gl.

 

by month:
* March 2002
* April 2002
* May 2002
* June 2002
* July 2002
* August 2002
* September 2002
* October 2002
* November 2002
* December 2002
* January 2003
* February 2003
* March 2003
* April 2003
* May 2003
* June 2003
* July 2003
* August 2003
* September 2003
* October 2003
* November 2003
* December 2003
* January 2004
* February 2004
* March 2004
* April 2004
* May 2004
* June 2004
* July 2004
* August 2004
* September 2004
* October 2004
* November 2004
* December 2004
* January 2005
* February 2005
* March 2005
* April 2005
* May 2005
* June 2005
* July 2005
* August 2005
* September 2005
* October 2005
* November 2005
* December 2005
* January 2006
* February 2006
* March 2006
* April 2006
* May 2006
* June 2006
* July 2006
* August 2006
* September 2006
* October 2006
* November 2006
* December 2006
* January 2007
* February 2007
* March 2007
* April 2007
* May 2007
* June 2007
* July 2007
* August 2007
* September 2007
* October 2007
* November 2007
* December 2007
* January 2008
* February 2008
* March 2008
* April 2008
* May 2008
* June 2008
* July 2008
* August 2008
* September 2008
* October 2008
* November 2008
* December 2008
* January 2009
* February 2009
* March 2009
* April 2009
* May 2009
* June 2009
* August 2009
* September 2009
* December 2009
* January 2010
* February 2010
* March 2010
* April 2010
* May 2010
* June 2010
* August 2010
* October 2010
* November 2010
* March 2011
* June 2012
* July 2012
* August 2012
* September 2012
* October 2012
* November 2012
* December 2012
* January 2013
* February 2013
* March 2013
* April 2013
* June 2013
* July 2013
* August 2013
* September 2013
* April 2014
* August 2014
* November 2014
* December 2014
* January 2015
* March 2015

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?
site feed by atom

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

 
[#] [3]
my hero cheeseburger brown, the author of the darth side & simon of space, has been writing again, this time a series of posts of his past enemeies, softened through the lens of time.

in his tale of the weird sisters, he writes a really great and easily overlooked description of a certain form of learning i know intuitively but could never describe:
"I sipped a drink box and read a book I largely didn't understand about neutron stars. I hoped to read another book in the future that would shed some light on the nonsense I was packing into my head (a process I called pre-stuffing and Stephan called swamping)."
swamping! what a great term! this is a form of learning i'm quite familiar with and i'm hugely pleased to find such an intuitive term for it. the other day sven came up with "mistake-based learning," a great term for something i had been advocating for academic technology users for years (but academic IT people aren't really keen on it, choosing instead to restrict them even further "for their own good" until they become stiff and dependent.)

i'm also swamped in its less educational form by artist's way promotion. (c'mon, google! why do you refuse to list the portland artist's way classes higher in the search results? why do you insist on putting me on page 10? the top 5 things you link to link to me, and everything after that has pretty much NOTHING to do with portland artist's way. argh!) we did a big sweep of nw, nw, se & gresham and i've been working my way through the list of electronic optons. if anyone has any ideas, you're welcome to offer them.

Comments:
gl,
Love the concept of "mistake-based learning." Several years ago I was setting up some a/v equipment at the Colo. Deaf & Blind School, and it didn't record what it was supposed to. I went through my checklist and realized what I'd done wrong.

A couple of weeks later, some of the teachers were having the same problem -- I was able to fix it immediately because I'd made the same mistake they had and recognized what they'd done wrong.

Don't know if that's what you meant by "mistake-based" learning, but I sure am a practitioner!
 
One other comment about "pre-stuffing" and "swamping" -- I tell my physics & astronomy undergrads to go to as many science lectures on campus as they can. They may only understand 20% of "The Quark Gluon Liquid - an Unexpected Phase of Matter", but if they keep going to the lectures, all of a sudden they will be studying something in class and they will go, "AHA! I've heard that before", and they will understand it better.

Now from time to time my seniors will come in and tell me that attending these talks early on really did help them "learn the language".
 
to me, mistake-based learning just means that you have enough power to make a mistake and enough power to correct it. i'm thinking primarily of IT and art, but your example works, too.
 
Post a Comment