Princeton University
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Computer Science 345 |
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Read a dictionary definition. Do you agree with it? Can you suggest revisions?
Does interaction help in learning? Compare your experience in learning from textbooks and learning from teachers. Naturally, a teacher can read out the text (some do). Can you think of a scenario where the ability to ask questions enhances learning?
We are obviously very good learners as babies. From examples, we quickly learn to discern cats from dogs, tables from chairs, males from females etc with very high accuracy, even though defining each of these concepts would be nontrivial. Consider what may be the mechanisms in us enabling this, and what makes them so efficient.
As adults, we typically switch from learning from examples, to learning from definitions. We obviously can absorb definitions at this stage, but is it inherently better? Which concepts are better off taught by examples, and which by definitions? Is there value in teaching Mathematics to giving examples to illustrate definitions? Why?
"Occam's Razor" asserts that among several explanations of a given phenomena, the simplest one should be preferred. Do you agree? Do you see value in adopting such a principle when designing a learning system (e.g. in a robot)?