Walter Smith's Ideas

Traditionally there are three domains of learning: cognitive, affective and psycho-motor. The cognitive domain usually concerns itself with remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating while the affective domain is concerned with receiving, responding, valuing, organization, and characterization. ^[1]

I don't really know but link to his book "OPTOLOGICS". Somehow he's trying to tie thought to light. While Water worked in an educational environ his whole career he's an educator but not necessary an academic. (I think is part of the appeal)

Walter wants to use his system to give us a common way to talk about learning. He also thinks these terms could be use for us to document our work and choices, a kind of global credentialing system.

Main Premise

Spectrum

Consciousness drives thinking, thinking drives learning, learning drives knowledge.

1. Reality spectrum
2. Thinking spectrum
3. Learning spectrum
4. Knowledge spectrum

Affinities

Each spectrum has nine affinities:

• assessing quality
• manipulating resources
• planning strategies
• garnering attitude
• gaining perspective
• building language
• expressing ideas
• valuing knowledge
• assessing information

Dilemma

Each affinity is effected by four dilemmas. There is single right or easy answer and stability depends on how well we control these dilemmas. We all have interrelationships among the elements and inhabitants of our environment but these relation are uncertain.

• reality
• imagination
• economics
• politics

Five Levels of Thinking Skills

• Experiential skills
• Behavior skills
• Management skills
  • Memory
  • Reality
  • Imagination

My Notes

He's got tables on his virtual school page that are good but hard to read. Someday I'll have to create them myself.

This image about using his system in test. Look at the lower right quadrant. Also note the top is structured thinking while the bottom is labeled instinctive thinking.

Walter's thinking on moving from teaching to learning:

Thinking is proactive. Teaching is passive. Thinking suggests creativity. Teaching suggests testing. Thinking cannot be contained. Teaching can be controlled. Can we make teaching a friend of thinking? It is a different mindset. Everything changes. Testing becomes a tool, not a judicial system. Grades lose their meaning. Diplomas and degrees focus on action rather than memory. Summative testing dies because it has no meaning anymore. But this will be chaos. Might as well close down the schools. There is nothing to measure so there will be no accountability. Wait a minute. We will need a new kind of accountability for this. It won't be an artificial accountability of testing. It will a real accountability of process. It will be an accountability of design and utility. We will have to show how our teaching develops thinking. We will have to define thinking. It is time for real innovation in education. It is time to change a static passive system into a dynamic proactive system. It is time to replace learning theory with thinking theory.

More from Walter

Science Education Core Ideas

The below are very close to Water's affinities.These are being called essential practices.

The Committee on Conceptual Framework for the New K–12 Science Education Standards under the direction of the National Academies has recently published A Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (NRC 2012). They state: “We consider eight practices to be essential elements of the K–12 science and engineering curriculum:

1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering).
2. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering).
3. Developing and using models.
4. Planning and carrying out investigations.
5. Analyzing and interpreting data.
6. Using mathematics, information and computer technology, and computational thinking.
7. Engaging in argument from evidence
8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information.”

Source

Kinds of Learning

Is this important? It's just the point that we have to recognize that transmission is not the future.

Transmission:

is the process by which information, knowledge, ideas and skills are taught to others through purposeful, conscious telling, demonstration, and guidance. While historically this is the most traditional and, currently, the most predominate method of instruction, unfortunately we are finding out that while prominent in schools, it is not very effective in relation to long-term retention. This is especially true when compared to the other methods of learning like acquisition and emergence.

Acquisition:

is the conscious choice to learn. Material in this category is relevant or interesting to the learner. This method includes exploring, experimenting, self-instruction, inquiry, and general curiosity. Because acquisition implies an emotional commitment on the part of the learner, it is a more effective process than transmission.

Accretion:

is the gradual, often subconscious or subliminal, process by which we learn things like language, culture, habits, prejudices, and social rules and behaviors. We are usually unaware that the processes involved in accretion are taking place, but this method accounts for a large amount of things humans know and do. Social learning and modeled behaviors as they are passed on and imitated certainly play into this type of learning, as does the hidden or covert curriculum.

Emergence:

is the result of patterning, structuring, and the construction of new ideas and meanings that did not exist before, but which emerge from the brain through thoughtful reflection, insight and creative expression or group interactions. This form of learning accounts for the internal capacities of synthesis, creativity, intuition, wisdom, and problem-solving. This method is greatly dependent on the allocation of time, and opportunities to reflect and construct new knowledge. Emergence plays an important role in inspiration and originality. Unfortunately schools rarely allow students to engage in this type of learning because it requires the gift of time. If we think about this conundrum that is a very sad state of affairs, one we could change by re-configuring how we run schools and how we organize learning environments.

The Natural Learning Process

The practical theory describes the natural learning process as accessing information, valuing knowledge, expressing ideas, building language, gaining perspective, garnering attitude, planning strategies, manipulating resources and assessing quality. The learning process is used at five levels of knowledge management – building knowledge, using knowledge, organizing knowledge, personalizing knowledge and teaching knowledge. Even if we have never heard of those processes and levels, we all use them. We go through the process and levels when we learn in the real world, and we can identify everything we learn at each level of knowledge and some part of the process. It is natural learning and it is inherent in everything we do.

References

1. Wilson, Leslie Owen, Three Domains of Learning - Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor. Retrieved from http://thesecondprinciple.com/instructional-design/threedomainsoflearning, 2017-01-05.

Learning takes motivation, dicipline, and repitition.