It is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than it is for them to learn facts
Some professors prefer to explain to their students concepts and ideas rather than facs; others professors think otherwise. Each method has pros and cons, however in my opinion it is better for students understand the concepts instead of learning facts.
First, learning concepts and ideas helps the students understand the facts. For example, when pharmacy students learn the mechanism of action of drugs they migh understand why that drug results in some effect. In addition, when you understand why and how something function you will be able to memorize that easily. For instance, when the students understand that a drugs acts in a methabolic pathway and the other drug in another, it will be easy for them to remember why the drugs act differently and why in some cases is better to choose one instead of another.
In addition, some facts are very specific for some situation, so if the student does not know the concepts and ideas, he will not be able to apply his knowledge into another situation. When the student graduate from the university and get into the job market, they will face a lot of different situations and they should be able to deal of them. Therefore, if they learnt facts in the university that apply only for some situation, they will not know how to solve the problem. For example, the students learn in the medical school that diabetics should not consume sugar. However, in some situations those patients can have a hypoglicemic crisis and need some sugar. If the student knows only the fact that diabetics should not take sugar, they will not know how to handle in situations that those patients needs some carbohydrate intake.
In conclusion, based on my previous arguments, understanding concepts and ideas is a better methodology for students learning instead of learning facts. In my point of view, it is a more effective method, that helps the students memorize and let them apply their knowledge in a broader range of situations.
Hi Nayara, I enjoyed reading your essay and I think you did a good job. Your arguments were very convincing and I liked the fact that you used examples that you are evidently very familiar with - it is always a good idea to draw upon any specialized knowledge you have. I really wanted to rate this one a 4.5, but you had a lot of minor mistakes in grammar, verb conjugation, and preposition choice. So I think I can only rate this a 4 out of 5.
Every person has their approach to learning. Some may give priority to learning facts rather than learning ideas and concepts. I strongly disagree with that. In my opinion, since facts are derived from basic concepts and ideas, it is more efficient to learn them.
First of all, if people put more effort to interpret things, their understanding of the whole topic will become stronger and more realistic. If we give enough freedom to the people to learn basic concepts rather than try to memorize facts, their capability of interpretation will be larger. By doing that, people reach facts with their minds using the concepts they’ve learned. Aren’t the facts derive from the basics? When I was a first-year medical student, I tried to learn and memorize facts, which actually helped me with getting high scores. But people who were learning concepts not only got high scores, they also earned the ability to make suggestions and decisions about patients. Because they do not only know the facts, they know where they come from. If you have the ability to control the rivers which it’s water flows into the lake, you don’t need to keep control over the whole lake to keep it full!
Moreover, there is a huge amount of information that we can’t know everything about any subject. If we want to be successful, we don’t have to learn everything; we need to ask to most reasonable questions to reach the information we need. In the 21st century, people reached resources that are competent and available than any other century’s people have ever reached. Therefore, if students know the concepts rather than the facts, they enhance their ability to find the right questions and get the most crucial and available resources to make their products richer and satisfiable in the quickest possible way! According to the successful interviewees, nowadays, most companies prefer people who can get results with given knowledge and concepts over people who have the best knowledge about facts.
To sum up, I think it is more important to learn basic fundamentals rather than learn and memorize something. In our competitive world, our gathered information is cumulatively increasing and companies will be giving more attention to the people who have the ability to reach information by using their knowledge about concepts.