07 March, 2009
Learning as embodied co-emergent process
I have been reading an article in a book, which was recommended as a useful overview of learning theories which does not get bogged down in old historical theories. They make a number of assumptions that perhaps should be addressed, but I thought it best to try and understand what they said in the article before I addressed that.
They divided learning theories into 4 groups, the first three were easy enough to understand but the forth was entitled "Learning as embodied co-emergent process", I had no idea what this mean so I was eager to read their explanation. Unfortunately, I am now not a lot wiser, so here is my confusion.
Firstly I am familiar with the concept of an emergent property being something that applies to a group of 'things' but which makes has no meaning with respect to a individual thing from that group. The easiest example to understand is temperature, which is a property of a group of atoms - namely it is the average kinetic energy, a single atom cannot have a temperature. (OK maybe its not that simple to understand!). Let me think of another one.... try this... tartan cloth, the tartan pattern emerges from the way the threads that make it are woven together. No single thread is tartan, in fact each thread is just one colour, red, yellow, white or whatever.
Any way I started with this idea of emergent, and waited to see whether they meant the same thing or something else, but the answer is not at all clear. In fact at times I found it hard to determine whether they were talking about a person or a 'system', in one breath they seem to be talking about the system then in the next the individual.
The "co" part was a total unknown at the beginning, but it quickly became clear that this meant more than one thing emerging at a time, namely cognition, identities and the environment emerge together. I assume that in this case they are emerging FROM experience. But later the individual and the environment emerge FROM cognition (whatever that means). But interestingly learning is not mentioned in either of these lists, have I missed something here? Do they mean to equate cognition with learning, (they are not the same thing in my vocab) or perhaps they mean to IMPLY learning somewhere in this co-emergent situation, if so where?
The next problem seems to come from the under girding assumptions. They tell us that people learn, and systems learn, what follows then seems to assume that people learn in the same way that systems learn, because we are using the same word. Alternatively, if you can show that people don't learn in the same way as systems, then it is invalid to say that people learn, so obviously people don't learn. Which leaves us to conclude only systems learn.
Perhaps the confusion means that they don't understand the concept themselves, or that they have grouped together a wide variety of theories that do not agree on these issues. In either case it seems that I may need to read more of the people they are summarising before I can understand what Fenwick and Tennant have to say.
Keep watching this spot!
They divided learning theories into 4 groups, the first three were easy enough to understand but the forth was entitled "Learning as embodied co-emergent process", I had no idea what this mean so I was eager to read their explanation. Unfortunately, I am now not a lot wiser, so here is my confusion.
Firstly I am familiar with the concept of an emergent property being something that applies to a group of 'things' but which makes has no meaning with respect to a individual thing from that group. The easiest example to understand is temperature, which is a property of a group of atoms - namely it is the average kinetic energy, a single atom cannot have a temperature. (OK maybe its not that simple to understand!). Let me think of another one.... try this... tartan cloth, the tartan pattern emerges from the way the threads that make it are woven together. No single thread is tartan, in fact each thread is just one colour, red, yellow, white or whatever.
Any way I started with this idea of emergent, and waited to see whether they meant the same thing or something else, but the answer is not at all clear. In fact at times I found it hard to determine whether they were talking about a person or a 'system', in one breath they seem to be talking about the system then in the next the individual.
The "co" part was a total unknown at the beginning, but it quickly became clear that this meant more than one thing emerging at a time, namely cognition, identities and the environment emerge together. I assume that in this case they are emerging FROM experience. But later the individual and the environment emerge FROM cognition (whatever that means). But interestingly learning is not mentioned in either of these lists, have I missed something here? Do they mean to equate cognition with learning, (they are not the same thing in my vocab) or perhaps they mean to IMPLY learning somewhere in this co-emergent situation, if so where?
The next problem seems to come from the under girding assumptions. They tell us that people learn, and systems learn, what follows then seems to assume that people learn in the same way that systems learn, because we are using the same word. Alternatively, if you can show that people don't learn in the same way as systems, then it is invalid to say that people learn, so obviously people don't learn. Which leaves us to conclude only systems learn.
Perhaps the confusion means that they don't understand the concept themselves, or that they have grouped together a wide variety of theories that do not agree on these issues. In either case it seems that I may need to read more of the people they are summarising before I can understand what Fenwick and Tennant have to say.
Keep watching this spot!
27 February, 2009
My Theory of Learning
There have been a great many theories of learning in the world, and I have come across a few, but my ideas are based on my experience. You might guess when you read this that science has played a significant role in my life.
I think of there being 3 aspects to (lets call it) knowledge (for now) as well as to learning:
* There is data (or facts, but I will try not to use that term as its ambiguous).
Data is things that we observe e.g. "my car is dirty", "after washing my car it is clean" " at certain times of the month the moon looks like a particular type of cheese", "when I move the leaver at the top of the tap water comes out"
* There are theories, these are connections in my mind between the data that I observe e.g. "The moon is made of cheese", "my obedience to the water deity causes water to come out of the tap", "washing my car causes it to become clean by removing the dirt"
* There are skills, these are the application of theories in the world. This includes both thinking that "I need to wash my car for it will become clean" as well as actually washing the car and experiencing it becoming clean.
Of course the boundary between the aspects of knowledge are a little blurred, but in general its not hard to decide which is which.
Learning is increasing any of these aspects of knowledge, and preferably all aspects. So it includes:
> increasing the data that I experience
> developing more theories and changing the level of my faith in theories
> increasing my skill by applying those theories in the world.
For example when I experience the data of plumbing etc. I may develop a new theory that links water coming out of the tap with plumbing, and decrease my faith in the water deity, and I would apply my new theory in the world with the skill of paying my water bill.
One day I might also apply my theory concerning dirt and cars by applying the skill of washing my car ... but don't hold you breath.
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