Re: Aaron Sloman's "The Irrelevance of Turing Machines to AI" article

From: Wolf Kirchmeir (wwolfkir_at_sympatico.ca)
Date: 07/30/04 

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:27:38 -0400

Eray Ozkural exa wrote:
...snip..
> You really should look into the works of Ray Solomonoff for examples
> of that (and of course other machine learning algorithms at idsia.ch)
> if you are curious. It's mind-widening.

I'll check.

> In my opinion, classical approaches to machine learning are not
> general enough, for instance they do not address transfer of learning
> problem.

What do you mean by this?

If you mean, "How does learning in domain A become available for use in
domain B?", my experience as a teacher may provide a clue. If you mean
something else, the following may provide some amusement.

The traditional advice on how to study for an exam assumed that
"transfer of learning" was the key. You know, teachers told you to go
over your notes, to highlight passages of text, make outlines, memorise
formulas, and so on. Then you'd know the stuff you needed to use to
write the exam successfully. That was the advice I received, anyhow, and
the advice I passed on for the first 10 years or so of my teaching career.

Trouble is, on the exam you're not asked to go over your notes,
highlight passages of text, make outlines, memorise formulas, etc.
You're asked to solve problems, write essays, label diagrams, and so on.
And many students compplained that they had "studied" for hours before
the exam, yet couldn't succeed.

So eventually I told my students that to study for an exam they should
write essays, solve problems, label diagrams, and so on. That is,
"Practice what you will have to do on the exam." It seemed to me that
relying on "transfer of learning" was, well, unreliable.

Then there was the perennial complaint by my colleagues that their
students couldn't write essays, sometimes accompanied by a point-blank
"Do you actually teach that in your English classes?" I assured them I
taught my students how to summarise and analyse stories, etc. But
apparently these skills don't apply to writing a science paper. :-)

I also noticed that my students became very proficient at spelling
tests, then misspelled words at a wonderful rate in their essays...

IOW, "writing an essay" and "spelling" are context-bound like any other
skill set, and "transfer of learning" is difficult, to say the least.

If by "transfer of learning" you mean what happens when a
teacher-student relationship works, well, the only clue I have is that
the student learns what (s)he does. For example, if a student memorises
and recalls definitions of terms, then the student can memorise and
recall definitions of terms. But that does not mean that the student can
understand a text using those terms. Most of them can't even rephrase a
definiton "in your own words."

HTH

Relevant Pages

  • Re: question about teaching and learning guitar (Master Musicians)
    ... It proves that there are a number of hack guitar ... > That would be why this person is a master. ... >> learning to write it down. ... I've got students that could already play the guitar when they started, ...
    (alt.guitar.beginner)
  • jjFOX Role of the Lecturer...
    ... The Role a lecturer within a Further Education College ... The successful teacher is passionate ... about teaching and learning, and understands that the role is far wider ... team and ensuring that students on this course are successful. ...
    (uk.education.teachers)
  • jjFOX Role of the Lecturer...
    ... The Role a lecturer within a Further Education College ... The successful teacher is passionate ... about teaching and learning, and understands that the role is far wider ... team and ensuring that students on this course are successful. ...
    (uk.education.teachers)
  • Re: Teachers and students -Method criticisms
    ... I understand that there needs to be "consolidation/reinforcement" learning ... I begin students by spending the first 3 weeks only on the ... Now that I am playing pieces that are ... Shearer books, which start out on the open B, G and D strings using P ...
    (rec.music.classical.guitar)
  • Re: Is Unicode character a vowel?
    ... When my kids were in school they were touting LOGO as the great teaching tool for kids. ... the students will have all the key principles. ... teachers who tell me that learning Word is worthless because the students might end up ...
    (microsoft.public.vc.mfc)