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Mastering Metacognition: The What, Why, and How

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Re: Mastering Metacognition: The What, Why, and How

#11

Post by fouc »

getpost wrote: post #10

Metacognition or “mentalization”[0,1] is a promising approach to mental health, on the theory that mental health difficulties reflect a metacognitive deficit. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalization [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dpj2

Something that I was wondering about recently, are there any types of therapy that can help philosophical zombies?

i.e. hypothetical beings that are physically identical to and indistinguishable from normal people but do not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.

Re: Mastering Metacognition: The What, Why, and How

#12

Post by avs733 »

nefitty wrote: post #5
avs733 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Getting students (or anyone) to learn how to learn on their own is, sadly, not taught in school here (California). This is such a fundamental point. School should be teaching you processes of learning as well as knowledge. The problem is that the poor treatment of educators results in a reversion to the minimum. If you were taught 'acquiring as many facts/much knowledge as possible is learning' then you aren't going…

This is a helpful comment, thank you. Prioritizing sociological factors in the design of educational systems seems common, but balancing the differences within an educational population with policy requirements makes it so that only some students get the resources they need. In my life, I have been lucky to have a sticky brain, which has gotten me through for a long time. The problem is that I cannot pinpoint any sig…

I have always found the focus on the sociological somewhat hollow...and I am involved in sociological research on education (engineering specifically).

The problem, and the reason for the focus, is that the sociological and the philosophical are highly correlated in education. The philosophical questions - and bringing them through from concept to practice to evaluating are hard.

You got to the edge of the cave and wanted to look around...it took you a while to notice the torches but you navigated by touch. Most people don't. They are trained out of it.

It is especially hard on the 'smart' kids (I deal with them...they are a mess). So often they are asking questions beyond what their teachers in K-12 know and can answer and it creates a void. Depending on how its handled by everyone in their adult community it can either be 'stop asking questions just get the answers right [the answers I got from the teachers texbook]' which just amplifies extrinsic motivation as the dominant mode of action and validation or it can be 'I don't know and thats amazing lets find out'.

When my partner and I started planning for kids, we talked about schools. She was surprised that I was at all pro private school, and even more surprised that I placed greater value on private school earlier rather than later in K-12. The fundamental thing is that the minds, thoughts, and ideas of those with socioeconomic privilege in this country are treated with far more respect. The educational environs that give that respect happen to be the ones that are more likely to promote deep learning, metacognition, argumentation, etc.

Re: Mastering Metacognition: The What, Why, and How

#13

Post by avs733 »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #8
gweinberg wrote: post #6

Do we really need the fancy new word "metacognition" when we already have the plain old word "epistemology"?

In this context, "metacognition" seems to be an education buzzword for a particular approach to optimizing learning. The stuff being talked about here is neither the same thing as epistemology nor immediately obvious from the broader meaning and uses of "metacognition".

its...okay maybe it's a buzzword but it isn't about 'optimized learning' its about valuing the development of a process of learning equally to the content of learning.

It has become a focus because teach to the test has done a damn good job of stripping it away from K-12 classroom learning in the US. Now that we realize whats missing ed researchers talk about it more and how to add it back.

Re: Mastering Metacognition: The What, Why, and How

#17

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

fouc wrote: post #11
getpost wrote: post #10

Metacognition or “mentalization”[0,1] is a promising approach to mental health, on the theory that mental health difficulties reflect a metacognitive deficit. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalization [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dpj2

Something that I was wondering about recently, are there any types of therapy that can help philosophical zombies? i.e. hypothetical beings that are physically identical to and indistinguishable from normal people but do not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.

Unfortunately, all attempts at treating philosophical zombies simply produced the complete range of observable effects of conscious experience and sentience, materially indistinguishable from true conscious experience and sentience, yet definitionally still lacking qualia.

Re: Mastering Metacognition: The What, Why, and How

#18

Post by kovek »

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #17
fouc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that I was wondering about recently, are there any types of therapy that can help philosophical zombies? i.e. hypothetical beings that are physically identical to and indistinguishable from normal people but do not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.

Unfortunately, all attempts at treating philosophical zombies simply produced the complete range of observable effects of conscious experience and sentience, materially indistinguishable from true conscious experience and sentience, yet definitionally still lacking qualia.

As a maybe philosophical zombie, I would like to know more about these attempts you are mentioning.

Re: Mastering Metacognition: The What, Why, and How

#19

Post by fouc »

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #17
fouc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that I was wondering about recently, are there any types of therapy that can help philosophical zombies? i.e. hypothetical beings that are physically identical to and indistinguishable from normal people but do not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.

Unfortunately, all attempts at treating philosophical zombies simply produced the complete range of observable effects of conscious experience and sentience, materially indistinguishable from true conscious experience and sentience, yet definitionally still lacking qualia.

That might be technically true, but most types of therapy seem to depend on some sort of theory of mind. Something like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is based on the idea that thoughts can control emotions & behavior.

A p-zombie might change their behavior under any given therapy, but it may be more due to behavioral feedback, the degree of change may be lesser, without thoughts acting to multiply the change.

So therapies that focus more on just behavioral feedback might be overall more effective for people that don't have much thought in their head. Such as p-zombie challenged folks.

Re: Mastering Metacognition: The What, Why, and How

#20

Post by rob_c »

tedyoung wrote: post #3

Asking questions that elicit thinking, and not just rote answers, are what we want in learning. Not just "what's the answer to [question]", but "how did you get that?" This also works well for uncovering wrong assumptions or incorrect problem-solving methods. Getting students (or anyone) to learn how to learn on their own is, sadly, not taught in school here (California). I gave a talk a few years ago on how people l…

Unfortunately we've lost at least an entire generation of teachers who just want the "what is the answer so I can mark you and go home"... There is a difference between iliciting interest and explaing the process behind problem solving. Teaching the latter, whilst more complex, has and will ultimately build another catheedral to the former.

What we need is more open-ended teaching styles. Teaching that touches on the edges of the unknown in science/mathematics and reality. A lot of these scarily can easily be explained to an interested (not captive) 8yo.

From my experience you don't "teach" in the 'blackboard sense' how to answer questions. You only get that when a teacher is able to spend a little bit of time working with a student. This allows them to uncover what they in some cases have missed from the start due to a slightly tangental assumption which is unfortunately wrong. (Again there should be no judgement about being wrong. Why there's this "dumb-ass" approach from society to correct wrong approaches is beyond me as it's what turns people off self-education 99/100.)

Proper teaching unfortunately is very counter to the "get home at 5pm" mentality I've known some of my peers in teaching to have (not all, but enough, very vocal teachers, who frankly should return the UG degree certificates and stop damaging the youth of tomorrow).

What makes teaching so rewarding to those who spend the time to see that "click" when something lights that spark of new thinking for someone. And that moment when someone is helped to view a new problem from a new angle happens for everyone at some point, but not for all when reading all topics of education.

I've seen someone bored about QM and "just get it" but finally get interested when asked "why does this goo change when you hit it"? I've seen someone get giddly excited about simple vector mathematics once they realised the consequences of digging into what they "sort-of know", even though they're a professional programmer.

There shouldn't be a need for any of this "meta-cognition", or "better-teaching", there should simply be, "teaching" and education focussed around how to learn for oneself. Where we lost this for overly-formal "recite after me" training is lost on me, but I think society is all the poorer for it.

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