What is the Best Way for Me to Learn?

In class we have been pursuing the TOK curriculum in a straightforward way, looking first at the Knower, then at the four Ways of Knowing. In doing this we have also tried different strategies of learning. For example, we have had whole class discussion and small group discussion. We have tried different activities. We have scripted contributions to break out of a teacher-centered pattern of discussion. We have divided topics in small groups and had students teach other students. We have looked at brief videos. We have done in-class writing. We have used the blog.

I have consciously avoided lecturing.

But what works best for you? My own sense is that cooperative group work is the most worthwhile strategy, students teaching and learning from other students. Students talking to students. The IB mission statement, as well as the Marymount Goals and Criteria, speak of fostering lifelong learners, and so my desire is that we have activities that help you learn how to learn, how to work with others, how to think critically, how to dialogue sincerely and openly, how to listen tolerantly.

These skills are marks of an authentically educated person, someone unafraid to examine another point of view, someone who will actually seek out another point of view. Where these skills are lacking there is a lack of education. What usually takes their place is arrogant and insecure dogmatism that will seek to intimidate others into thoughtless and silent conformity.

There are many cheerleaders of conformity.

In a university you will not be immersed in games and poster-making, as fun and worthwhile as these can be. You may even find an authoritarian manner of teaching or managing that can quickly stifle a community: individual participation is not encouraged or it is rigidly controlled and censored. In many leading schools, however, cooperative or collaborative groups are an integral part of the educational experience. The University of Illinois at Chicago and Harvard Business School, to cite two examples, both use and promote study groups. Many law schools assign or encourage study groups, for they are effective and lessen anxiety. In life we will most likely be working and learning in a group. Why not learn how to do it well?

So what works best for you? In your entry could you speak about what learning strategy works best for you personally. Look at what your classmates have written and, if possible, take this into account in your own comment. Please do not feel you have to agree with me!!!!!

Logical Fallacies, Or How to Change the Subject to Win an Argument

Our next subject in class will be logical fallacies. A logical fallacy, used knowingly or not, is basically a sneaky way to win an argument regardless of its validity or truth. In some way the fallacy changes the subject, making you react or assent to something irrelevant.

Alchin lists fifteen fallacies, which are all relevant but also a lot to remember. Some of the more common would be:

1. Ad hominem
2. Hasty generalization
3. Appeal to authority
4. Appeal to common practice
5. Straw man
6. False dilemma
7. Ad bacculum
8. Post hoc ergo propter hoc

We will discuss these in class for they are encountered often in daily life. For example, when someone, or a small group of people, begins or repeats a vicious rumor to discredit someone in the community, this is a form of ad hominem argument. This can be accompanied by mobbing, the intentional exclusion of a person from activities or discussion (but this last phenomenom is not a logical fallacy). Or, for another example, when someone is caught cheating or stealing, but claims that it is ok because everyone does it, this is the fallacy of common practice. At election time many fallacies will come into complex and bewildering play, as newspapers and television networks crackle with personal attacks on politicians, and policies are caricatured to provoke a response from the voters. Lastly, when someone says or does something unpopular, and threats are used to intimidate and silence him or her, they are often phrased with an ad bacculum fallacy. "You should be careful about what you say."

What is a syllogism and why should I care?

A syllogism is a valid deductive argument in which there are two premises (one major and one minor) and a conclusion. If the premises are true and do not contradict each other, then the conclusion is valid.
Why is this important? For many reasons, but if we could isolate one, it would be that a syllogism makes one conscious of premises and how they are related. One learns to reason more carefully and precisely. A syllogism is an expression and exercise of deductive reasoning, one idea leading from another to a conclusion. There are other kinds of syllogisms, and one can begin a long walk down the varied history and different forms of Logic in pursuing this topic. At the end of the corridor would be Aristotle, the tutor of Alexander the Great.
For this week's entry on the TOK blog, please formulate a correct syllogism and post it in the Comments.

Why a blog?

It was the second week of October and our principal Mr. Kennedy was going upstairs, I was coming down. He knows my expectation that the TOK class develop skills in classroom discussion. Conversation is the paradigm of learning, and students should learn to ask questions, respond appropriately, ask for clarification, draw their own conclusions. The ancient Greeks definitely got that one right. Socrates was not walking up and down the aisle passing out multiple choice tests and telling kids to stop yapping. We are not going to be taking tests all through life (I hope); we will certainly be learning through conversation. “Why don’t you try a blog,” Mr. Kennedy said. “Some students who are hesitant to speak in class might benefit.”

Sounded like a good idea. Take the conversation to the web. Same conversation skills expressed in cyberspace.

When I mentioned it to the students, some did not know what a blog is. So I gave them an overview, how it is a web log (say it fast) and the earliest appeared in the mid 1990s, as the Internet began to weave itself around the planet. Technorati reports that the majority of bloggers are hobbyists, but one can see that blogs, as a source of widely disseminated independent opinion, are becoming a significant lever in many spheres, including politics. They help to fund campaigns, they raise issues that the mainstream might overlook. In Italy the comedian/political activist Beppe Grillo’s blog has an enormous following. It’s as if anyone can have an internationally syndicated column.

And they are being used in education. There are blogs for administrators, for teachers, for classes. Some students keep a personal blog as a diary. Each is a voice in the global educational community. If you value conversation, you probably value blogs.

Emotional Intelligence

Howard Gardner formulated a theory of multiple intelligences. Two of these intelligences, the interpersonal and intrapersonal, focus in some manner upon human emotion. How does Gardner distinguish these two intelligences? Can you think of people whom you personally know (but please do not use names!) that exhibit a high degree of either form of intelligence? How does this impact their daily lives?