As noted in Chapter 2, recent research in cognitive psychology supports the view that experts learn from cases . Specifically, I think they learn that crucial aspect of judgment I call wisdom: when to activate a particular combination of knowledge and skill.
I would argue experts can learn aspects of reflective judgment from simulations. For example, one can learn tools for thinking about the costs of different career choices from SIMSCI. From simpler tasks, one can learn to be aware of the heuristic potential of confirmation and disconfirmation and use that awareness to decide how to employ these strategies.
But SIMSCI cannot provide the sort of existence proof or proof of failure that a case can. Nor are simulations as inspiring or depressing as stories about real practitioners who have succeeded or failed.
In science and engineering, reading about invention and discovery is not sufficient: students should be confronted with a problem that is open-ended enough for them to display creativity, but constrained enough so they can accomplish a solution; they should be encouraged to ‘step outside of the bounds’ of the normal process. As Roth et al. argue, "When we advocate open-inquiry laboratory or design activities for elementary and secondary students, it is not because we believe it (sic) to be a better way of learning the same content. Rather, we have strong reasons to believe that students will develop a new relationship to knowledge: many students no longer consider knowledge as something foreign that they need to acquire just to take the next career step but as something that they construct for themselves, and they see themselves not only as reproducers of cultural knowledge but, more important, as producers of personal knowledge." .
Such active learning modules can be based on historical cases as well as contemporary ones. History creates a great opportunity for vicarious apprenticeship--for working on a problem solved by a master designer, or one in which a designer failed, and comparing one’s processes with those of the historical figure. Historical designs typically involve equipment and concepts that are considered relatively simply, by modern standards--you don’t need an oscilloscope, or a laser. But once students try to emulate or improve on these apparently simple experiments, they will find that these ‘primitive’ devices and manipulation embody a great deal of sophistication.
For example, one could take the exemplary work by Ryan Tweney and David Gooding and use it to create an active-learning module based on Michael Faraday’s discovery of fields of force. More specifically, one could turn Faraday’s invention of a prototype electromagnetic motor into a module, giving students simple equipment similar to that which Faraday had. They could even be asked to construct alternate ways of demonstrating a similar phenomenon, like those generated by Faraday’s contemporaries . Faraday’s notebooks and Gooding’s problem-behavior graphs could be used to help students get a deep understanding of Faraday’s way of making discoveries. Students could use Gooding and Addis’ CLARITY program (see 1.3.3) to simulate alternate paths to Faraday’s discoveries, thereby suggesting possibilities for future experiments.
This page was last edited: Wednesday, July 14, 1999