Re: borrowing from tomorrow/logic

["Richard W. Tarara" <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

----------
> Subject: borrowing from tomorrow
> Date: Wednesday, February 19, 1997 11:39 AM
>
> On February 19 Dewey Dykstra wrote:
>
> > I'm wondering exactly whose logic and whose continuity is entailed in
this
> > logical continuity. I know that I and many others for many years
(decades?
> > centuries even?) have attempted to use this principle, but it does not
seem
> > to be all that effectve at least in terms of changes in student
> > understanding.  I wonder if our logic and our continuity is not what's
> > called for here.
>
>    Please elaborate on your last sentence.             Ludwik Kowalski

I suspect what Dewey is suggesting is that the kind of 'mathematical logic'
that physicists tend to use to go from A to B to C may not be efficacious
in the education of many of our students.  The alternative (as I understand
it) is that by having students carefully explore a given topic and
construct their understanding of such and within a framework of their 'own
logic' they can get from A to B whereas they cannot through our 'preaching'
of 'our' logic.  

My question is: accepting that students can make it from A to B through the
constructivist process, can they make it from B to C without 'our' kind of
logic and without the time consuming construction process?  It seems to me
that we take our fundamental conceptual understanding of a few concepts and
build much more complex understanding THROUGH the application of such
logic.  Do the students who make it from A to B through a variety of
personalized mental routes have the tools to go from B to C with 'their'
tools (in an efficient manner)?

Rick