[From Bruce Gregory (970131.1030 EST)]
Chris Cherpas (970130.1155 PT)]
Computer-based instruction, which can be individualized on
the basis of each student's history of interaction with the
system would seem to be an easier way to approach PCT-based
education.
I am not sure that there is a "PCT-based education" except in
the following sense: PCT is a theory of purposive action;
education is purposive; PCT is therefore a theory of education.
PCT illuminates what does not work in education very well, but
it suggests, to me at least, that in order to work, education
must look very different than it does today.
I am suspicious of computer-based instruction because it seems
to be based on the assumption that there are a series of hoops
I can ask you to jump through that will lead to your learning
something. Everything I know about PCT tells me this is
probably wrong.
The first consideration is still what perceptions you -- the course
developer -- are seeking to control. In other words, you have
standards for what is competence in a student of "the nature of
science," stated in terms of what variables they should be
controlling. Can you provide a list of eduational objectives
that are translated into PCT terms? Then you use a version of the
Test for controlled variables to see that students are controlling well,
poorly, or not at all.
This implies that I should use the students as "affordances" for
matching my own pictures. I agree that this is what happens
traditionally, but I think it has little to do with learning.
I agree totally, but the whole enterprise of education is predicated
on someone being able to improve _somebody else's_ ability to
control.
If PCT tells us anything about education it is that this
assumption is deeply flawed.
Bruce Gregory