Session 9
Trying Out Mulitple Ways to Solve Problems: Individually and Communally
Name: Anne Dalke
Username: adalke@brynmawr.edu
Subject: Welcome to Friday
Date: 2003-07-24 21:26:07
Message Id: 6176
Comments:
By the time you read this, we'll have made it to Friday. Congratulations and thanks to all for a full, engaging and instructive first week of exploring emergence together. Doug, Kim and I have decided to 'celebrate' this half-way point in the Institute by instituting
(SURPRISE!)
a NO-technology morning.
We've all enjoyed playing w/ a range of computer simulations and programs this week, but now we'd like to show you how many of the ideas associated with emergence can also be explored off-line...
which is where we'll go this morning. So:
join us upstairs, away from the computers, where we'll be trying out multiple ways to solve problems, individually and communally. Let's see...
where we end up.
Looking forward--
Anne, Kim and Doug
Name: Anne Dalke
Username: adalke@brynmawr.edu
Subject: A few (more) grains of sand...
Date: 2003-07-25 13:22:25
Message Id: 6179
Comments:
In preparation for Kim's presentation this morning about multiple ways of problem-solving, we offered answers to one another's questions. Here's a record of some of what was said in response to
- Mitch's question: What new ideas have I gotten that are more useful than my present assumptions?
- Paul's question: In what ways might the concept of evolution be useful (in class, elsewhere?)
- Examining American history in terms of interactions among the 13 colonies. Looking at the history of Africa, Asia and South America at the same period as "clumpy diversity."
- math probability
- genetics: random selection
- evolution of culture, langauge, music, clothing
- computer technology-research
- Brian's question: How can I teach that simple past changes create new forms (ie. historical dependence)?
- use a timeline with the following inserts: inventions, proofs, and research
- Regina's question: What do I do, when kids want to discuss things instead of doing the assigned task?
- Most students are visual or tactile. You need to develop some activities that will keep their attention. Hands-on usually works. Also give the students a task.
- Return to discussion at the end of objective (if it's not a teaching moment!)
- disorder to order
- Marita's question: What other words/phrases might be used to make evolution more "palatable"?
- generated change
- emergence
- pop culture: T.V. show "Survivors"
- continuous research
- growth
- trends
- measurement
- culture
- community
- "This is a story, just a story."
- Randal's Question:Where does our obligation as teachers lie?
- To teach to the best of our abilities, w/ 100% commitment, and to enable each child to reach their highest potential
- facilitators
- facilitate discussion
- present the information
- dispel rumors/opinions
- encourage further discussion/investigation outside the classroom
- openness
- tolerance
- Marlene's question: How could causes of prejudice be a lesson in the connectedness of it all?
- It may open up minds to "otherness"/differences and make people less "ignorant."
- By looking at the causes of prejudice, we can examine the ways people are disconnected.
- causes of prejudice-->opinions--> subjective
- connectedness--> facts--> objective
- reading skills--> recognizing propaganda techniques
- Peggy Hollyday's contribution, a July 20, 2003 Philadelphia Inquirer article on "New-yet-old ideas about the soul":
"I share the Freudian notion of the soul as an emergent property. It's largely repressed, and it's a potential."
- This is using soul as metaphor, not as "emergent" in the way we've been discussing, as arising from small, local, physical interactions.
Quite a FEW grains of sand in this growing pile!!
Thanks to all for your contributions--
Anne
Name: Anne Dalke
Username: adalke@brynmawr.edu
Subject: Trying Out Multiple Ways to Solve Problems
Date: 2003-07-25 15:16:28
Message Id: 6180
Comments:
Out of my archiving-mania
(has to do w/ being an English prof...or maybe, just aging and a fear of loss
[FEAR=False Evidence Appearing Real]
here's a record of what Kim taught us this morning:
She invited us to see "what's going on in kids' heads,
beginning w/ something "real we could touch and feel": the Cracker Barrel Peg Game.
We played it separately, several times.
Kim walked us through a successful strategy for "winning" the game,
then invited us to play it again--
but none of us were able to reproduce the strategy successfully.
This was a great example of what happens (so often) in our classrooms:
we TEACH them something, then get frustrated that they don't USE it instantly.
We're calling this the "strategy of inefficiency."
Drawing on Siegler's work about children's problem-solving strategies, Kim explained that
- kids use more than one strategy to solve the same problem
- those multiple strategies co-exist over long periods of time
- based on experience, kids will change their relative reliance on different strategies.
What motivates this change?
- experience, not direct instruction
- self reflection (both conscious and unconscious): observing which strategies work
- the more variable/erratic the behavior, the more chaotic "fooling around" students engage in, the more strategies they will have available to draw on
- new things are learned best not when a student's at an impasse, but when they are working at tasks that seem more manageable.
How does learning occur?
How can we get kids to be better @ problem-solving?
- give them experience
- help them get better at knowing which strategy works at which time
- help them get more efficient at recognizing what they know.
Some comments during discussion:
- At any given time: there is more competition than you would expect between various strategies.
- Does using the calculator limit the number of effective strategies available to students?
(For instance: not knowing math facts means they can't draw on them to solve problems.)
- A useful analogy is a child, taken away from abusive parents, who takes some time (sometimes, several placements) to realize that it is better to be in a foster family. They prefer what they know, even if what they know is "not good."
- Siegler's work is not "contextual": it focuses on a child's conscious and unconscious preferences w/out considering what other things--besides the problem itself--determine waht he does.
- Cf. his theory to ants going around a log: like their "preference" for a shorter route, the more we do something, the more efficient we get at it, because an associative process builds up.
- Our reflections about this may be metacognitive; they may be an unconscious reflectiveness.
Kim ended our session by having us work together on the Peg Game, and then on a nail-and-wood-construction project. What was different when we worked together?
- talking out loud
- couldn't do it unconsciously: had to explain to our partner
- less individual exploration
- feedback
- encouragement to re-do: make each move "tentative"
- like "moon walking": ability to go backwards
- more possibilities brought to light
- permission to revise
- more background knowledge to draw on
- more memory to draw on.
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