Wading Through Verbal Sludge
Written on 9:36 AM by Christian Olson
Recently I've been reading articles on learning gains and obstacles with different graphics types (still, video/animation, interactive, etc) and I had a thought occur to me: Why on earth do theorist and researchers feel the need to use their own terminology for everything? For example, many try to tell me that group learning is completely different from cooperative learning. Or that iterative evaluation is nowhere near the same as formative evaluation. There may be slight differences or nuances in each term, but, in essence, they are the same thing.
Now you may ask yourself: Christian, why does it matter? You might be thinking: he obviously is a beginning grad student and doesn't understand the obvious differences in [x]. Well.. that's the problem. Terminology is used to define, categorize, and communicate ideas and thoughts to others. If you are only communicating to you and your lackeys, then you have failed in your purpose as a educational professional. Sitting in your lab doing research on your pet project doesn't help anyone unless that research can help steer education towards progress or away from disaster.
If you still think that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, then I encourage you to take a class you teach or design (or a similar class). Look around and observe the students taking the class. Talk with them and evaluate their progress. They spend the first half of the semester learning the teaching style and teacher. That means half of the class is wasted trying to get up to speed with the teacher. Then the teacher is frustrated that the learners aren't "getting it."
What if, instead, that learners when from classes in their field and had the exact same terminology. That would speed up every aspect of learning. The closest teachers come to this now is: Remember in Learning Theory when we talked about Piaget? CIP? Constructivism? PBL? Anchored Instruction? This is meant to build upon what the learner's knowledge base, but it is to late. They spent 95% of their time building a whole to base, leaving the learners to make their own connections (often times those connections lead to erroneous thought).
What do you think? Am I off-base still or should I start planning Ed-Terminology-Definition 2009? (By the way, getting researchers to agree on words is another big problem, but I'll tackle that later. Admitting you have a problem is the first step)
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terminology
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You see this same problem not only in education, but in industry also. Certain companies have a way of talking. You can get so lost in a sea of acronyms that can take months to swim out of. But then you change companies or even groups within the company and you have to start all over.
You're right! How many times do you hear in college or as a new employee, "You have to learn the lingo." Well... in a changing world that has become smaller through technology, should we work on better understanding each other?
How can I talk with an Engineering Ph.D. and Film Director on a project if they are all stuck in their own little worlds?
I submit that most people are uncomfortable thinking outside the norm or making waves within their community. I wonder, though, if companies/industries that do this will be able to become global market players.