computer ~ e r i e59 ~. How Learning Theory Can Help Produce Better Software J. Dudley Herron Purdue University West Lafayelle. IN 47907
Let us consider the process that you go through any day in a classroom. You are a teacher and in your head are some ideas that you have constructed. You want to transmit those ideas--intact-from your head to the heads of your students. Unfortunately that is impossible. The only thing you (or any of US)can do is to emit energy that students can pick up in some form. Like all of us (and like an electronic computer) students have sensors that can he used to detect signals, interpret the signals, and construct knowledge. I want to compare an electronic computer to the most sophisticated computer in existence today-the one between your ears-to indicate some of what we have learned about learning (1-16). Simllarltles Between Computers When electronic computers come from the factory they are pretty dumh heasts. When human computers come from the "factory" they are pretty dumh beasts. Both have circuits that are wired in a t the factory, and those circuits provide the basis for many new circuits or programs. Some of the human computer's intelligence is genetically determined, while some of the electronic computer's is etched in by Intel, or whoever makes the chin, but most of either computer's intelligence is determined when some one sits down hefore it and programs or teaches it; hoth computers acquire intelligence through interaction with a human computer. Both kinds of computers have input and output devices: the electronic computer has a keyboard, a cassette or disk, an RS-232 or communications port, a Centronics port, perhaps a modem; the human computer has aural ports, a visual port, tactile sensors, and (pardon the pun) a "scent-ronic" port. The only way either can get information that was not wired in a t the factory is through those ports. Both computers have a long-term memory. The electronic computer's is limited by the capacity of its tape cassette, floppy disk, or hard disk. One major difference between the computers is that the human's long-term memory seems not to he limited-evidence suggests that the human brain is capable of storing far more information than has ever been stored by any one. Both long-term memories have an access problem. I t is easy to record something on a disk or in human memory; i t is difficult to enable retrieval when you want and in the way you want (17). By the way, the foregoing is not just for fun and not just because familiar analogies facilitate communication. Much of what we know about learning is hased on artificial intelligence, and much of artificial intelligence is hased on knowledge of human learning. I t is difficult to know how much the people who constructed the machines learned from research on human learning and how much knowledge about human learning is from the work done on computers. The language I am using is the language of cognitive science as well as of computer science; we talk about memory of computers because we had previously used that word to talk about humans (18).
edited by JOHN W. MOORE Eastern Michigan University. Ypsilanti. Mi 48197
Operating Systems and Information Processing All computers have operating systems, and each system is unique. There is a communication problem between an Osborne running CP/M and an IBM PC running DOS 2.1. Likewise one human comouter mav have trouble communicating with another hecaise they have different methods for processine information. Moreover. hoth kinds of comouters process iiformation a t various levels. Information from a keyhoard or modem is often processed by the operating system before it is even seen by the applications program-some of the electronic processing is done "suhconsciously" without the user's necessarily being aware of how it takes place. Similarly the human computer processes sensory information in a series of steps from the surface stimulus to deep-leveldecision making, and we are often not aware of everything that happens along the way (19). This leads us to an important distinction. Somewhere in the deep structure of the human computer is a controlling program that some call the soul, others the values-and-beliefs system. Book titles like "The Soul of CP/M" notwithstanding, nothing like this exists in electronic computers. As von no from the surface to a deeper level in the brain, the information is affected by this values-and-beliefs system. It does not matter just what the values-and-beliefs system is, just that it exists. I t leads people to say things like, "There is a God who created heaven and earth and still influences behavior on earth',; or "The only thing of value is money, so get all you can." This deeply rooted values-and-beliefs system affects all humanhuman interactions, learning in particular (20). Facilitating Learnlng How can we apply all this to the classroom? You do not know how your students have heen programmed, but before you can interact with their computers, you need to know. What do you do? What do you do when you walk into a computer store to look at a new model? Most of us trv thines that worked with other computers: type "LOAD" a n d a retlrn, for example. If we do not get the expected response then we try something else that works with other computers. We must interact on an individual basis with a new computer (electronic or human) until we have figured out its operating system and other programs (21). T o do this effectively we need to he flexible and let the computer (or student) indicate to some extent what we choose to do next. Applying this to the a n of writing instructional computer programs, I like to see a computer program that allows its human rounterpart to ESCape hack to the Main Menu and to he able to enter the program at any point. If the computer is noinpr . .to teach, it ouaht to be flexible enouah so that the user is in control. ~ u r t h e k n o r ethe way we (or the computer) communicate appears t o he imoortant. Research in social psychology tells us to use '.I" messages rather than "YOU" messages as much as possible. "You should pay attention when
Based on a talk given in the symposium, "Using Computers Creatively" at ihe Joint Great LakeslCentral American Chemical Society Meeting held at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan. May 1984. The author wishes to thank John and Beny Moore for their suggestions in preparing the paper for publication. Volume 62
Number 4
April 1985
309
