Rand Spiro

Rand Spiro, Michigan State presentation/visit on Friday, April 29, 2005

Cognitive Flexibility theory

• easehistory.com (EASE - Experience Acceleration
  Sport Environment)


• CFT for AKA (Advanced Knowledge Acquisition) in ISDs
  (ill structured domains)


• when you talk so long on a slide that your computer
  goes to sleep, you should have changed the slide already.


• situation-adaptive
  knowledge assembly


• Video Cases to Foster CF


• knowledge application (transfer)


• the "criss-crossed landscape" -
  nonlinear learning and instruction; revisiting is not repeating


• not a substitute
  for situated and collaborative learning -- supplementing, complementing,
  and supporting.


• Beyond paradigm antogonism -- a cognitive theory that complements
  situated approaches


• well-structured domains can support single answers, but
  ISDs require many answers/routes


• his voice/manners put me to sleep -- not
  monotone, but very rhythmic, a sleepy rhythm.


• case-based. cases build on each
  other, vary, but add to the knowledge.


• concepts in context.


• our perception modes are far more advanced than our
  cognitive conscious minds


• "New Incrementalism" synecdochal learning


• start with full complexity,
  but do it with bite-sized pieces (mini-cases)


• people expect things to be simple,
  we try to open up that perception, and try to get people to be ready to see
  more.


• "It's not that simple" "It depends" "Not either/or" try
  to get them to the "middle position -- too simple and not
  too complex (overwhelming)


• Dreyfus: Lakoff & Johnson: experiential
  representation


• Dewey: organic inquiry, conceptual quality


• Pepper: world hypotheses


• Wittgenstein: meaning in use; family resemblance,
  criss-crossed landscapes


• learning with video


• once you see a short clip, you don't need to see it
  again -- just short "reminder" clips.
  Then you can juggle 5-8 second clips and compare them


• easehistory.com
  is pretty cool. There's another one that's password protected: EVR-1 (on
  Ed Video Re-View) where you can compare video clips and see instructional
  things in video (also one called TTMM (Teaching Text, Making Meaning) --
  I don't have the passwords for these.


• Cool tool!


• these demonstrate that simple answers are not so accurate, and
  encourages the opening of minds, and changing habits.

My thoughts: It's too bad that this tool will be sold, rather
than shared with other educational researchers, but I suppose this is the way
of the [capitalist] world. I'd like to see it widely used. I especially appreciate
his ideas on learning -- that people expect things to be simple,
we try to open up that perception, and try to get people to be ready to
see more. Too bad, again, that we'll have to pay to try to get people to do
that...