TITLE: The Role of Risk in Learning
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: December 15, 2004  7:29 AM
DESC: we can learn a lot about teaching by considering how people make decisions in the face of uncertainty.
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BODY:
Brian Marick's
<A HREF="http://www.testing.com/cgi-bin/blog/2004/12/13#chapter">
   latest post</A>
discusses the latest developments in his ongoing
exploration of agile methods and the philosophy
of science.  As always, there's plenty of food
for thought there.  In particular, he links to an
<A HREF="http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/001129.html">
   article on behavioral economics</A>
that reminds us that people aren't rational in the
classical sense.

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<I>Most people are more strongly affected in
their decision-making by vivid examples than
by abstract information, no matter how much
more accurate the abstract information is.</I>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

This reminds me of my
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-12.html#e2004-12-14T09_16_30.htm">
   previous post</A>.
Most often, a good example will help students
grok an idea better than any abstractions I
give them.  The abstractions will work better
for them after they have a strong foundation
of experiences and examples.

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<I>For most people, the possibility of a loss
greatly outweighs the chance of a win.  "People
really discriminate sharply between gaining and
losing and they don't like losing." ....</I>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

I think this principle accounts for why students
will work from first principles to solve a problem
rather than use a more abstract idea they aren't
yet comfortable with.  They perceive that the risk
of failure is smaller by working from small ideas
they understand than by working from a bigger idea
they don't.  I need to think more about risk when
I teach.

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<I>For most people, first impressions play a
remarkably strong role in shaping subsequent
judgments.</I>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

This reminds me not only of my most recent post
but even more so of something
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-11.html#e2004-11-06T21_03_42.htm">
   Alan Kay said</A>
in his OOPSLA Educators Symposium keynote:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<I>Kay reminded us that what students learn first will have a
huge effect on what they think, on <I>how</I> they think
about computing.  He likened the effect to that of
<A HREF="http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0001/ai_2699000175">
   duck imprinting</A>,
the process in which ducklings latch onto whatever object
interacts with them in the first two days of their lives
-- even if the object is a human.  Teaching university
students as we do today, we imprint in them that computing
is about arcane syntax, data types, tricky little algorithms,
and endless hours spent in front of a text editor and
compiler.  It's a wonder that anyone wants to learn computing.</I>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

The first three quotes above are drawn from the
work of psychologist Daniel Kahneman, whose work
I first encountered in one of my favorite grad
school courses, Cognitive Psychology.  Kahneman
<A HREF="http://almaz.com/nobel/economics/2002a.html">
   won a Nobel Prize in Economics</A>
for his work with colleague Amos Tversky that
showed how humans reason in the face of uncertainty
and risk.  This work has tremendous implications
for the field of artificial intelligence, where
my first computing passions resided, but also for
how we teach.

<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/personal/bokonon.html#words">
   Busy, busy, busy.</A>
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