Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
Minsky's views on education
In the Cognitive Science class, we often talked about Design. A different thing that I wanted to touch upon is Education. We talked about education when we discussed Piaget and Vygotsky. I think there is enough stuff out there to discuss more about it. Having taken the Education Technologies (CS 6460) course by Mark Guzdial, I have some insight about the research that goes into "making children learn". It is so vital that our education leverage the best of the ideas of Cognitive Science to make children learn more, understand more and not feel scared towards a particular subject.
I read a couple of essays of Minsky that I would like to mention here. These are basically his memos for the OLPC idea and also contains his rants about the current education system.
Talking about Mathematics (which is a very good topic to discuss since we all know its important for the child to understand it and we also are cognizant of how many students dislike the subject), Minsky makes this statement - "instead of promoting inventiveness, we focus on preventing mistakes". I think this is a strong and unfortunately true statement. Many countries have their education system committing the same mistake.
He also points out that not all students are able to create "cognitive maps" of the subject/concept. He supports the introduction of computers to teach the subject concepts in a little different way. Using a nice simulation software, one can teach students concepts of acceleration, momentum etc. Like one of the research projects at GTRI here, plans to build a mobile phone app for teaching physics (utilizing the accelerometers in the phone) to students.The students can have an interactive way of learning difficult concepts. This will build better mental maps for these concepts. Minsky is a strong supporter for introducing computers early so that the learning of other subjects will be affected in a positive manner.
In another essay Minsky, suggests a particularly bold idea. Schools do not explicitly teach the students how the human mind learns and reasons. So as a solution towards this - a different approach: to provide our children with ideas they could use to invent their own theories about themselves! This is the idea of meta-cognition - thinking about thinking. And the way he suggests is by doing interesting computer-related student projects.
The way we can go about implementing the above idea is not by teaching Psychology to children,
but Cybernetics.
This essay is recent (January 2009), and Minsky recounts the past efforts - idea of teaching LOGO to children. This did not really take off, but Minsky feels that we have come a long way and these are really feasible now. He suggests robotic projects (LEGO Mindstorms NXT, I believe does this in a super cool way), Cognitive Projects (reasoning by analogy) , optimization projects, puzzle solvers and lots more.
My favorite quote from the essay is-
However, Computer Science is not only about computers themselves; more generally, it provides us with a whole new world of ways to understand complex processes—including the ones that go on in own mind.
Minsky concludes the essay by suggesting how it helps to think like a machine and hence supporting his claim of metacognition being improved by computers
I read a couple of essays of Minsky that I would like to mention here. These are basically his memos for the OLPC idea and also contains his rants about the current education system.
Talking about Mathematics (which is a very good topic to discuss since we all know its important for the child to understand it and we also are cognizant of how many students dislike the subject), Minsky makes this statement - "instead of promoting inventiveness, we focus on preventing mistakes". I think this is a strong and unfortunately true statement. Many countries have their education system committing the same mistake.
He also points out that not all students are able to create "cognitive maps" of the subject/concept. He supports the introduction of computers to teach the subject concepts in a little different way. Using a nice simulation software, one can teach students concepts of acceleration, momentum etc. Like one of the research projects at GTRI here, plans to build a mobile phone app for teaching physics (utilizing the accelerometers in the phone) to students.The students can have an interactive way of learning difficult concepts. This will build better mental maps for these concepts. Minsky is a strong supporter for introducing computers early so that the learning of other subjects will be affected in a positive manner.
In another essay Minsky, suggests a particularly bold idea. Schools do not explicitly teach the students how the human mind learns and reasons. So as a solution towards this - a different approach: to provide our children with ideas they could use to invent their own theories about themselves! This is the idea of meta-cognition - thinking about thinking. And the way he suggests is by doing interesting computer-related student projects.
The way we can go about implementing the above idea is not by teaching Psychology to children,
but Cybernetics.
This essay is recent (January 2009), and Minsky recounts the past efforts - idea of teaching LOGO to children. This did not really take off, but Minsky feels that we have come a long way and these are really feasible now. He suggests robotic projects (LEGO Mindstorms NXT, I believe does this in a super cool way), Cognitive Projects (reasoning by analogy) , optimization projects, puzzle solvers and lots more.
My favorite quote from the essay is-
However, Computer Science is not only about computers themselves; more generally, it provides us with a whole new world of ways to understand complex processes—including the ones that go on in own mind.
Minsky concludes the essay by suggesting how it helps to think like a machine and hence supporting his claim of metacognition being improved by computers
I’m not good at math. ---There are some bugs in my symbolic processes.
I’m just not very smart ------ Some of my programs need improvements.
I don’t like this subject. ---------- My current goals need better priorities.
I am confused. -----------Some of my processes may conflict with others.
The jury is out !
I’m just not very smart ------ Some of my programs need improvements.
I don’t like this subject. ---------- My current goals need better priorities.
I am confused. -----------Some of my processes may conflict with others.
And how one can be more efficient !-
Time-management. ----- Organizing Searches. -------Splitting problems into parts.
Selecting good ways to represent things. -----Making appropriate cognitive maps.
Allocating short-term memory. ---------- Making appropriate Credit Assignments.
Selecting good ways to represent things. -----Making appropriate cognitive maps.
Allocating short-term memory. ---------- Making appropriate Credit Assignments.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Chimpanzees Mourn Their Dead
There is some cognition there?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Fall 2010 classes
Hi,
About more courses in cognition, maybe you wanna check
| PSYC 6011 - Cognitive Psychology | ||
Course on human cognition including pattern recognition, attention, memory, categorization, problem solving, consciousness, decision making, intention, and the relation between mind and brain.
|
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Society of Mind versus Mind of Society
We recently ended the class (Tuesday) with discussion concerning the existence of a "cognition of the United States" or any other nation. This seemed to get the class somewhat 'riled up' so it might be a good blog topic.
I think what the professor was speaking to was the notion that cognitive science allows us to consider the input-output (percepts to behavior; stimulus to response) system of nations just as easily as it does individuals. I recall from the beginning classes, hearing the course outlined as starting from the microscopic (neural) level and then traveling outward, resting for a period at the level of the individual (as would be expected) but then continuing outward and ending up looking at the cognition of cultures, societies, nations, families, etc. No mention was made of cockpits at the time, but the scenario was interesting nonetheless.
To me, the best way to consider the "cognition of a nation" is to take an example that is familiar. In class, the prof used an example that involved "us" but then asked us to put ourselves "outside" and look back at the United States. That's somewhat tough to do, I would think. Why not take "us" and just look at Russia? Or China? Or Canada? Some comments were made relating this as close (or related) to stereotyping, but the prof was quick to point out the distinction. Again, to me (and I could be wrong, but more on the 'wrong' idea later) it seems the cognition of the aggregate can best be viewed from the perspective of the decisions made and overall behavior. When that aggregate is a nation, the decisions and behavior (the responses to stimuli; output resulting from particular input; using the 'black-box' framework from class) are all based largely on whatever political and/or social process employed. The US democratic process dictates that the people vote for laws and politicians and then the laws and politicians go and do our 'dirty work' internationally. So, now, when other countries see the US as "bullying" or a nation with misplaced values, they are not saying that the average citizen displays these characteristics, but that the aggregate does. Stimulus: display or show that you (random nation) have some resource that the US considers valuable (like oil). Response: US "bullies" their way into getting some of that resource. A more complimentary example involves Input: earthquake in Haiti; billions in damages. Output: US sends humanitarian aid. I was going to continue with my example using Russia, but did not want to offend anyone who might happen to be from Russia.
In this way, we can see and analyze the cognition of nations understanding understand that, while the individual citizens are at the root of the decision making, the resultant behavior might be very different from any demonstrated by the "stereotypical" national. I might be wrong but, as the prof always says: there are no wrong answers when it comes to cognition... just varied ways of thinking about it. I'll be sure to reference this notion on my final paper...
I think what the professor was speaking to was the notion that cognitive science allows us to consider the input-output (percepts to behavior; stimulus to response) system of nations just as easily as it does individuals. I recall from the beginning classes, hearing the course outlined as starting from the microscopic (neural) level and then traveling outward, resting for a period at the level of the individual (as would be expected) but then continuing outward and ending up looking at the cognition of cultures, societies, nations, families, etc. No mention was made of cockpits at the time, but the scenario was interesting nonetheless.
To me, the best way to consider the "cognition of a nation" is to take an example that is familiar. In class, the prof used an example that involved "us" but then asked us to put ourselves "outside" and look back at the United States. That's somewhat tough to do, I would think. Why not take "us" and just look at Russia? Or China? Or Canada? Some comments were made relating this as close (or related) to stereotyping, but the prof was quick to point out the distinction. Again, to me (and I could be wrong, but more on the 'wrong' idea later) it seems the cognition of the aggregate can best be viewed from the perspective of the decisions made and overall behavior. When that aggregate is a nation, the decisions and behavior (the responses to stimuli; output resulting from particular input; using the 'black-box' framework from class) are all based largely on whatever political and/or social process employed. The US democratic process dictates that the people vote for laws and politicians and then the laws and politicians go and do our 'dirty work' internationally. So, now, when other countries see the US as "bullying" or a nation with misplaced values, they are not saying that the average citizen displays these characteristics, but that the aggregate does. Stimulus: display or show that you (random nation) have some resource that the US considers valuable (like oil). Response: US "bullies" their way into getting some of that resource. A more complimentary example involves Input: earthquake in Haiti; billions in damages. Output: US sends humanitarian aid. I was going to continue with my example using Russia, but did not want to offend anyone who might happen to be from Russia.
In this way, we can see and analyze the cognition of nations understanding understand that, while the individual citizens are at the root of the decision making, the resultant behavior might be very different from any demonstrated by the "stereotypical" national. I might be wrong but, as the prof always says: there are no wrong answers when it comes to cognition... just varied ways of thinking about it. I'll be sure to reference this notion on my final paper...
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