Schank’sCase-based reasoning

“Learning from experiences is the fundamental process of case-based reasoning.”

“…this has implications on how to teach.”(p.1)

Learning by Doing

1. Describes types of knowledge acquired from experiences.

2. Makes an argument for a new approach to education in which case acquisition plays a central role

What is Schank addressing in this chapter?

“The best way to do a job is to simply try doing the job, with no preparation in particular, but with an expert available for help.”

(p.2)

Training in anticipation of need is ineffective.

(“Just in time” teaching)

Learning by Doing

“Learning is a discovery process.” (p.4)

“We need to transform all training and education so that it looks, feels, and is like doing.”

(p.4)

Learning by Doing

Schank is inspired by Dewey’s Democracy and Education.

1. Difficult to implement without “doing devices”2. Difficult to define “doing” in a given subject

and implement in the classroom3. Educators and psychologists have not

understood why learning by doing works (and therefore do not promote it)

Learning by Doing

*When someone learns by doing, what is it that he is learning?

*

Discussion

Learning by Doing

Case-based Reasoning (CBR):Acquiring sufficient cases such that the

individual can learn to detect nuances (i.e., have experiences and label those experiences --indexing)

How does learning by doing work?

Need to experience a variety of cases Indexing or labeling of each case

(comparing and contrasting, etc.) Building generalizations from cases

Case-based Reasoning (CBR):

Encourages Explanation Exploration Generalization Case accumulation

This occurs after expectation failure.

Case-based Reasoning (CBR):

How do we learn? (53 seconds)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I37WIh5GHE&feature=related

Case-based Reasoning (CBR):

“One cannot index on someone else’s experiences because that experience, as transmitted, will omit many of the details that are the fodder of indexing.”

Case-based Reasoning (CBR):

“Learning is the accumulation and indexing of cases and thinking the finding and consideration of an old case to use for decision-making about a new case.”

(p.3)

Some definitions…

“We learn scripts by practicing them over and over.”

“Human memory is based in scripts and the generalizations of scripts.” (p. 17)

Scripts

How does this compare to scientists doing science and mathematicians doing math?

Examples of micro-scripts in biology and math

“Being scientific in real life is very difficult, and, in fact, none of us tries to be. We just make the generalizations that we want to make anyway.”

(p.26)

*How does this compare to Piaget? And to Inquiry-based learning?

Learning vs. Scientific Knowledge

“From the arguments so far stated, we know that a curriculum ought to be no more than a collection of micro-scripts to be acquired.”(p.11)

“A proper teaching environment should contain all the skills that the curriculum designer wanted to teach, and then put them into some natural situation around which a set of actions culminating in a desired conclusion can be constructed. We call such a set of actions a scenario.”(p.7)

Curriculum

Consider the following curriculum for High school science proposed by Schank:

http://www.engines4ed.org/about/alternativeHighSchool.cfm

Or the following 4-year curriculum for high school:http://www.engines4ed.org/about/scireasoning.cfm

How does this compare to your high school science curriculum?

What are the benefits and challenges of Schank’s proposal?

Curriculum

“Education ought to be, in principle, about learning cases and micro-scripts”.

… so that students can perform actions contained in scripts.

Education

“The role of the teacher in a goal-based scenario is to open up interesting problems and provide tools for solving them when asked by the student to do so.”

(p.13)

(“No case before its time”)

Role of Teacher

These are not content-specific (but general) and different from micro-scripts.

Also called participation strategies.

3 types:1. Communication2. Human relations3. Reasoning

They must not be taught explicitly, but rather, by having students experience the processes themselves.

Processes

Explicit Functional Knowledge (EFK) is knowledge we know we will use. Schank lists four types:

domain knowledge decision-relevant knowledge life knowledge trivia

Knowledge Types

We can learn by cognizing and discussion is one way of cognizing. The method used by the schools would be just fine if reading-based discussion allowed:

1. continual themes to be followed, 2. time for genuine reflection, 3. the formation and explication of

divergent opinions, and4. that the initial subject matter was of

interest to students.

Learning by Cognizing(Domain Knowledge)

“If we want students to learn how to understand music theory, they must learn how to do music first.” (p.11)

*Do you think that to learn science and math students need to learn how to do science and math first, before they learn the theory?

Question

More to reflect upon… Read Schank’s 2-pg white paper:All you ever need to know about learninghttp://www.engines4ed.org/lib/all.pdf

Watch the videos that go with this paper:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZbFGTWGXo&feature=&p=F91C38FC55F955C2&index=0&playnext=1

Learning by doing

How does crawling and the goal provided by the teacher compare to learning math and science?

Do you agree with Schank’s views? Provide 5 reasons why you might agree. Provide 5 reasons why you might disagree.

How might sending an e-mail or using a VCR compare (be similar/different from) to doing math and doing science?◦ Think about:

Micro-scripts Motivation (goals) Curriculum Assessment Teaching

Question

The following link provides several videos on a 2 hour presentation Roger Schank did recently to the world bank where he challenges the role of current schooling:

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,,

contentMDK:22506752~menuPK:6787981~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:282386~isCURL:Y,00.html

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