Dear Organlearners,
Fred Nickols <nickols@worldnet.att.net> made the following very
interesting comparison:
> Keith cites four learning styles adapted from Honey & Mumford:
> 1. Activists
> 2. Reflectors
> 3. Theorists
> 4. Pragmatists
>
> For me, these have a clear connection to the learning styles set forth by
> Kolb, Rubin and McIntyre more than 25 years ago:
>
> 1. Concrete Experience (CE)
> 2. Reflective Observation (RO)
> 3. Abstract Conceptualization (AC)
> 4. Active Experimentation (AE)
These two sets of learning styles reminds me very much of the
scientific method. I have tried through many years to reduced the
scientific method to its bare essences. Here is how I see it:
Step 1. Observe by means of experiences and describe as carefully as
possible any phenomenon.
Step 2. Use the desciptions in step 1 to make wild speculations about
the phenomenon.
Step 3. Weed out all the false and wrong speculations in terms of
additional observations, even if the experiences have to
be supplemented by experiments. Go back to step 1.
Notice that the scientific method is a cyclic (feedback) event and
thus can lead to emergences (scientific discoveries). These
emergences are the reason why the scientific method is so popular.
Also note that no mention is made anywhere in these three steps of
theories.
The scientific method is basically a creative method. The
"creativity" of the phenomenon leads in steps 1 and 3 while the
creativity of the observer leads in step 2. It is often also called
the empirical or heuristic method.
The first man probably ever to try and articulate the sceintific
method, was the 12th century Oxford scientist Roger Bacon.
It somehow escaped the earlier Greeks BC that there was method in
their won madness. Michael Faraday was probably the greatest exponent
in the history of all natural science on the empirical method.
It is interesting that, because of his disadvantaged upbringing,
Farady knew very little about theories and cared very little about
theories. Thus we may learn a great lesson from him -- theories do
not always count and sometimes even prevent paradigm shifts
The empirical method can be enriched. One way is to rename step 3 to
step 4 and let a new step 3 emerge after step 2. The new step 3
would be
Step 3. Weed out all the false and wrong speculations in terms of
any theoretical (rational) system (logic, phenomenology,
system thinking).
If the theoretical system is logic, the result would be called the
logico-empirical method. Because of the new step 3 we now have a
complexer version of the scientific method.
It is very interesting that the above theoretical enrichment of the
empirical method corresponds to the two sets of four learning styles
quoted above.
Rick <Richard@Karash.com> notices in LO19095
> Aren't these presented by Kolb as activities in a sequential cycle?
> That's how it's been explained to me.
(snip)
> In contrast, "Activities in a sequential cycle" means that one must
> complete all the activities for maximal learning.
Yes Rick, they are not only sequential, they are also connected in a
cycle. I do not consider these four entities as separate learning
styles, but as the phour phases of one complex learning style which I
call the "scientific learning style".
> If these learning modes are activities in a sequential cycle, the
> recommendation then would be to develop the flexibility to learn
> well in all four modes. If they are styles (i.e. psychological
> types), developing this flexibility would be very difficult.
Even without the four being "types", but rather "phases", it is still
very difficult to master this learning style. Welcome to one of the
pains which a science teacher has to endure.
Simon Buckingham <go57@dial.pipex.com> in LO19096
makes the very interesting observation about the two sets of styles:
> Reminds me of Sonnenfeld and Peiperl's research classifying
> organizations as defenders, prospectors, and analyzers.
There are now active reasearch going on in education on various
learning styles. But just as with learning theories, there is more
confusion than agreement. Many learning styles have been uncovered
overlapping each other in many bewildering ways. In my opnion the
systems thinking which these reasearchers employ in trying to get
order is not complex enough.
We may introduce into the bare scientific method above (the emprical
method) not a new step 3, but an enrichment of step 2 itself. This
helps us to exhaust many of the presently known learning styles. Note
that we have assumed in step 2 a sort of unstructured "wild
speculation" -- pure chaos. It is possible to let order emerge in
step 2 in many different ways. Some people may speculate divergently
while others speculate convergently. This leads to the divergent and
convergent learning styles. Other people prefer to speculate by
analogy while others speculate by opposites. This leads to the
continuous (conservative) and saltotorial (liberal) learning styles.
Hundreds of possible combinations of the many of the facets of
creativity are possible. These combinations depend on the already
acquired creativity experiences of the learner.
I myself have created an authoring lesson for Computer Asisted
Education lessons which offers the learner 8 different learning
styles. It is sometimes a shock to go through the same lesson a
number of times, each time using a different learning style
But whatever learning styles are possible, two things are very clear
to me now:
1 A learning style must begin with experiences and end with
experiences. In other words, it must be heuristic (emprical).
Sometimes this tenet is also called experential learning. But in
essence experential learning is just that which is common to all
learning styles.
2 An evolution through various learning styles is very important for
authetic learning. A learner who gets hooked (fixed) to a
specific learning style sooner or later develop difficulties when
the complexity of the subject matter (learning material)
increases. I have seen this many times happen in a complex
subject such as chemistry.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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