Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Teacher in a Strange Land: “My Research is Better than Your Research” Wars

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I am sympathetic with both sides in this debate and I am definitely sympathetic with someone who has done everything in a PhD but stalled because their committee thought their research proposal wasn't worth doing. Two two sides are, on the one hand, some teachers who conducted a limited trial in their school and got interesting results, and on the other hand researchers who are looking at broader questions with "equations and complex theoretical frameworks." And it doesn't matter to me whether or not the researchers are teachers or whether or not they get grants. To me, research boils down to: try something with the group you've got, see if it works, iterate, try again. It doesn't stop, there isn't a final answer, people looking from broad generalizations at the cognitive level are misunderstanding the subject, and people 'ranking' schools or instructional methods are just playing politics.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Dec 22, 2024 12:17 a.m.

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