Crispin Weston (crispinw@dircon.co.uk)
Mon, 16 Aug 1999 23:49:32 +0100
From: "Crispin Weston" <crispinw@dircon.co.uk> Subject: More on learning as brain work Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 23:49:32 +0100
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Bob Leamnson wrote:
<<The active/passive problem emerges again. I have come to believe that
this dichotomy is a red herring. The very notion that attentive listening
is passive simply baffles me'>>
I take the point and accept that the word 'active' is perhaps imprecise and
that my point was unclear.
What I was trying to suggest was not that listening does not count as an
activity, but that the listening student might not be making decisions: not
*initiating* action.
I would accept that a skilled listener or reader *is* making decisions ('Do
I accept what is being said? Is it interesting? Should it be noted? How does
it connect with my existing view on the subject?') But the unskilled
listener may be listening very uncritically and not making decisions -
though still working hard, being mentally active and absorbing information.
You say that information that goes straight down onto paper is not encoded
at all. I accept that this may be true, but I don't think it is always true.
How do you account for unconscious knowledge? Does this not slip into my
head without my conscious participation?
What I was trying to get at was that 'knowledge = encoding + retrieval'. It
is not enough that the knowledge should be 'in there': I've got to be able
to get it out again. How many times have we had the experience of not being
able to remember something when it was needed, only to have it emerge when
it was too late and when we were not trying to retrieve it? Why does the
information emerge at one time and not another? Is the answer not something
to do with the associations which reflect the organisation of the pathways
in my brain?
Should we not be asking ourselves, not just 'is this information laid down
in the student's head?', but 'how is it laid down? What gateways does the
student have which will allow the knowledge to be retrieved?
This brings me back to the question of initiating action. Our knowledge, I
suggest, is most useful to us when we need it to make decisions and initiate
action. Even in the context of an exam, we are there alone; no-one else is
pulling any strings for us; we are initiating action in a way in which I am
not when listening to a lecture. Will I, in that state of mind, be able to
retrieve the information I need? Surely I will have a better chance if the
information was laid down when I was in a similar state of mind.
To give a banal example. The maths teacher explains simultaneous equations.
I
understand it perfectly. But unless I follow the lecture with some practise
problems on my own, I am surely at a grave disadvantage when I have to solve
my first simultaneous equation in an exam?
Crispin Weston
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