[IAEP] another book

[Alan Kay]

To me, the first paragraph below from Cynthia's excellent book, is at the heart 
of the matter.

Since it took humans almost 200,000 years to discover many of these ideas and 
methods, but found plenty of less fruitful paths and directions, we shouldn't 
wonder that both children and teachers will have great difficulty.

And it is also true that "discovery guided by fluent practitioners who really 
understand their subject" is one of the most powerful processes to help learners 
really get into the meat of what a subject is all about.

Could a "computer helper interface" of the future be fluent and flexible enough 
to carry this off?

Cheers,

Alan




________________________________
From: Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com>
To: Cynthia Solomon <cynthia at media.mit.edu>
Cc: IAEP <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
Sent: Mon, April 25, 2011 9:32:47 AM
Subject: Re: [IAEP] another book

Thank you.  

In your book (Davis chapter) you write:
The following anecdote captures the root of the problem. A teacher who had taken 
part in a workshop on "discovery learning" came back almost in tears complaining 
that the students had "discovered it wrong." Bob Davis himself and his virtuoso 
disciples could work with a class of children, sensitively guiding the discovery 
process. In particular, they could pick out the germs of good insight in what 
the less understanding teacher saw as simply "wrong." The problem is deep: 
People brought up with a view of mathematics as discrete facts to be mastered do 
not easily discard this view. The reformer is faced with the problem:
>We cannot tell teachers all they need to know about teaching—we must choose. 
>Indeed, we must choose not merely content, but also the kind of content, and in 
>fact even the media by which and form in which this "knowledge" is presented.
>The problem is compounded by what happens in the next year with "untrained" 
>teachers.


Do you know where I can find copies of the scripts Bob Davis used as part of the 
Madison project? 
So what is the way out of this problem (that scales)?  


Also in your book  (Papert chapter) you write:
Papert pursues such questions as, 
>(1) What experiences and knowledge lead children to change their theories, and 
>(2) why do they learn some things without formal instruction and not learn other 
>things despite formal instruction?


I also struggle with the first question a lot.  In my experience the answer 
depends a good deal on knowing what theories the child holds, so I guess my main 
question is are there any proven techniques to help the child 
a) see the hole/problem with their current theories (which to them make perfect 
logical sense)
I usually attempt to cause "cognitive dissonance" by finding questions and 
examples that do not fit their model as I perceive it, or more easily as they 
verbalized it. That can work, but does not scale, also in an OLPC model where 
there may be no teacher or no teacher with subject matter expertise, what do you 
do?
b) what does research say about proven techniques to help kids change their 
mental models once they see the "holes"?
>
>Regarding the 2nd question I would add: "Why do they learn some things despite 
>formal instruction?"



Also in your book  (Papert chapter) you write:
the process of doing elementary school mathematics so that it draws on 
children's intuition and everyday commonsense thinking.
>How Papert differs from Suppes, Davis, and Dwyer might be summed up in what I 
>call the Papert principle: If you want to teach arithmetic to children, 
>arithmetic might not be the best route into these ideas for an easy 
>understanding of the topic. What is needed is a way of mathematizing the child; 
>thereafter particular mathematical topics become easy.


This reminds me of something I heard from Keith Devlin either here or in his 
Natural Math talk, which was: 
It comes down to finding new representations of mathematics.
>
>So does anyone have any good examples of new representations?


Lastly, one of the great things from the Madison project is what I call it 
"Taking Tic-Tac-Toe to the next level", where the key rule of the game is you 
can't tell anyone the rules.  Kids play the game and have to figure out the 
rules by playing. Kids can learn about cartesian coordinates, positive and 
negative numbers and practice "a number is all the ways you can name it" all 
without being told what to do or how to do it.


Stephen
If you give a child an answer,
you solve a problem for the day.
Teach a child to find the answers,
you prepare her for a life.
      - Mr. Steve's Science






On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 6:38 AM, Cynthia Solomon <cynthia at media.mit.edu> wrote:

I just posted my book, Computer Environments for Children: A Reflection on 
Theories of Learning and Education.  http://computerenvironments.wikispaces.com
>
>--Cynthia
>
>_______________________________________________
>IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>
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