy’s fans, the flip that Mr Khan advocates helps to do just that. As a tool,KhanAcademy individualises teaching and makes it interactive and fun. Maths “is social now,”says Kami Thordarson, as the 10-year-olds in the 5th-grade class she teaches at Santa RitaElementary School huddle round their laptops to solve arithmetic problems as though theywere trading baseball cards or marbles.

　　对于Khan学院的粉丝们来说，Khan先生所倡导的转变就是要增加互动。Khan学院将教学变得个性化、互动化和娱乐化。数学教学“充满了合作与互动”， Kami Thordarson说道，在她教授的Santa Rita小学五年级的课堂上，一群10岁的小学生挤在电脑旁，他们做数学题的方式就好像在交换宝石或是棒球卡。

　　The system has its detractors. First, it may not be much use beyond “numerate” subjects suchas maths and the sciences; KhanAcademy does have a few history offerings, but they are lessconvincing than the huge number of maths and science ones. Second, even in these subjectsKhanAcademy implicitly reinforces the “sit-and-get” philosophy of teaching, thinks FrankNoschese, a high-school physics teacher in New York. That is, it still “teaches to the test”,without necessarily engaging pupils more deeply. Worse, says Mr Noschese, KhanAcademy’sdeliberate “gamification” of learning—all those cute and addictive “meteorite badges”—mayhave the “disastrous consequence” of making pupils mechanically repeat lower-level exercisesto win awards, rather than formulating questions and applying concepts.

　　这种模式也招致了一些批评。首先，在除了数学和科学这样“屈指可数”的学科之外，这种做法鲜有用武之地。比如比起大量的数学课和科学课来说，Khan学院网站虽然确实有一些历史课程，但数量较少，难以证明这样的方法对这个学科依然奏效。再者，纽约的高中物理老师Frank Noschese认为，即使对数学这样的学科来说，Khan学院暗中强调了“填鸭教育”的教学思维，也就是说，它还是属于“应试教育”，并没有让学生们参与到学科的更深层次。更有甚者，Noschese先生还说，Khan学院有意的使学习“游戏化”，这会产生灾难性的后果，比方说所有那些既有趣又让人上瘾的“彗星徽章”会诱使孩子们为了赢得奖励来不断机械重复低水平的练习。

　　The teachers now using KhanAcademy counter that it is meant to be merely one, not the only,teaching tool, and that by freeing up class time it also makes possible other projects that doexactly what Mr Noschese promotes. In the fifth-grade class at Santa Rita, the children havemade a tile floor (requiring fancy maths to estimate sizes, shapes and numbers). When thiscorrespondent visited, they practised on KhanAcademy but then played SKUNK, a gameinvolving probability.

　　使用Khan学院网站的教师则表示反对，他们认为这只是其中一种教学手段，而非唯一的选择，而且由此节省下来的课上时间恰恰可以投入到Noschese先生提倡的其他活动中去。利用这段时间，Santa Rita学校五年级的学生们完成了地板制作，这项活动要求同学们发挥想象巧用数学来计算板砖的大小、形状及数量。在记者采访时，孩子们正在做Khan学院的网上练习，随后他们玩起了“臭鼬”游戏，这个游戏包含了概率的原理。

　　America’s standardised tests are now “easy, a floor,not of interest”, says Ms Thordarson. She feels thatthe tool thus allows her to teach better and godeeper. But “You have to be more creative andmore flexible, which is challenging,” she says. It’snot for teachers who “want to turn a page in abook”, adds Kelly Rafferty, the co-teacher. Theythereby answer one common misconception aboutKhanAcademy: that it makes live teachers lessrelevant. Mr Khan, the teachers and Mr Gates allinsist that the opposite is the case. It can liberate agood teacher to become even better. Of course, it can also make it easy for a bad teacher tocop out.

　　按Thordarson老师的话说，如今美国的标准考试“简单，低级又无聊”。她感到这样的教学工具可以提高教学质量并深化学生们的理解。但是她说：“这就要求你要创新，要更灵活，而这就是挑战。”与她一块任教的KellyRafferty老师认为这不并适合“照本宣科”的老师。由此看来，她们反驳了一个关于Khan学院的普遍误解：该网站让现实的老师变得无足轻重。Khan先生、其他老师和比尔盖茨都认为实际上恰恰相反，这种教育手段能使一个好老师摆脱束缚因而更加优秀，当然，同样也能让较差的老师投机取巧。

【英语阅读资料】这里有↑↑↑