Memory is a process, not ‘a thing’, not ‘a physical organ’, not ‘just a store’ to place and retrieve information. Memory is not ‘a static entity like the hard disk of a computer’, thankfully. Memory as a process implies that memory is not an organ in our brain and represents a series of activities of […]
To explore the role of conversations in learning, it is naturally expedient to start with revisiting the reasons for learning. We learn with the expectation of the following three benefits: a. To know more (than others) b. To recall knowledge faster (than others) c. To learn faster and better (than others) The significant role of […]
There is no shortage of angst when it comes to the impact of AI on jobs. For example, a survey by Pew Research Internet finds Americans are roughly twice as likely to express worry (72%) than enthusiasm (33%) about a future in which robots and computers are capable of doing many jobs that are currently […]
Learning is a very complex and multifaceted process and for the sake of comparison we have picked up five dimensions of learning – the stated goal of learning, the nature of knowledge that is the target of learning, the stated role of reading in learning, the nature of learning expected at the homes of students […]
We learn through our sensory organs and their interactions with the brain. We learn when some change occurs in our brain in response to new ‘sensory inputs’. To draw an analogy, think of our brain as a ‘telephone exchange/network’ and each incoming call as a potential source of new inputs and each outgoing call as […]
We all know what learning is, in our own ways. Expectedly, the discussion on this question is more about exploring how appropriate is what we think learning to be. It will be easier to get to what learning is if we begin by discussing what learning is not, because we register differences with prior knowledge […]
I recently served on a panel at a meeting organized by the California Higher Education Innovation Council to look at “Alternative Credentials and Unbundling the Degree: Meeting Employer Needs or Short-Circuiting Proven Approaches?” Our panel was challenged beforehand by its moderator, Ryan Craig, to imagine how conditions had to change over the next decade in […]
One of the more wonderfully unique things about us is the childhood phase in our growth. Unlike all other animals, human offspring is completely ‘educable’ in every way as a child – mother-tongue and other language(s), choices of food, religion, choices of cloth, interests, etc. Childhood is a very impressionable age and traditionally parents were […]
In 1966, William Baumol and William Bowen looked at the origins of rising salaries for live performances (music, theater, dance), and noted that an underlying issue was that such performances could not easily be made more efficient – productivity could not be increased (Baumol and Bowen, Wikopedia). The oft-quoted ( and quite convincing) formulation of […]
