Subject: How Schoolchildren Learn

Posted by Prof. Dr. Niall Palfreyman on 12/20/2004
In Reply To:How Schoolchildren Learn Posted by Bill Ellis on 12/19/2004

Message:

A thought has just occurred to me regarding this discussion thread. I have often found in my work with university students that they develop great enthusiasm for the subjects I teach when I bring in "big, meaningful" topics like religion, world ecology and philosophy. The most mundane and "boring" topics seem to gain in interest for them when I mention their relevance to world peace, or altruism or some such. I also find that SD diagrams offer a simple way to approach these topics, since they give an intensely visual representation of the issues involved.

One such example was when I used a simulation of the evolution of altruism to demonstrate rule-based models of computation (drawn from the EACH project at Tufts University), and another was when I developed a model (merely a diagram - not a simulation) of "The Lorax" in the context of exponential feedback processes in first year mathematics. I drew this idea from Linda Booth-Sweeney's Butterfly book.

I am currently putting these some of these "big" ideas together in an elective course on Holistic Philosophy whose general description you can view at this link:
http://www.fh-weihenstephan.de/bt/bi/lehre/PhysRev/awp-revphysik.html.

Niall Palfreyman.