The Education Problem: Raj Reddy (Part 11)

Monday, March 19, 2007 Related Content Share/Send | 5 comments

Here we examine other similar learning methodologies, as well as their appropriate implementations.

SM: Besides your work which is being implemented in India, is Jim Gibbons’ work at Stanford being implemented anywhere? My second question is if there are any other methodology breakthroughs like this, elsewhere? RR: I did not invent all of this, this has been going on for 30 years, and there are a lot of cognitive scientists working on it. I have probably done some new innovations.

There is a professor here at CMU called John Anderson [Anderson Bio] who is highly regarded in psychology. He has a whole model and theory of learning. His model is called the ACT-R model which says he is going to build a model of what is in the head of every student, what he knows and what he does not know at any given time. That was done about ten years ago, and after a lot of false steps, a company called Carnegie Learning has been set up which is selling these intelligent learning systems in US School districts. Their sales this year will be $20 Million.

SM: Is that an effective methodology? RR: It is the same methodology as far as learning by doing, but they do it slightly differently. It starts with a different model, the theory of how learning works. It is still learning by doing; I am not trying to build a graph and I do not care about what exactly you know or do not, all I care is that you go from second to third to fourth grades. He wants a much more detailed understanding of what you know and what you don’t know.

SM: Howard Gardner [Gardner Bio] did this multiple intelligence research which says that people learn in different modes. Some people learn by listening, and some people learn visually. Some are more verbally talented, some are more scientifically talented. He built a model which is a personalized learning system. Once you figure out what a person’s learning style is, you can build a knowledge base which is personalized. RR: I would like to read more about that, if there is something specific that you can send me on him.

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