week 2: Mythbusters

I was intrigued and if I'm being honest, partially confused by a few parts of the articles. The article on myths of students engagement was pretty straight forward and informational. The one I was most interested in was "People remember 10%". The reason I chose this one was because of this graph.

 

I find it terrifying that this graph was begin used in the development of instructional design of classrooms when it is false.  The individual who was sited in a research paper on the topic says this, "I don't recognize this graph at all. So the citation is definitely wrong; since it's not my graph."

WHAT?!  These numbers have been discredited and yet they are still the basis behind many peoples classroom development. The article even discusses that this graph and these numbers may have been developed from a 1942 "cone of experiences" that was presented to the readers with a warning that there was no research put into the idea only opinion. Also, there was no data, or numbers attached. It blows my mind how that could develop into such a widespread accepted idea that is false. This wasn't even an ignorant mistake there were fraudulent citations and deception was the point of it.  

As I continued reading this it occurred to me that I had no clue if this was accurate. This whole article could be fake. The quotes, the citations.. Yikes. This only hits the point home even more that we as educators are responsible for not only how we do things but why. And in return we must have the knowledge and research to back those opinions up. Its not ok to just read something and take it as truth/ possible truth. (hopefully thats an obvious statement..but this article gives me the worried feeling that it isn't. I highly recommend this article the topics in this article are universally concerning not just to people in the field of education. 

Having research and data to back up my opinions is really the first step in having an educated conversation of instructional practice. Sadly I think that table was shown to me more than once during my years as an undergraduate education major.