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Kim H. Veltman
Content Ordering or Ordered Content? Active versus Passive
Knowledge
Toronto 1996. Unpublished
1. Introduction
2. Outside, Systematic Order
3. Personal Ordering
4. Collaborative Efforts
5. New Approaches to Teaching and Learning
6. Limitations
7. Conclusions
1. Introduction
There are some curious parallels between our approaches to computers and approaches to
teaching and learning. In the world of computers there are two contending paradigms for
how they should be organized. A first approach, which derives from the original
arrangement of a centralized mainframe connected with a series of dumb terminals,
extends that idea on a global scale such that there are centralized servers from which
individual clients gather the software and contents which they need. A second approach
is decentralized, sees each machine as a "personal" computer, an island unto itself, with
its own supposedly unique configuration of "standard" software which allows each
individual to enter their own unique contents. Between these two extremes is a third
model whereby a series of networked machines work together in a local area network,
sharing resources for the common good of the group.
In teaching and learning there are also two contending views. One, centralized, assumes
that the teacher and the textbook will impose order unto the mind of the individual
student. According to this view, the teacher is the server, the student is the client. The
teacher is the intelligent hub, the student is the dumb terminal. The teacher is the active
master, the student is the passive slave. A second approach is decentralized. It assumes
that each individual is a personal learner, the emphasis is on learning not teaching. The
teacher is a facilitator. The intelligence is in the individual student and the central aim is
in organizing, structuring, constructing one's personal world view which, the rhetoric
goes, is more important than any external world view. Between these two extremes there
is again a third model whereby it is assumed that the efforts of an individual are more
relevant and useful if they are shared with others. In this model collaboration becomes a
central concept and networking as a metaphor becomes a buzzword.
Mechanistic metaphors from the world of computing now pervade the worlds of teaching
and learning. Teachers interface with students. Students process information. Teachers
download ideas and students upload them. Computer experts accept all this as if it were
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completely natural. We need to remind ourselves, however, that computers were only
introduced a century ago: teaching and learning have been around from the beginnings of
time. It is important, therefore, to look more closely at the problems underlying these
three approaches and then explore how the latest technologies can help deal with these
problems.
2 Outside, Systematic Order
Every society organizes and imposes order unto its collective knowledge. In so-called
primitive societies this order was integrally linked with key members of the tribe: the
chief, medicine man or shaman. Knowledge was power and also secretive. It was only
passed on to chosen individuals designated to carry on the tradition. This model
continued to inspire early civilizations. The teacher passed on a corpus of knowledge to
chosen students.
The rise of the university with Abelard in the twelfth century promised to change this
relationship. The roles of professor and student remained. But now it was the students
who chose the professor with whom they wished to study. If a professor had nothing to
say they would have no students and not be paid. This seeming remedy introduced its
own problems because, as teachers know only too well, the world of learning cannot be
reduced to a popularity contest. The most profound and valuable knowledge is not always
the easiest. We may believe in giving everyone access to knowledge, but that does not
mean that all will learn equally. Everyone may have a chance to learn English, French,
German or some other language, but that does not mean that everyone will become a
consummate master of those languages. Nor is it all a matter of personal choice or
opinion. Student A may think that they speak an excellent French, but when they listen to
a lecture at the Sorbonne there will be external criteria for determining how well they
speak the language. It may be the fashion to debate which books to include or exclude
from the standard corpus of literature but even here there are limits. The English student
who insists on ignoring Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Dickens and Austen, will
have the same problems of credibility as a French student who believes they can ignore
Rabelais, Montaigne, Corneille, Racine and Hugo. Hence the role of scholars lies in
organizing the corpus of knowledge in a given field and giving a clear rationales for the
boundaries thereof.
In the case of the sciences this corpus or ordered part of knowledge plays an even more
central role. The periodic table in chemistry is not just an arbitrary list: it is the basis of
many chemical combinations that underly advances in medicine, science and industry.
Similarly, library classification systems are vital if we are to have a systematic way of
organizing collections of millions of books.
The past centuries have made us very much aware that the systems created even by the
greatest experts are fallible and inevitably require some adjustment or even a complete
revision. In retrospect, Ptolemy's astronomy needed to be replaced by that of Copernicus.
The extraordinary efforts of a Linnaeus in organizing botany required many updates. So
we need somehow to communicate the essential value of systematic ordering without
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trying to limit students to the precise contents of any given system. We need also to find
methods of demonstrating the comparative merits and potentials of competing methods of
ordering, and classing the world. We need eventually to show this in evolutionary terms.
To use an analogy from fishing, classification systems are the mental-map equivalents of
nets. We need to show how changing methods historically have increased the size of the
sample caught by a given net.
Hence the role of the teacher can no longer simply be one of passing on to the student a
given, static method of classification. It may well be that the details of how a major field
such as physics or medicine is organized and classed will change drastically within the
next decades and thus a teacher needs to convey this subjunctive dimension to the
student. This does not mean, however, that students can simply ignore the standard
means of organizing knowledge in a given field. A student may feel that they are brilliant
in the field of chemistry. But until they can arrive at an explanation that is more
encompassing in its explicative powers than the periodic table, they will be advised to
continue learning that method. To make a fundamentally new contribution one has to
master the best existing classifications in a field, not only show their limitations but
provide a more encompassing alternative.
For this reason the process of organizing a corpus of knowledge continues to apply for all
disciplines. The systems may change and evolve but the need for systems remains. A
combination of past and present experts serves to define the limits of a field, which are
codified in standard bibliographies of a field. Curriculum committees attempt high level
summaries of a field which are a subset thereof. Courses are subsets of a given curricular
corpus. Textbooks are subsets of courses. Tests and exams are subsets of the texts.
Evaluations and reviews are commentaries on how the results of a test relate to a course
and text.(fig. 1).
a) Corpus of knowledge in a field, defined by experts codified in standard
bibliographies.
b) Curricula (high level description of boundaries and therefore subsets of a)
c) Courses (subsets of b)
d) Textbooks (subsets of c)
e) Exams and tests (subsets of d)
f) Evaluations (commentaries on e with respect to c and d)
g) Reviews (commentaries on e and f with respect to c and d ).
Fig. 1. Relation between a corpus of knowledge, curriculum, textbook, course, exam,
evaluation and review.
3. Personal Ordering
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It is the fashion among educators to insist that we have moved from teaching to learning,
which they epitomize in phrases such as: "From the sage on the stage, to the guide on the
side." Ironically, they typically do so while claiming centre-stage in lectures or at the
microphone in public meetings. The more radical proponents of this approach would go
further to insist that textbooks can also be dropped from the agenda, the assumption
being that students are now so independent that such structured materials are not really
necessary. If they were in Star Wars their motto would be: "May the structure be with
you".
At the same time the efforts concerning constructivist knowledge reflect important
problems. For example, in botany very few persons will ever create a system as inclusive
as a Linnaeus. Yet most of us do study some botany and make some attempts to organize
plants. Every attempt at organization is a learning process. A child who tries to count
how many kinds of plants are in their parents' garden is learning something. Indeed such
efforts could prove to be vital training for future professional classing of plants in terms
of genus, species, variants etc.
While all these exercises may be learning experiences, few learning experiences change
the frontiers of learning. Almost invariably, a child's discovery of the differences between
conifers and deciduous plants, however exciting to that child, entails a discovery that was
made long ago by a pioneer in a field. The challenge for a teacher is to help the child
make that re-discovery as if it were being made for the first time: to permit the child to
have the full sense of wonder attending to that discovery and at the same time not leave
them with a false sense that they are, by virtue of that one experience, now superior to the
original discoverer. It is relatively easy to repeat one of Galileo's or Newton's
experiments, but that does not mean that everyone who does so is instantly a Galileo or a
Newton.
What is needed, therefore, is a context which encourages individual children and students
to organize their findings and knowledge on a subject within a framework while at the
same time making them aware of the fact that frameworks also have a history. For
instance a child may be learning about colour. They create their own list of colours which
is also a catalogue or classification system of colours. They may decide that there five,
six or eight colours. They are then taught that others have had this idea, that lists of five-
eight colours have been made since Antiquity. More advanced children discover that
their basic computer monitor has 256 colours while others will learn that there are
potentially millions of colours. Only when they have confronted the problems of ordering
the complexity of reality, will they be in a position to recognize the need for and value of
existing attempts at ordered content.
4. Collaborative Efforts
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One obvious way to help children and students see beyond the boundaries of their own
experiences is to confront them with the ideas of other children and students. Child A
may only see four colours, but that may be because they grew up in a dark place and
never had a chance to see the variety of colours in the outside world: the glory of an
alpine field of flowers all in vernal bloom. If such a child met Heidi, they would need to
revise their list of colours and probably most of their other classification schemes as well.
This comparative dimension is one of the main arguments for having children attend
school. At home we are all too easily convinced that we are the only ones in the world to
be in a given situation. When we go to school we are likely to discover that other
individuals have experienced some of the things we thought or feared were unique to us.
When we go to university this sample is increased and most persons, who were
accustomed to feeling they were the most intelligent individual in their school, need to
adjust their perceptions as they discover that they are surrounded by many other bright
young persons.
The new networked environment of computers seems to undermine the need for contact
in schools. Actually it cannot replace the reality of human contact. It does, however,
broaden the number of persons with whom to draw comparisons: it increases the sample
which we use to create our world view. This is especially true in the case of persons with
more specialized interests. If I live in a small town I may not reasonably be able to find
others with my interests in genetic algorithms, butterflies or the like. If I am connected
through a network there will almost always be others with the same specialized interest.
Thus collaborative workspaces increase the horizons of topics for which I am likely to
find partners for discussion, sharing ideas, learning together. At the same time
collaboration is complementary to the traditional corpus of knowledge: it embraces, not
replaces other modes.
It is instructive to note the extent to which models from the world of industry and
business are impinging on these new approaches to learning. Collaborative has become a
new buzzword. So there is much discussion of collaborative work, collaborative design
and collaborative learning. A number of academics have attempted to provide a
philosophical foundation to this approach under the headings of constructionism (Papert)
and constructivist knowledge (e.g. Jonassen, Ravitz). They cite the work of Jean Piaget
as proof that individuals change their world view as they evolve from small children to
adults. They frequently cite the work of Kuhn to argue that there are paradigm shifts in
knowledge and claim that these paradigm shifts occur as a result of consensus building
among the great scientists. That these great sceintists are also struggling to discover truth
is often downplayed. So too are the great differences between a) scientists who reach
consensus using all the criteria, methods, and discipline of scientific experimentation and
verification; b) office workers who reach consensus for pragmatic reasons and c) young
students who may well reach consensus in terms of popularity and fashion rather than by
the strictest rules of scientific rigour.
5. New Approaches to Teaching and Learning
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From the above it becomes clear that the revolution introduced by networked computers
should not be limited to any one of the three seemingly competing models, namely,
systematizing external ordering; empowering personal ordering or in creating
collaborative environments for ordering. The revolution lies, rather, in creating a
framework where these three approaches are integrated.
One effective way of looking at these changes is in terms of the seven basic components
outlined in figure one: a corpus of knowledge, curriculum, course, textbook, exam,
evaluation and review. Traditionally these were hierarchically arranged such that persons
lower down the system were never able to see, let alone understand, how their subset fit
into a bigger whole. Hence a teacher typically had a textbook but often had little idea of
how it fit into a curriculum and almost no idea how this in turn fit into the corpus of
knowledge in that field. Students were in an even more difficult position. Any
penetrating question which touched upon the frontiers of that field would be dismissed on
the grounds that it was not in the textbook. Why they were studying a given subject was
seldom if ever explained. Nor was it ever easy to understand how the subsets of the
whole called exams were determined. And while teachers made fun of students perenially
asking: "Is it on the exam?", they usually overlooked the cause prompting such questions.
Nor was there any systematic way for students to retrace their steps in terms of
evaluation and review to see precisely where they went astray. The hierarchical
organization of facts entailed a de-contextualization of knowledge.
The networked computer revolution offers a re-contextualization of these seven basic
elements such that students and teachers alike can see how each subset fits into a larger
whole. This does not mean that every student will automatically become a researcher at
the frontiers of a field. It does mean, however, that any young person, or teacher for that
matter, who think they know it all will have a tool for assessing realistically where their
particular bit of knowledge fits into a larger picture.
Hence one can acknowledge trends towards collaborative learning, without abandoning
the value of traditional knowledge. In practical terms collaborative work is about on-line
comparing of notes (the Lotus product by that name is not accidental) concerning
possible strategies. In the past this function was fulfulled by letters and telephones.
Collaborative design is an on-line sharing of alternative design proposals.
Collaborative learning is an attempt to create courses dynamically on-line, rather than
relying on any given static text. All these exercises can be useful and even valuable. It is
important to recognize, however that many, possibly even most notes produced in
collaborative work will probably retain some sociological interest but not make profound
contributions to the collective sum of human knowledge. Similarly in the case of
collaborative design. Many will prove to be rough drafts. If the person attains the level of
a Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo then even rough drafts are of interest, but in most
cases drafts are just that: stages in the development of something that is presentable and
memorable. This is equally true in the case of collaborative learning. The process of
comparing viewpoints can be extremely useful. But unless this occurs in the context of a
higher standard each little group will be tempted to define the world in light of their own
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limitations and the resulting discussions will be correspondingly narrow in terms of their
enduring value.
It is very instructive in this context to note the extent to which computer software and
hardware have focussed on quantity rather than quality. There are all sorts of programs to
measure things, to calculate, to produce spreadsheets of trends. There are very few
programs or even buttons within programs that show us stars to indicate the quality of a
work. There is a simple reason why this has been so. Computer hardware and software
are designed by engineers who think in binary terms: it either works or it does not work;
it is either good or bad. Multiple viewpoints of the same materials have traditionally been
omitted from the system. We need a system which allows for individual viewpoints on
any topic and at the same time provides a context whereby those viewpoints can be
weighed in terms of standard views and the criteria accompanying them. For instance,
anyone can write something about Leonardo da Vinci. But if the person has never read
the man's texts they are likely to be less serious than someone who has taken the trouble
to spend two years doing so before daring to have an opinion about what Leonardo
actually wrote or meant. So we need more than footnotes of sources. We need
contextualizing functions for clues as to how serious is the author. Has the work been
vetted by friends, professional colleagues, locally, internationally? Has it appeared
privately, through an organization, through a major publisher? Were there reviews? Were
these in standard journals or merely in local magazines and papers? Were there different
editions? Were there translations into different languages? Quality must become as
important a criterion as quantity.
6. Limitations
There is an important strand of modern educational theory that focusses on giving
children confidence in their learning abilities. A danger in this approach lies in giving
them false confidence that they know when they are still ignorant. The networked
solution offers a solution to this problem. Any student can see where the test they are
taking fits into a course, text, curriculum and a larger corpus of knowledge. Hence a
particularly bright person who has mastered a given course will not have illusions of
knowing it all, when they recognize precisely how that course fits into a larger
framework.
The networked approach also means that the training part of learning can be codified and
mechanized such that persons will, in future, be able to pursue a considerable amount, or
perhaps even the whole of training as self-learning, without the need of instructors. Some
will no doubt look at this for potential savings in terms of instructors. Here, two things
need to be remembered. First, the process of encoding an oral and textbook teaching
tradition into electronic form is not nearly as obvious as it may seem and will require if
anything more instructors. The economically minded might therefore be tempted to delay
the move to electronic versions on financial grounds. But they need to recognize that a
shift to computers is a necessity rather than a luxury. In a world where many traditional
techniques, crafts, jobs are being replaced by automation, unless the tasks are recorded,
the skills therein will go lost. This applies especially in the case of high level tasks in the
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scientific professions such as engineering, architecture, surveying, and cartography,
where new devices are replacing human skills. If we do not codify this knowledge before
those who are retiring have died, the advent of electronic methods will have brought a
great loss rather than an increase in knowledge.
A second point that needs to be remembered is that training is but a small fraction of
learning. Learning is an attitude of constant curiosity, an ever continuing process of
discovery. The role of a great teacher has never been to help with memorizing. Their role,
rather, has always been one of quiet example, being supportive while forever reminding
the student who thought they knew it all that there was more, sometimes revealing a little
more, at times confronting the student with the truth that there is a lot more. We can
design machines that help pace students, but this human dimension of teaching cannot be
mechanized. Taping the lectures of great scholars may show the results of their efforts
but this cannot reveal their methods. Students need to see the personal methods of
masters, their patient discipline, not just their moments of public show and glory.
Rhetoric may pretend that computers will destroy hierarchies, but this is not true. There
will always be experts who know more than the uneducated. The expert and the
uneducated person may be equal as human beings, equally worthy of respect for their
innate human dignity. But they are not equal in terms of specific fields of knowledge.
Faced with a decision at a nuclear power plant, it would be folly to say that a nuclear
physicist and a person with no degrees were equally qualified. In such contexts the
hierarchy of education will continue to prevail.
What computers can do, however, is to remove some of the negative aspects of
hierarchies. In the past the process of moving down the ladder from expert, to curriculum,
text, course and finally test was an opaque one insomuch as the person taking the course
seldom knew what percentage of the field it actually covered. There was no way of
knowing how representative was the test or even the text. The networked computer
framework enables this process to become transparent. An enterprising student who has
mastered textbook A, can widen their field to discover that there exists textbook B, C, D,
E, and F. They can explore how all of these reflect portions of the curriculum and can
verify precisely which parts of the curriculum. They can go further to see how the
curriculum is itself an abstraction of a larger corpus defined by the field on which it is
based. If they so wish they can even quantify this process. Hence a student who has
achieved 100% on a given test may determine that the test represents 15% of the contents
of the textbook, 8% of the course, 2% of the curriculum and perhaps .05 % of the entire
field. This provides both a more realistic and a more sober view of what 100% on a given
test might mean in the grander scheme of things. It also introduces a new framework for
discussion of standards. For once the links between local schoolroom and the great seats
of scholarship have been established clearly, those who lay claim to knowing more than
they do can very effectively be brought back to earth. So computers will not replace
hierarchy, but they will establish criteria for its legitimation and in the process create a
new framework for establishing and maintaining standards.
7. Conclusions.
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There are three current models for computers: 1) centralized servers feeding passive
dumb terminals; 2) decentralized stand-alone personal computers active in their own
right and 3) interactive networked computers in a collaborative environment. It was noted
that there are are three analogous models of teaching that go back many centuries. Hence,
while it may be the fashion to describe learning in terms of computer jargon, the
underlying approaches existed long before computers.
This begged the question how the advent of computers will affect these three competing
views. Computers should not bring into focus any single side of this triad. Hence, we
challenged claims that computers will produce electronic butlers which replace teachers;
those who claim that knowledge will soon be a passive exercise. We suggested instead
that computers offer a new synthesis of all three methods, whereby the roles of teachers
as leaders, students as individuals and combinations thereof working collaboratively are
confirmed.
In the past knowledge was organized hierarchically into at least seven levels where each
lower level was a subset of the former: a corpus of knowledge, curriculum, course,
textbook, exam, evaluation, and review (cf. fig. 1). By creating new sets of links among
these seven levels, computers will transform this hierarchy, making it more transparent
and creating a new framework for standards. The computer revolution is not about
replacing teaching with learning. It gives us new approaches to both teaching and
learning, whereby better teachers are greater learners. There must be ordered content if
students are to do meaningful ordering of content. A central role of teachers lies in
helping students understand the significance of their ordering in relation to the greater
order that is the established corpus of knowledge. To achieve this teachers will always
need to remind students that learning is more than a passive exercise of absorbing facts.
Learning must be active if learning is to remain a true activity.
Perspective Unit, McLuhan Program, University of Toronto
27 February, 1996.