ClappingTree’s Web 2.0

From the preface of a book by Clark Aldrich (2005), “Learning by Doing — A Comprehensive Guide to Simulations, Computer Games, and Pedagogy in e-Learning and Other Educational Experiences”:

“FIVE BLIND PEOPLE were walking down a path. They stumbled upon something that none of them had ever experienced before, an educational simulation. They each tried to describe it to the others.

“It is a class. People sit down and learn important ideas,” said the first.
“I don’t think so,” said the second. “It’s a computer game. It moves quickly, it involves a mouse, and requires my complete attention.”
“No,” said a third, “It can be used with a class, but it’s more like a book. It can be sold anywhere in the world. It is scalable–hundreds of thousands can engage it at the same time.”
“What are you talking about?” asked the fourth. “It is like a pill. It is a compact package of intellectual property that improves quality of life.”
“I beg to differ,” said the fifth. “It is more like a gym. It requires the users to work hard and sweat and put in hours to tone themselves.”

AM REMINDED of the Education Pill metaphor that A/P Hoadley used in a seminar two months ago. “Assuming that an Education Pill is possible,” he had said. “How would we evaluate it? How would we discover it? How would we manufacture it? What other questions arise?”

After spending some time discussing in small groups, we discussed as a class. Issues brought up included:

• Outright rejection. Idea of pill seems like idea of education as transmission. Generalizing from bad examples?
• Diagnostic (Problem) issues. Education vs. learning? What are the goals of education? What needs to get evaluated? What’s the best thing to do? Intervention, treatment or description? What are the things worth intervening in?
• Treatment issues. Differences between causes and symptoms? Does one pill fit all? Customization to suit individual differences? Side effects? “This cough syrup tastes bad!” Dependency (addiction to pills)? Multiple intelligences issues: scoping how much one pill can do. Same vs. different pills (e.g. one for Math, one for Biology). Differences between fixing a problem and speeding development. How do you know what the relevant covariates are? What is expecting too much of a pill? Is learning about physiology or not?
• Control, Social and/or Political (power) issues. Who gets to control access or administer the pill? Discount pills (reverse effects)? What if you got the wrong pills?! Entropy — Changing the evolutionary pressure on mankind (changing to Japanese?)

It occured to me then: “Actually, we are already using an Education Pill very extensively in Singapore. It is ‘tutoring’. Almost everyone has taken this ‘tutoring’ pill, some more some less — at different levels and with different potencies. RP is also taking an Education Pill. That is, Problem-Based Learning (PBL). This teaching strategy is being used throughout the whole campus, for all subjects at all levels for all students. Does this one pill really fit all?”

(See also What Is Truth? and Figures of Speech. Try the Metaphorically Speaking quiz.)