OLDaily

Neuromyths and Evidence-Based Practices in Higher Education
Kristen Betts, Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, et.al., Online Learning Consortium, 2021/07/06

I followed a link to what was an utterly uninformative article in AACE about Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, found another less-than-useful Top Hat article, and dug deeper to find these resources. I found two related threads: one, the idea of debunking neuromyths, which she covers in a book and in this report (115 page PDF), and the other on what she called 'neuroeducation' but which Delphi panelists renamed 'mind, brain and education (MBE) science', which is closer to the topic of her  dissertation. I appreciated the care taken in documenting beliefs (of both facts and myths) by people in related disciplines, but I also found the tension between lines of thinking (including, for example, describing 'free will' as a factor that shapes the brain, or listing 'mind' and 'brain' separately, over the objections of at least one panelists). And I think she should find a tension between 'symbol' and 'pattern', but maybe not. Overall, my brisk look at her work again raises the question of whether we can determine what is true (cf. page 263 ff) by looking for a consensus a la the Delphi method. I still think not. Image: op.cit., p. 293

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Five Disney Inspired Words for Effective Talent Management
Lenn Millbower, Chief Learning Officer, 2021/07/06

I am not in any way a Disney fan, but I did appreciate this article describing the company's approach to talent management, even while not really believing this is what Disney actually practices. I prefer to see this as an idealized description of one approach to talent management, not necessarily a recommendation or even a best practice, but a resource that may stimulate your own thinking on the subject. And, as always, it reminds me that in learning environments, and especially corporate learning, we always walk that fine line between education and indoctrination.

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Changes to Audacity
Doug Peterson, doug — off the record, 2021/07/06

As Doug Peterson says, "I’m still at a loss to understand how a company can acquire an Open Source piece of software and then inject their own terms and conditions." So am I. Anyhow, this post discusses the new terms and conditions for Audacity, the audio editing application I have used for more than a decade. The new license "gives the company the right to collect various pieces of data," and it "preclude it from being used by anyone under the age of 13" (presumably so it can collect data). For more, you should read this article titled 'Audacity is now a Possible Spyware, Remove it ASAP'. There's a fork being developed to roll back the changes. Stay tuned.

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Designing Winning Worked Examples 2 – Inter Example Features
Mirjam Neelen, Paul A. Kirschner, 3-Star Learning Experiences, 2021/07/06

One aspect of instructivist approaches that has intuitive appeal is the 'worked example'. This is where you show how a problem has been solved, in order to enable the learner to apply similar methods to solve similar problems. I've seen it applied in fields varying from math to physics to computer science to logic. In these domains, it seems to me, it works for some people, but poses an impenetrable mystery to others; logic students, for example, would wonder aloud how they should select which rule to apply, which isn't explained in worked examples (this is why I created the categorical Converter). In other domains, it defies reason to even be thinking in terms of worked examples at all. You can maybe apply worked examples if you think of subjects like geography, history or art as sciences with specific methods and measurements, but not everything is like physics. Philosophers learned this first; many educators, it appears, have yet to learn this.

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