Replying to LO28742 --
At and others,
At said:
>In 1976 I began to experiment with categorisations like that of Bloom,
>Gagne, Piaget and others to see if it could not help the students to
>perform better. To my surprise, these categorisations helped those
>students who learned chemistry rotely, but those who began to learn
>chemistry creatively to act creatively with it, these categorisations
>helped little and sometime became even stumbling blocks.
I believe that meticuoulus instructional design is helpful primarily for
those with lower capabilities. For those with high capability, it would be
a source of boredom, discouragement; a free energy hog.
This really comes back to what I said earlier, namely that discovery type
approaches is not for everyone. In fact, I have seen several studies that
show that careful ID according to the behavioral or cognitive model make
no difference for advanced students, some difference for the middle crowd,
and a rather significant difference for novices. On the other hand,
advanced approaches such as discovery learning work well for advanced or
even intermediate learners, but badly for novices. I would like to propose
the following:
1. Novices benefit from careful ID.
2. Intermediates benefit somewhat from careful ID.
3. Advanced learners don't.
4. People of lower IQ benefit from carful ID.
5. People of high IQ benefit less from careful ID.
6. Applying careful ID intelligent students can be harmful if it
progresses too slowly into the stages of novel problem solving.
At said:
>I agree to this "teach yourself" as you have articulated it. Yet there is
>also the other complement which we have to bear in mind, "teach others".
>But it always have to be done with respect to the "teach yourself" as the
>primary directive.
Absolutely. No disagreement whatsoever. This is excactly what I had in
mind. I think I need to clarify myself. I don't mean by favoring somewhat
meticulous ID methods, that teaching can be reduced to mechanical
principles. It requires a combination of a deep, intuitive understanding
of human learning while applying careful ID according to need.
Even in my own learning I follow an ID approach to myself. At the novice
level I ask myself what are the major concepts pertaining to this field? I
try then to find definitions that make sense to me, and a sufficient
amount of examples so that I get a clearer understanding. I might spend a
great deal of time at this stage. Next I will look at key principles that
tend to underly the entire topic. Such as the supply and demand curves in
Economic. If you understand this principle very well, the rest you need to
know can almost be derived after being exposed to it once or twice. Now,
once I have reached such a level, I have very little interest or patience
with details, such as going through a bunch of different theories about
footnotes, especially if I don't see a practical relevance that interests
me. At this stage, if I was taking a university course, I would enter a
suffering phase, a rote phase where I would just try to remember things
for the exam at a literal level (I guess this is what you would call
rote?.) Perhaps this is what happened to your students?
At said:
>But I finally found a solution for it after having discovered the
>Digestor.
I remember your term digestive learning from earlier correspondence. What
is it, what does it involve and how does it differ from "rote learning"?
It would be a big favor if you could tell me.
(Could you please put it in laymans terms? My knowledge of physics and
chemistry pretty much reduces to how to make a cup of coffee and that
pushups are easier if you don't put your arms very wide.)
>Since then it became easy for me to know when to guide the learner into
>disovery learning. It is when that learner needs a "knowledge kernel" (a
>noble thought) in a topic to digest all the information available on that
>topic. It is then when the Rousseau- Pestalozzi insight becomes
>imperative.
This looks much like the example I gave of my own learning above! It seems
at the very least that we have reached very similar conclusions. Tell me
if you agree. I look at the kernel as that event that finally makes one
grasp fundamental hooks, such as a profound understanding of supply and
demand in economics. It could be an example, it could be a dream, it could
be a mind game, paying attention to different aspects, a better definition
of something ---> click! It may be a different thing for different
learners.
Still I wonder if this isn't really what could be called the
generalization stage of learning. Namely the stage at which you have
grasped fundamentals so well that you are ready for novel problem solving,
or adoption, where one is able to alter what was learned to suit the
circumstances. Perhaps it is all a matter of semantics and a slighlty
different way of looking at the same phenomena? (the latter being more
empirically oriented) Can you give some concrete examples of where you
have conluded that students have passed the digestor stage? (Again it
would be great if you could give examples for a layman.) In other words:
how did you know?
At said:
>Learning is the process leading to such things as knowledge, didactics
>and education (as well as many other things), but which is none of them,
>nor can be known by knowing them.
So it is a process and its outcomes include knowledge, didactics and
education. Of course, the process and the outcome are two different
things. Moreover, the outcome does not lead to the process.
Dealing with learning in itself then is dealing with the process, but the
outcome is observable. You know that learning occured when you see
evidence of knowledge etc. You can also know some of the inputs, such as
reading, asking certain questions etc. This leads to an attempt to
understand the effect of these and arranging them under the umbrella of
education and didactics. The problem is that all humans have a unique
stream of inputs, a learning stream that goes on throughout their lives
and never stops, and that is necessarily different simply because they
occupy different spaces. They also have a unique physiological makeup.
This makes it difficult to make curricula that are ideal for everone. It
also means that to be a good learner, one needs to do a great deal of
introspection to be a good teacher for oneself. The underlying questions
is: How do I get to the kernel?
At said:
>I meant with "knowledge of life in general" a
>"comprehensive knowledge", i.e. a knowledge which is not
>fragmented.
A basic requirement for being a judge back in those days was to be a
"mujtahid," or close to this rank. This means someone qualified to
exctract judgement directly from the Prophet Muhammad's teachings and the
Qur'an. It was required that they had intimate knowledge of politics and
the situation of ordinary people. These scholars often had a tremendous
influence on the rulers. Perhaps they are the ones you are referring to.
At said:
>I once did a study of the history of mathematics, chemistry and medicine
>among the Arab culture to get a closer feeling of the dynamics of the
>Arab civilisation. It began to bloom in the 6th century. By the time the
>Prophet Mohammed began to operate, it far surpassed the staleness of
>European civilisation in these three subject.
It surprises me that you say they surpassed them already by the time the
Prophet Muhammad began to operate. The Arabs at that stage were basically
illiterate, primitive and scattered tribes on the peninsula, frequently at
war with one another. The exceptions would be those tribes that existed as
part of the Roman and Persian empires in Iraq and Syria.
At said:
>al-Ghazali declared reason and all its works to be bankrupt. Experience
>and the understanding that grew out of it were not to be trusted; they
>could say nothing meaningful about the reality of Allah. Only the Quran
>led to worthwhile knowledge. Philosophy was a snare,leading the unwary to
>the pits of Hell. By the time of his death in 1111,free scientific
>investigation, philosophical dialogues and tolerance for religions
>different to Islam were rapidly declining. By about 1200 new discoveries
>in mathematics, chemistry and medicine were things of the past.
As for a), b) and d) I did not study the history of math, medicine, and
chemistry, but I am an orientalist and know Arabic quite well. You are in
this context depending on secondary or even tertiary sources. This
assertion about al-Ghazali is quite incorrect, but it is a widespread and
modern notion. The source of the rumor are many:
1. Perverted translations and historical accounts by orientalists with an
agenda such as Hitti, Rosenthal, Hourani and others.
2. Shallow reading of al-Ghazalis arguments, or a lack of understanding.
3. Taking him out of context to fit an agenda. Because of a-Ghazali's
reputation, many would like to say "see! he says like us!"
A basic problem in the second cartegory is that one has to understand
al-Ghazali's background so that one can make sure as to not draw quick
conclusions. Also, al-Ghazali's books, and this is true of so many ancient
Arabic works, are really written to scholars, they assume a certain
background. Some things are take for granted in other words (in the sense
that "of course I don't mean that!) I know the source of this claim, it is
from the book "al munqith min al Dhalal" roughly translated "the savior
from error." It is a book where he summarizes his life's experiences. What
he says about pure logic is that:
1. Using logic alone without reference to scriptures when speaking about
the attributes of the Creator will most likely lead to error. Not because
of logic itself, but because mistakes will be made. It is on this
background al-Ghazali attacked Ibn Rushd, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. The
point of his book was to show that they were illogical in some of their
claims.
2. Logic is useful if guided by the islamic creed, and is indeed very
effective in defending it. It does indeed lead to certainty with regards
to the belief in God and His attributes.
What he also says, however, and this is where he is taken out of context,
is that logic is not sufficient in itself. One also has to practice, and
practice is more important, because if you practice and never err in your
belief, you are still OK. He also felt that practice was the real key to a
strong belief. This is clear when one reads al-Ghazali, but it should be
obvious that he would never deny the mind's ability to see reality
absolutely, if one has the slightest knowledge of the beliefs of the
Sunnis, because they would consider such a claim sofistry and infidelity.
It also flies in the phase of basically all his works from the beginning
to the end. As for your saying that he considered only the Quran is a
source of useful knowledge. This one is new to me but much more absurd.
This would involve deying all the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad for
one, never mind what the teachings of the Quran lead to in terms of
working for progress. It is sort of like saying that Einstein claimed
toward the end of his life that stones, if dropped from tall buildings
would fall horizontally. On the contrary, al-Ghazali emphasized the
importance of meeting both individual and communal religious obligations
throughout his life. The latter includes things like having enough
engineers, doctors and scientists for the communities needs, to provide
for basic necessities for the poor, etc. He said that if communal
obligations are not met, all those who could have contributed to meet it
have committed a sin. As you can tell, this man is a favorite topic of
mine.
At said:
>Information which exists outside began to replace knowledge which live
>within. The Golden Era of the Arab culture became a ruthless Islamitic
>Empire. When the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1256 the Islamic Empire ended.
Muslim historians, even those in the period you are mentioning (approx
900-1200) would not agree that it was Islamitic. To be Islamitic should
mean to follow its law. In other words, the claim that things changed to
islamitic is not meaningful, because muslims themselves do not see it this
way, and stinks of "orientalism with an agenda." I don't know of any
scholar or sect that sees it this way.
The ruthlessness you mention was wasn't a matter of thought, it was just a
symptom of political decline, an attempt to keep things together. The
Abassids had weakened after 2-300 years, and a sure sign of that was for
example, the establishment of the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt. Such a thing
had previously been pretty much unthinkable, a deathwish.
At said:
>As far as I understand it, Sufism was a synthesis of Persian and Indian
>mysticisms to serve the Islam religion.
The term sufi comes means "pertaining to wool" from the word suf, which
means wool. The word came to use because people who wanted to discipline
themselves to be detached from worldly pleasures, sometimes wore wool. In
the widest sense it came to refer to anyone who is working to be detached
from material pleasure. Some of them did mix foreign mystics into their
practices, others, such as al-Ghazali, did not. The former lead to things
that were foreign and despised by the sunnis, such as dancing to extacy,
starving oneself into bodily and mental harm, solitude while ignoring
communal duties, others flipped and engaged in orgies.
At said:
>Since Arabic philosophy was too pragmatic, a need for spiritual
>contemplation existed. Sufism supplied in this need.
Not really. There was very much an emphasis on matters of the heart, but
the early muslims saw that the key to this was to work hard on one's
individual and communal duties and other good deeds. They rejected the
idea of just sitting around meditating ignoring ones various duties.
Because it would be sinful and because it would actually harden the heart.
The main emphasis with regard to the heart was to control what one was
thinking about and especially ones intention (to do everything in worship
of the Creator, not some other reason, especially not to feel proud of
one's ability or for the sake of admiration or praise.)
With regards to belief in God, Islam is more than anti-anthropomorphical.
It not only denies human attributes to the creator of any kind, but also
any resemblance to any creation whatsoever. It sees no difference in
principle between idolworship and the act of resembling the Creator to
anything or to try to imagine one of the Creator's attributes, since
thoughts are creations. Accordingly, He is neither a part of creation, nor
separate from it, because space is a creation. Some of the "importing
sufis" definitely contradicted this belief, which was actually a spiritual
decline to a materialistic level of thought.
At said:
>Several research studies have shown that between 25% and 40% of first
>year students are functionally illiterate and innumerate. It means that
>they cannot read, write and calculate at a level required for the
>information sources which they have to consult.
For reading and writing skills, I think solid ID is very important. I
really don't think discovery learning and the like will be effective,
especially not on such a mass scale.
Terje
--"Terje A. Tonsberg" <tatonsberg@hotmail.com>
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