Not much has changed since 1996 then Roger Schank focused on the lack of “learning from experience” in formal education in Goal-Based Scenarios: Case-Based Reasoning Meets Learning by Doing. One of the challenges he states is defining when someone learns by doing and what is it that he is actually learning? This is important to the educator because we want to assess that the student actually “learned” and we want to make sure that we don’t make the mistake of teaching something different than our orginal intentions.
Shank defines “doing” as a set of mini-scripts. For example, if you are baking a cake, there is a mini-script for reading the recipe, gathering the ingredients, turning on the oven, adding the dry and wet ingredients together and so on. Some of these mini-scripts can be carried over from past “learning by doing” experiences, others might be new. We can learn these on our own by muddling through or we can be assisted by a mentor or teacher. However, we must experience the script ourselves to acquire the skill vs being told about the experience. We can lecture on how to drive a car on an icy road but this needs to be experienced to gain the skill itself.
The role of the teacher in “learning by doing” is to be an exposer of knowledge. Shank states that it is not important that the student figure it all out himself. However, in practicality, it is difficult to know how such help to provide and when in a case-based scenario. In looking at the student responses on the survey …
for Salt Marsh Dynamics, students thought they should have been “told” that not all data provided would be significant, that different characters provided unique clues and that the marsh boundaries were not easily identified visually. In looking at these comments in regards to Shank’s article, one can easily see where they were missing a “script” or using a script that needed to be modified or further developed similar to script modification found in the movement from novice to expert.
So, the question is not only to identify these mini scripts but how to assist the student with their formation and when. Clearly the students had learned in the past that data was important when determining a hypothesis, but not that only some data was significant. They knew they needed to gather clues but fell into the trap of depending on the opinions of others and hear-say, not observing the environment with their own eyes.
Dead Fish Students Failed To Notice
To be able to assist the student in the formation of these mini-scripts as he is experiencing the case, as Shank points, out we need to identify them first. Second we need to determine if the students already have the skill set needed and if not, how we are going help them develop them and at what point. In our case-based scenario perhaps we need to give them a “tool-kit” or more introductory material. Perhaps we need a buddy-bot to “guide” them in different spots. However, it is important to remember, as Shanks states that the student has to be engaged in the experience himself.
Schank, Roger C. (1996) Goal-Based Scenarios: Case-Based Reasoning Meets Learning by Doing. In: David Leake (ed) Case-Based Reasoning: Experiences, Lessons & Future Directions. AAAI Press/The MIT Press. 295-347.
“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand