The Basics . Part 1
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
The Basics . Part 1
When people read a book, or watch a video, or listen to an audio, with the intention to learn and / or find clarity over an issue that we may need enlightenment on, it helps to start from and with “the basics”… the foundational principles behind it.
Because then when we do that, no matter how complicated the situation might get, because we are “strongly” familiar with the basics, because we have learned how to master the foundational principles behind it, then we are so much better equipped to handle the most complex of issues, and are able to find answers to the most complicated questions.
Troubleshooting. 🙂
In one word.
This brings to mind a major examination that I took, in post graduate school, and I had a great professor, and his teaching technique was quite remarkable. It was very challenging in a sense that, he trained his students (it was a very small class, I think we were about seven (7) students who took his class to not only “think OUTSIDE the box”, he made sure that we all knew what was “INSIDE” the box. And what was under that box, above that box, what was surrounding that box, it was a real challenging and awesome brain calisthenics for the rigorous months it took to complete that course.
In a nutshell, we had to solve a statistical problem, as part of our final examination and we, these days, have all these different statistical software that we can use in biomedical or clinical informatics, right? But we had to come up with the solution using the God- created and the God-given “software” in our brain that gives ALL of us the power to THINK. 🙂
In our class, we were taught the foundational principles of biomedical informatics, what surrounds clinical research, its design and its evaluation, with the intention of equipping the graduate students to THINK and actually KNOW how to evaluate, and how to create and design and investigate clinical studies. And there is a whole lot of science behind it!
And there was only one final and correct answer… it was something like “0.074568”…
… and that would determine whether the students will pass or fail that class. If they got the right and exact answer.
It was a four hour exam, with only one answer, but the problem scenario was about 3 pages long…. and we all could only use calculators and blank papers. Formulas had to be memorized. 🙂 Yikes. So just imagine if you “memorized” the wrong formula, or if you got the variables in ANY of the formulas crisscrossed!
And THAT was why we were taught to learn the basic foundations, the basic principles, not just to learn it, but to understand it. Why is a certain LOOOOONG formula the way it is? You have to learn and understand each variable, independently, and then study as it it relates to the other variables. Then you study their “SET” relationships and dynamics as ACCEPTED by years and years of the research work of others who have gone before us and whose findings we are all BUILDING upon NOW.
Continued on next blog post
Related Articles:
The Basics . Part 1
Final Answer . Part 2
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