[Edu-sig] socratic methods

[Michal Wallace]

Hi,

I'm new here, but I've been lurking a while, and it seems this list is
a really awesome mutli-disciplinary sort of community.  I'm really
impressed with all you bright people on here and the quality of
discussions.. :) Anyway, I thougt I'd bring this up:

Any of y'all ever read the theory of constraint books by Eli Goldratt?
He teaches (perfectly logical but quite unconventional) business
practices through socratic methods and story. Here's a quick example:

http://www.goldratt.com/chpt11.htm

One of his big things is a set of thinking tools (described in a novel
called "It's not Luck").. The idea is you figure out the cause-effect
relationships that lead to a current undesireable situation, and
work your way back to the core issues. This is called a current 
reality tree. I made one for myself not too long ago:

http://www.sabren.com/upgrade/charts/CRT20000930.gif

Once you understand the current system, you can map out a future
reality tree that shows in precise logical steps what you want to
happen. Then you build a transition tree to connect the two.

The interesting thing is that you can also think of it as a teaching
tool. You can map out trees of current and desired thinking habits,
and build a transition tree that leads logically from one way of
thinking to another. 

Now it takes a great deal of human thought to come up with these
trees, but once they've been mapped out, just about anyone can follow
them.  (Look at the link above. The if/then flow goes from bottom to
top unless there's an arrow pointing the other way)

I think it would be really cool if a computer could be programmed
with a tree like this to teach people using the socratic method.

That is, it asks the user questions, and based on the answer either
helps the user to understand things better, or progresses along the
tree to the next step..

I don't know too much about computer aided instruction, but I know
I've never seen a computer that used socratic methods to inform
people.. They usually present information rather than ask questions.
(or if they ask questions, it's like a test, not a conversation)..

Anyway, I'd like to build a system like this to help with my own
thinking and to help other people. The system's called plato [python
logic and truth objects; it'll have a lot of prolog concepts in there,
and double as a general mechanical-reasoning library for other python
programmers]

Anyway, is anyone interested in helping, or at least discussing it on
this list?  :)

Cheers,

- Michal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.manifestation.com  www.sabren.com  www.linkwatcher.com  www.zike.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------