Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? It is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than it is for them to learn facts. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

A majority of people agree that students at the classroom should operate ideas and concept, while others highlight the importance of grasp only facts. Personally, I opt for the first opinion. I feel this way for two reasons, which I will explore in my essay. To begin with, learning general ideas allows independent thinking and develops a space for creativity. When introducing general ideas in a classroom, students do not peck up on an anchoring effect. Anchoring effect limits space for new ideas and could lead to biased conclusions. For instance, when I begun working in Tech, I did not know about anything cloud solutions that my company develops. I had to promote employer's brand and come up with new ideas for events and activities. Since I did not know anything precise about people working there, I came up with ideas out of the box. Eventually, they were cheered by my colleagues. I did not see my colleagues as people that are introverted and meticulous and organized an event that required collaboration and creativity. Furthermore, it is the evidence from neuroscience. Last summer I took "Learning how to learn" course from San Diego University on Coursera platform. There, Barbara Oakley explains how our brain works. She claims that it is more beneficial for us to learn concepts, since it creates new neuronal connections and they form into chunks. The presence of those chunks fosters educational process and allows us to understand more significant information. If a student learn separate fact without a previous background and understanding of a general concept, they will more likely to forget it. It reminds me of a case when I tried to master my Data Analysis skills. However, I knew only some facts about regression and statistics, but not how statistics actually works. I could calculate, but was not able to make reliable conclusions and go further through topics. In conclusion, I strongly believe that students should pay their attention on elaborating concepts and notions, rather than memorizing single facts. This is because of out of the box thinking and evidence from neuroscience, illustrating that it is fosters educational process.
Submitted by Maria Minero on
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