I agree with Don that the notion of eficiency does not work well for alive
open system. For machines, maximazing on (or few) parameters works well but
for organisms, the efficient organism is dead organism. Alive systems
should produce waste. Waste for one -- food for another. In class,
students can be off-task from teachers point of view but on-task, from
students' point of view. Their tasks can be different. What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Don Cunningham [mailto:cunningh@indiana.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 1998 1:14 PM
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: efficiency as a value
>
>
> The incantation I hear most often from instructional designers
> is that instruction must be "efficient and effective", as if
> one implied the other. The presumed virtue of systematically
> designed (and presumably teacher proof) instruction is that
> it meets its objectives efficiently. There was even a term
> popular in my graduate school days: lean programming as when
> programmed instruction included only material demonstrably
> related to the instructional goals.
>
> Yes, I think this is a value, it assumes a certain industrial,
> transmission view of instruction. In my own teaching i do a lot
> of things that I consider inefficient: problem centered class
> sessions - I could cover a lot more material by being didactic.
> Email conferencing - gad, that's a never ending task that I
> consider worthwhile considering the instructional values I espouse,
> but efficient? I too allow revisions and regrading. That's a
> lot of work that I don't really need to be doing.
>
> I want my auto mechanic to be efficient. I'm not sure instruction
> should always be efficient. Some things are hard work!
>
> djc
>
> Don Cunningham
> School of Education
> Indiana University
> Bloomington, IN 47405
>
> Phone: 812-856-8540
> Email: cunningh who-is-at indiana.edu
> Homepage: http://php.indiana.edu/~cunningh
>