PART 3 (6'10")
- 3. Understanding ((( Knowledge Perspective ))):
Since we were talking about activation, I'd like to activate you, the viewer, using the following puzzle. Please consider the following numeric transcription system; where one is written like this, ... two like this, ... and so forth. I'll give you ten seconds.
((( Please memorize )))
Now I'd like you to write down, say the last five digits of my office phone number 1 8 7 2 5, in numeric system.
We, Homo Sapiens, are quite bad at memorizing random information. Psychologists claim that we are only able to hold 7 +/- 2 pieces of random information in our short-term memory.
Now, suppose I showed you the following grid. As you can see, in this number system, one is at the top-left corner and hence written like this, whereas, for example, eight is at the bottom and hence written like this.
Now, you can probably write anything using this silly number system for the next 65 years.
The point is that we as humans learn by associating new and unknown information with old and known information. Or, that we build new information on top of old information.
In this case it was easy, we simply exploited that you all knew a certain geometric shape; the grid symbol - and the numeric layout of a conventional telephone.
But when teaching Semantics, or Fertilization, or Political Power Theory, or Roman Litterature, it may not be clear what the students know, or how they know it.
The point is, that knowledge is constructed as a result of the learner's activity.
This is in sharp contrast to the old, now abandoned idea, that knowledge is transmitted from a teacher to a passive learner. Transmission is not the way humans learn; active knowledge construction is.
"Learning takes place through the active behavior of the student: it is what he does that he learns, not what the teacher does."
However, activation itself is not enough. We also need a theory of understanding, to take into consideration how students are activated.
Professor John Biggs has such a theory.
The SOLO Taxonomy, short for Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome, distinguishes five levels according to the cognitive processes required to obtain them.
The lowest level in the taxonomy, level one, is known as the "pre-structural" level at which the student has no understanding, uses irrelevant information, and/or misses the point alltogether.
> One final question; what is a cow?
> Ehhh...?
Level two is known as the "uni-structural" level where a student will focus on one relevant aspect only. Here the student has the competence to identify, to do a procedure, and/or to recite.
> A cow is when you are milking...
A student at the "multi-structural" level, level three, can focus on several relevant aspects, but they are considered independently. He is able to classify, to combine, to enumerate, and so on...
> Cows give us milk, and when slaughtered, they give us oil, meat, fat, bone, ... and leather.
At level four, which is called the "relational" level, a student can now link and integrate several parts into a coherent whole. Details are linked to conclusion and its meaning is understood. He has the ability to relate, to compare, to analyze, and so on...
> The essential difference between a Jersey cow and a Hereford-Angus cow is that a Jersey cow produces a lot more milk, but is substantially smaller.
At the fifth and highest level, the "extended abstact" level, a student has the capacity to generalize the structure beyond the information given, and even produce new hypotheses or theories, which may then be scrutinized.
> Cattle, or kye, are domesticated ungulates - a member of the sub-family bovinae. And, it seems to me that humans must have been the root cause for the diversification of cattle, because they were selected for different genetic characteristics like draft, milk, meat, size, color, and behavior, to name a few.
We refer to levels four and five, as "deep understanding".
> Excuse me, isn't this the same as last week except with implicit environments?
Levels two and three, are referred to as "surface understanding".
> Wait, is that a colon or a semi-colon?
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