Comments on: Stuck between too much and not enough choice

By: The need for extra-chunky educational choices | Facilitate Wonder

The need for extra-chunky educational choices | Facilitate Wonder — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:32:37 +0000

[...] post is intended to be read in juxtaposition with the previous post, and like that post (Stuck between too much and not enough choice), draws it’s inspiration from a TED Talk. This TED Talk comes from Malcolm Gladwell, author [...]

By: dugganhaas

dugganhaas — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:37:33 +0000

Certainly some sort of decision heuristic or algorithm would help — I like the idea of a dichotomous key. A problem with it though, is that you have to know what you want. I think that’s part of Schwartz’s argument and, is revisited in a different way in the Gladwell video. He quotes Howard Moscowitz (sp?): The tongue knows not what the mind wants. Or words to that affect.

But, more helpfully, you go to one of the central difficulties of developing the database for virtualfieldwork.org. I initially thought I’d hit on a simple solution when I found dabbledb.com and their Creative Commons licensing. But now I think it’s not sophisticated enough to work in ways like a dichotomous key.

And I don’t think it’s a contradiction to note that something isn’t sophisticated enough to be simple.

Thanks,
Don

By: Sarah Miller

Sarah Miller — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:15:16 +0000

Not sure this answers you question, but maybe its not about too many choices, its about the choices not being well labeled. If you had a dichotomous key a million choices wouldn’t be too many because after just a few (or 8 – 10) decisions you’d be down to a manageable number.
I don’t think many teaching materials/support are well labeled. I know what I want for a lesson, but finding it is hard, because things aren’t well labeled. Is it inquiry? Guided inquiry? what do these terms mean to the author?
Is it a worksheet that with the addition (or subtraction) I can make more meaningful, how does that get labeled?
I don’t really want any choices made for me, but I want things set up so I know what it really is.

Probably more questions than answers, but my 2 cents anyway.