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At 22:05 7/8/97 EDT, you wrote:HI Brian, This is good, but with a little more thought, we can do better.
... I am satisfied with the "definition" of understanding
presented by Gregg Swackhammer. He said:
"UNDERSTANDING is attained when a student can confront a novel
situation and validly discuss it (at length) with an expert."
... Ludwik Kowalski
I would like to offer with my usual modesty, a definition of
'understanding'
which is objectively measurable and does not suffer from the semantics
of
educational or psychological jargon.
Understanding can be measured by first providing leading details of
the physical behavior of some mechanism or process, and then
establishing
if the subject can provide predictions of outcomes and results for
given
variations in the mechanism's states or configuration.
The requisite behavior on the part of the subject is the ability to
form
a coherent model of the mechanism which she can manipulate in
accordance
with the given configuration.
You will see that this is close to the idea of 'physical intuition',
a quantity which Maxwell, Feinman (sp?) and Einstein are said to have
possessed in great measure.
Regards
brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK