Dear Jon, dear LO'ers,
Thank you Jon for your very clear explanations on the differences between
punishment and negative reinforcements; and on the great pitfalls between
group vs individual behaviour (after reinforcement).
I missed your thourough contributions for a long time. But a can
understand how much energy they consume from you. The thouroughness is
however so appreciated and so rich in information, that it certainly
compensates the seemingly low frequency. I like to make you a compliment,
by mentioning the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. He is one of the most
celebrated painters, and indeed, his work is outstanding. But he is also
my great example of someone who's production is very low in comparison
with other painters (less than 30 paintings are known from him). You see,
quality could compensate quantity, though not easy, but I recon you to
this category.
My school experience came to an end. As I told you it was a temporary job.
But I have learned a wealth from this experience, but also from the very
helpful and practical suggestions I received from various listmembers. And
as Jon told us - sustained by theory - that the splitting of the whole
class into smaller (learning) groups is more profitable for positive
reinforcement. I have seen the validity of this. And in fact, the learning
potential of these smaller groups increased amasingly. Apart from some
positive competition between these groups, also the creativity increased.
Unfortunately, I am not able to continue with these classes. Maybe the
children will fall back to their normal behaviour and learning abilities,
but for me it was a great experiment.
My position in front of the class, and later walking from team to team,
generated new thoughts. Thoughts on the structure between these children
in a class, and the position of a teacher. And the relationships between
all these elements. I have composed another contribution with the subject
header: "communities and structure".
Although triggered by my work at this school, it is a topic of much more
direct links to LO's. I hope that this jump from school to LO came not too
sudden. Again, I have very much appreciated all of your very helpfull and
sound contributions and I am still very interested in a further dialogue
on the school-issue.
dr. Leo D. Minnigh
l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl
Library Technical University Delft
PO BOX 98, 2600 MG Delft, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 15 2782226
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Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas.
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--Leo Minnigh <l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>