I once attended a fabulous lecture entitled something like, "Why do we teach in ways we know people do not learn?" I have been trying to Google the speaker and/or a book based on this lecture, but so far no success.
The idea was very simple: people learn best by being given some information with which to begin, then being given a situation to use that information to solve a problem. Ideally the problem is not easily or immediately solvable, but requires the student to think about it, to put together the information they already have in different ways and to add to it any information they discovered in examining their problem, to talk to other students and perhaps to get some hints from more experienced and knowledgeable person.
Imagine a new hire at an auto mechanic shop assigned a brake repair for the first time. The shop gives the hire a one page instruction sheet, which they read. They take off the wheel of the car, get part of the way through the repair, but discover that they are not certain which way the new pads should go in. They think about it based on what they already know about brakes. They re-read the instructions. They then ask a more experienced person, who doesn't just tell them the answer but instead gives them a good hint. They then put in the new pads and ask the experienced mechanic- "Is this right?" He confirms it is, but also tells them, "Although they didn't bother to write it down, use this tool to hold open the calipers: it really helps speed up the job. Try it yourself next time." Etc.
Unlike a lecture or just written instructions, that new hire will probably never forget how to do a brake job on that kind of car and will be much better at figuring out how to fix the brakes on a different kind of car.
It is an apprenticeship, and apprenticeships are among the very best way of learning something for life.
Schools and colleges still make some use of this type of approach: lab classes, most graduate training, some internships, etc. But by far most information in K to 12 and in BA/BS programs is given through lectures and books where the students are expected to simply absorb the information that is told to them. There is little or no chance to use it in a practical manner (trig problem sets after dinner are not the same thing as using trig to navigate a boat) and little or no time to be puzzled. Being puzzled at times is an essential part of an effective learning process because it makes people think harder. "Hey wait, this doesn't make sense! Let me think about it... Oh wait, yeah, if I also think about what I learned a week ago it starts to make sense. And what was that clue the TA gave us? Yeah, now I am beginning to understand it..." People don't learn well if they are never puzzled because then they are just trying to memorize information and not to use it.
The biggest practical problem with this type of approach is that it is far more expensive than simply having large lectures. It requires small class sizes and lots of teachers and TAs. It requires lab equipment or similar resources. Too expensive for most school systems and colleges. And ironically, in most educational systems today deliberately trying to puzzle students to make them think about the material will only get the students annoyed and the teacher bad evaluations. "What is this crap? Just tell me what I need to score high on the MCATs."
The idea was very simple: people learn best by being given some information with which to begin, then being given a situation to use that information to solve a problem. Ideally the problem is not easily or immediately solvable, but requires the student to think about it, to put together the information they already have in different ways and to add to it any information they discovered in examining their problem, to talk to other students and perhaps to get some hints from more experienced and knowledgeable person.
Imagine a new hire at an auto mechanic shop assigned a brake repair for the first time. The shop gives the hire a one page instruction sheet, which they read. They take off the wheel of the car, get part of the way through the repair, but discover that they are not certain which way the new pads should go in. They think about it based on what they already know about brakes. They re-read the instructions. They then ask a more experienced person, who doesn't just tell them the answer but instead gives them a good hint. They then put in the new pads and ask the experienced mechanic- "Is this right?" He confirms it is, but also tells them, "Although they didn't bother to write it down, use this tool to hold open the calipers: it really helps speed up the job. Try it yourself next time." Etc.
Unlike a lecture or just written instructions, that new hire will probably never forget how to do a brake job on that kind of car and will be much better at figuring out how to fix the brakes on a different kind of car.
It is an apprenticeship, and apprenticeships are among the very best way of learning something for life.
Schools and colleges still make some use of this type of approach: lab classes, most graduate training, some internships, etc. But by far most information in K to 12 and in BA/BS programs is given through lectures and books where the students are expected to simply absorb the information that is told to them. There is little or no chance to use it in a practical manner (trig problem sets after dinner are not the same thing as using trig to navigate a boat) and little or no time to be puzzled. Being puzzled at times is an essential part of an effective learning process because it makes people think harder. "Hey wait, this doesn't make sense! Let me think about it... Oh wait, yeah, if I also think about what I learned a week ago it starts to make sense. And what was that clue the TA gave us? Yeah, now I am beginning to understand it..." People don't learn well if they are never puzzled because then they are just trying to memorize information and not to use it.
The biggest practical problem with this type of approach is that it is far more expensive than simply having large lectures. It requires small class sizes and lots of teachers and TAs. It requires lab equipment or similar resources. Too expensive for most school systems and colleges. And ironically, in most educational systems today deliberately trying to puzzle students to make them think about the material will only get the students annoyed and the teacher bad evaluations. "What is this crap? Just tell me what I need to score high on the MCATs."
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
This is tangentially related, but there's a new published report that, according to the press release, aims to solve the so-called "reading wars" between phonics and whole-of-language approaches to teaching children to read.
Essentially, it concludes that an approach that uses both methods works best.
Essentially, it concludes that an approach that uses both methods works best.
Sorry, wrong link.
It's this one: http://www.bris.ac.uk/education/people/academicStaff/edpahj/publications/becta.pdf
The 2004 study they cite seems to be this one (non vidi):
Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., and Ecclestone, K. (2004), 'Learning Styles and
Pedagogy in Post-16 Learning: A Systematic and Critical Review', (Report No.
041543). (London, Learning and Skills Research Centre).
angrysoba
Philosophile
What is amazing to me is that there ever was sides to this argument.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
When I was learning, I was taught phonics. When my children were at school, they were taught whole-language only, and we were explicitly told not to use phonics at home.
We did anyway.
Wowbagger
The Infinitely Prolonged
In my day, we were even Hooked on Phonics.
blutoski
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Understanding education is worth exploring in its own right, but it sounds like what you're describing isn't exactly about learning so much as persuading.
This is an old debate within skepticism, but I've always been on the side of persuading rather than teaching as a public outreach goal. The basis for this is that domain specific knowledge does not seem to be a great way to create skepticism, since skepticism is a generalized skill to apply to any and all knowledge domains.
Just a case in point: antivaxxers are typically a very 'science' educated bunch (compsci, engineering, nonbiological sciences such as physics, and surprisingly, nursing). What they're not is specifically educated in immunology, and secondly, they don't know how to apply the skeptical toolbox for evaluating technical claims outside their scope of competence. They know how to learn - many have spent hundreds of hours 'learning' that vaccines are toxic. We don't need to educate them, we need to change their minds.
It probably sounds like a distinction without a difference, but what I'm getting at is that skepticism's rival is not raw ignorance - it's well-funded, organized, misinformation campaigns.
AlaskaBushPilot
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Interesting thread. Two ideas going:
The OP is interested in persuading, I would agree with blutoski on that.
Unfortunatetly the rule there is that perceived self-interest motivates most people's beliefs. If you want to go to the grandfather of persuasion in the current public arena, then it's Edward Bernays. Whether you call it Public Relations or Propaganda or Manipulation - he's a major figure. Of course, one can go as far back as Machiavelli and The Prince, this subject being as old as time.
The irony here is that this area is dominated by emotional and psychological tools, the devil's tools, to achieve a "win" in pursuasion. It isn't a skeptic's idea of argument strictly by logic and reason. Skeptics are usually opposed to lying for Jesus.
In the second and also interesting line of thought: we ask how do people learn best when they are sorted by age, arranged in rows, and all taught together as a group by nincompoops at the low end of their college cohort.
Or maybe, as Giordano covered, if learning is the objective then we shouldn't even be doing anything remotely like 30:1 student-teacher ratios in these factories we call schools. But for a lot of kids, apprenticeships. Nearing 1:1 on some things, but most certainly a fraction of today's government school standard.
We aren't doing education in the majority of those government schools. We're doing warehousing. If we wanted to educate then we would do that instead. My local school is 17th percentile on the PISA, right in there with educational powerhouses like Oman and Mexico.
You asked a question Giordano - why do we use this prison-emulating model for "educating"? Historically, our government-school approach was modeled on the Prussian system where automatons are produced for the benefit of the State.
It is working exactly as intended.
The OP is interested in persuading, I would agree with blutoski on that.
Unfortunatetly the rule there is that perceived self-interest motivates most people's beliefs. If you want to go to the grandfather of persuasion in the current public arena, then it's Edward Bernays. Whether you call it Public Relations or Propaganda or Manipulation - he's a major figure. Of course, one can go as far back as Machiavelli and The Prince, this subject being as old as time.
The irony here is that this area is dominated by emotional and psychological tools, the devil's tools, to achieve a "win" in pursuasion. It isn't a skeptic's idea of argument strictly by logic and reason. Skeptics are usually opposed to lying for Jesus.
In the second and also interesting line of thought: we ask how do people learn best when they are sorted by age, arranged in rows, and all taught together as a group by nincompoops at the low end of their college cohort.
Or maybe, as Giordano covered, if learning is the objective then we shouldn't even be doing anything remotely like 30:1 student-teacher ratios in these factories we call schools. But for a lot of kids, apprenticeships. Nearing 1:1 on some things, but most certainly a fraction of today's government school standard.
We aren't doing education in the majority of those government schools. We're doing warehousing. If we wanted to educate then we would do that instead. My local school is 17th percentile on the PISA, right in there with educational powerhouses like Oman and Mexico.
You asked a question Giordano - why do we use this prison-emulating model for "educating"? Historically, our government-school approach was modeled on the Prussian system where automatons are produced for the benefit of the State.
It is working exactly as intended.
lomiller
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What I think is missing is that we tend to teach science as a way to find the right answer, when most of the time what you really want is a way to identify the best answer from competing possibilities.
Looking for the right answer in the right place generally won’t steer you wrong but it’s not fundamentally different process than looking in the wrong place. Teaching someone where to look for the right answer doesn’t necessarily help either because the other side is doing the exact same thing, so it becomes a question of who you believe.
Leaning how to question claims may not help and can even be counterproductive because scientific claims are never really the “right answer” they are just the best one and therefore could be the subject of legitimate questions. Most people who question established science actually think they are being skeptical and following the skeptics process of questioning claims.
Formal training in specific disciplines often teaches both of these so I don't think it's surprising they can be mislead when they are outside their field of expertise.
Wowbagger
The Infinitely Prolonged
We can use persuasion without lying about anything. Everything we say can be factually accurate; and NOT even anything like a half-truth, where an inconvenient fact is left out.
Complete and utter accuracy. The truth, as far as can be determined by the best science and reason has to offer, the full truth, and nothing but the truth.
I don't see any issue, yet, with being emotionally and psychologically persuasive, as long as the facts are THAT accurate, AND the person really will likely be better off with that newfound knowledge, while doing so. It's only evil, I think, if you lie or are out to scam people.
What does everyone else think?
blutoski
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There's no ethical issue with what you suggest. The debates within skepticism are about execution.
The topic, really, isn't education so much as what's called Rhetoric. The philosophical subspecialty that focuses on persuasion.
Wowbagger
The Infinitely Prolonged
It's both, in a way. I believe there is a secret to good rhetoric somewhere in the science of education.
Know how people typically learn and don't learn stuff, in general, goes a long way towards persuasion.
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AlaskaBushPilot
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Were I to give an example to aspire to, it would be Stefan Molyneux. His training is in Philosophy.
AlaskaBushPilot
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I guess that's why I recommended Molyneux. Because he argues from moral philosophy.
He is absolutely opposed to sophism, as it sounds like you are.
Well again there is a difference between teaching methods, like the Socratic method of questioning vs. the Prussian system of producing automatons...
and there is as blutosky mentioned "rhetoric" which is not about educating the next generation. It is more about debating opposing ideas.
blutoski
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Hopefully everybody would be, but observation is that it's a continuum. We have what some psychologists call a natural 'internal lawyer' that derives pleasure from winning arguments, even if the process means abandoning a quest for truth.
I don't see a complete distinction between those, because a lot of educating the next generation is about debating opposing ideas. This is part of the function of institutionalized education, as it's intended to create the next generation of citizens. There's a motive to compensate for what's being taught at home. Kids from hardcore Creationist families get exposure to evolution, kids who think books are for queers get to read Shakespeare, girls who were told math is hard learn they're perfectly capable of doing calculus, that sort of thing.
This is the passage in the OP that got me to thinking Wowbagger may be asking about rhetoric:
Wowbagger
The Infinitely Prolonged
I figured I would resurrect this old thread to mention that I think I am warming up to the word "rhetoric". I didn't like it because it often has a negative context, implying empty persuasion, the opposite of "good arguments". HOWEVER, when defined as "making arguments more persuasive", I think it works well.
PhantomWolf
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Not sure if it's been said, but the answer is that everyone has their own way of learning, and nothing works perfectly for everyone.
The main four ways are:
By Listening
By Reading
By Doing
By Watching
The longer versions are:
Listening - This is your old style Lecturer and Listener style, so someone tells you how to do it and you learn from that.
Reading - Again a staple of older education styles, here's the book, a go and read it to learn how to do it.
Doing - Hands on experience. This is more common these days in most educational systems. Tactile learning comes from actually doing the thing that is to be learned.
Watching - By observing others doing the thing, you can learn how to do it yourself.
Generally we can learn all of these ways, but we are stronger in some more so that the others, and everyone's combination of strengths and weaknesses tends to be totally different.
The main four ways are:
By Listening
By Reading
By Doing
By Watching
The longer versions are:
Listening - This is your old style Lecturer and Listener style, so someone tells you how to do it and you learn from that.
Reading - Again a staple of older education styles, here's the book, a go and read it to learn how to do it.
Doing - Hands on experience. This is more common these days in most educational systems. Tactile learning comes from actually doing the thing that is to be learned.
Watching - By observing others doing the thing, you can learn how to do it yourself.
Generally we can learn all of these ways, but we are stronger in some more so that the others, and everyone's combination of strengths and weaknesses tends to be totally different.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
These "Learning Styles" are generally disputed, though.
Loss Leader
I would save the receptionist., Moderator
My wife, who got a Masters in Teaching, never found anything other than fads. From multiple intelligences to common core to assessment to all manner of buzzwords - it was all just noise with very, very little signal.