[Edu-sig] socratic methods

[Steve Litt]

Michal,

I'll help you with a Socratic questioning program. I don't want to get
involved with current and future reality trees and "clouds" because that
stuff is just too complex. But I'll help you with a Socratic questioning
program, and maybe later also with a bottleneck finder program.

Steve

Steve Litt
Webmaster, Troubleshooters.Com
http://www.troubleshooters.com
slitt@troubleshooters.com




At 01:53 AM 10/9/00 -0400, Michal Wallace wrote:
>
>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
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