ClappingTree’s Web 2.0

IN Dutton & Aron’s Two Bridges experiment (1974), male participants were asked to walk across the Capilano Canyon suspension bridge in Vancouver. Others were asked to walk over a low bridge. Although the men were told that they were being asked about creativity and scenery, they were actually being tested on their emotions. The woman interviewing them subtly dropped them her phone number in the middle of the questions. The same woman did the interviews on both the low and high bridges. The end results: Among those who walked on the high bridge, 60% used the number and called the woman back. Among those who walked on low bridge, 30% picked up the phone.

ACTUALLY, none of us got the right answer, although I did come quite close (the answer is in the Dutton & Aron link above, just scroll to the middle of the page). The Capilano story was one of many concrete examples (and experiments) which Professor Henck Schmidt used during a talk at Republic Polytechnic yesterday, to illustrate six key principles of learning and teaching, namely:

• Learning is basically construction of meaning, e.g. coherent theories about the world.
• Activation of prior knowledge facilitates the subsequent processing of new information.
• Elaboration of knowledge at the time of learning enhances subsequent retrieval. E.g. use of paired assocation.
• Organization of Knowledge: E.g. “Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when news on 911 broke out?” (Note: Actually, I kinda puzzled by this illustration. Didn’t get to clarify my doubts though.
• Contextual Dependence: Matching context facilitates recall.
• Intrinsic Interest: External rewards does not steer the learning, in fact it may reduce intrinsic interest and make the subject matter studied less interesting.

We (the audience), including many instructional designers from various IHLs in Singapore, were asked many interesting questions in order to trigger more questions and activate critical thinking. Truly gratified to have attended a talk by a man who models what he teaches. And to leave with an adrenaline rush…