Christopher Eliot (eliot@cs.umass.edu)
Mon, 30 Nov 1998 09:20:58 -0500 (EST)
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 09:20:58 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Eliot <eliot@cs.umass.edu> Subject: Re: [ifets] BpbLeamnson/Technology and learning
On Mon, 30 Nov 1998, Bill Braun wrote:
> Neither the teacher nor the technology causes learning. If that were the
> case, all students exposed to the same teacher/technology at the same time
> in the same place would learn the same thing. Learning is the learner's
> response to stimuli and better explains (although not completely) why
> learning varies even though everyone (in the learning population) received
> the same teacher/technology stimuli.
I am not surprised that students respond differently to "the same
instruction".
Students have different prior knowledge. A student with a good calculus
background will learn physics differently than a student with no prior
knowledge of calculus. This strongly relates to constructivist theory.
Being in the same room does not really mean students receive the
same stimuli. I can't pay complete attention to an hour long lecture.
I'm sure I miss a few minutes here and there just because I get tired.
Different students will be fully attending different parts of a lecture
or other kind of instruction.
Morover, prior knowledge affects the true impact of any stimulus.
Students have different vocabularies. In the extreme, I would
understand nothing if a lecture were in Russian, while another
listener might understand fully.
In the less extreme case, a lecturer might use a couple of words or
concepts that I don't understand and someone else does, or vice versa.
Hence, I don't think it is meaningful to say that any two people
receive "the same stimulus" and hence it is not surprising that people
learn different things from the same instruction.
This line of reasoning goes back to Heraclitus: "You can't step into
the same river twice."
-Chris Eliot
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