1. Chapter 12 focuses on deductive reasoning and decision making which related to problem solving in Chapter 11. All three topics are related to thinking which is going beyond the information given to reach a goal, decision, or belief. It involves taking new info in(working memory), using our previous knowledge (long-term memory) and reasoning to make a decision.
2. I found it very hard to relate the decision-making strategies/heuristics to what I actually think of when I make a decision. It was hard to apply to my life. It seems to me that there should be plenty more strategies that people use to make a decision compared to the ones given in the book. I think that the book mentioned this also, but it seems like when a researcher is wanting people to make a decision in a particular way, like the engineer problem. Of course we think that the person is an engineer because we have been given other info that leads to that decision and I don’t believe that looking at the percentages of engineers and lawyers should be the only method of making this decision.
3. I could use this in my work by helping students realize that there might be limits to our decision-making processes. I need to remind students that the way a statement or question is worded may affect your decision. Students should look at both agreeing with a statement and disagreeing with a statement or finding reasons why something may be false. Overall, students need to form questions when they are making a decision or reasoning about something and be sure to think about all areas before making a final decision. I tell my students that they should even question their teachers when something does not seem to make sense.
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When reading the chapter I tried to think of decisions I had made that day or ones I had made in the past and tried to match my strategy or reasoning technique with what I was reading in the book. You're right, there wasn't always a match. I also think I may have been getting caught up in the vocabulary. You brought up a good point of introducing the idea that students can look at agreeing with a statement and disagreeing. Sometimes they naturally do that. Maybe I do that more than I realize in situations. I will have to try to make a point of thinking about that myself.
ReplyDeleteI think that even though these strategies don't always seem like they fit what we use to make a decision, they are in some ways true. The problem is, we have to stretch them a little to make them fit. I thought more like how might I often make a decision rather than how do I always make a decision. I'm glad that you can still apply this to your work. It sounds like you agree about how important decision making skills are for students to learn.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this chapter was difficult to an extent because I was always thinking that their is still the possibility of the other factors, like the guy could still be an engineer even if there is only 1 engineer out of 100 men. It's like the lottery, the odds are ridiculous that you are not going to win, but one person still wins big every now and then! I just viewed this as the whole deductive reasoning- giving it your best guess in an unknown situation.
ReplyDeleteI agree that wording of problems is important to teach students, they experience it every time with word problems in math. By understanding the wording or questions, they have chance of seeing the problem for what it is rather than what is presented.