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Re: [Phys-l] iPod music compression (learning)



Again, there is much literature in this area:

from How People Learn:
<http://newton.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/ch2.html>

"People who have developed expertise in particular areas are, by
definition, able to think effectively about problems in those areas.
Understanding expertise is important because it provides insights into
the nature of thinking and problem solving. Research shows that it is
not simply general abilities, such as memory or intelligence, nor the
use of general strategies that differentiate experts from
novices.Instead, experts have acquired extensive knowledge that affects
what they notice and how they organize, represent, and interpret
information in their environment. This, in turn, affects their abilities
to remember, reason, and solve problems.

This chapter illustrates key scientific findings that have come from the
study of people who have developed expertise in areas such as chess,
physics, mathematics, electronics, and history. We discuss these
examples not because all school children are expected to become experts
in these or any other areas, but because the study of expertise shows
what the results of successful learning look like. In later chapters we
explore what is known about processes of learning that can eventually
lead to the development of expertise.

We consider several key principles of experts' knowledge and their
potential implications for learning and instruction:
1. Experts notice features and meaningful patterns of information that
are not noticed by novices.
2. Experts have acquired a great deal of content knowledge that is
organized in ways that reflect a deep understanding of their subject
matter.
3. Experts' knowledge cannot be reduced to sets of isolated facts or
propositions but, instead, reflects contexts of applicability: that is,
the knowledge is "conditionalized" on a set of circumstances.
4. Experts are able to flexibly retrieve important aspects of their
knowledge with little attentional effort.
5. Though experts know their disciplines thoroughly, this does not
guarantee that they are able to teach others.
6. Experts have varying levels of flexibility in their approach to new
situations."

"We turn now to the question of how experts' knowledge is organized and
how this affects their abilities to understand and represent problems.
Their knowledge is not simply a list of facts and formulas that are
relevant to their domain; instead, their knowledge is organized around
core concepts or "big ideas" that guide their thinking about their
domains.
In an example from physics, experts and competent beginners (college
students) were asked to describe verbally the approach they would use to
solve physics problems. Experts usually mentioned the major principle(s)
or law(s) that were applicable to the problem, together with a rationale
for why those laws applied to the problem and how one could apply them
(Chi et al., 1981). In contrast, competent beginners rarely referred to
major principles and laws in physics; instead, they typically described
which equations they would use and how those equations would be
manipulated (Larkin, 1981, 1983)."

Larry Woolf
General Atomics
www.ga.com
www.sci-ed-ga.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Folkerts, Timothy J
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 1:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] iPod music compression (learning)

One option to drive this home might be to list a lot of equations that
they might need. On one sheet, just list the equations in one form, on
the other list various permutations (V=IR R=V/I I=V/R V/IR=1). The
first is "uncompressed"; the second is "compressed" and should LOOK a
lot less intimidating. Or make several tables for distance as a
function of time, initial speed, and acceleration on one sheet, and "x =
x0 + v0t + 1/2 at^2" on the other.