The Mind as Black Box: A Simulation of Theory Building in Psychology

2000 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Hildebrandt ◽  
Jennifer Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Scientific Investigation ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Logical Thinking ◽  
Social Collaboration ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Black Plastic ◽  
The Mind

This activity gives students a collaborative, hands-on experience in theory building. Using the metaphor “the mind is a black box,” students work together in small groups to discover what is inside a sealed, black, plastic box. In all, 63 undergraduate and 11 graduate students evaluated the activity. Students reported that they enjoyed the activity and that it helped them learn more about the development of scientific theories; the existence of conflicting theories; and the value of logical thinking, imagination, and social collaboration in the process of scientific investigation.

Hands-On Graduate Courses in Lean Manufacturing (LM) Emphasizing Green and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey J. Peter
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Lean Manufacturing ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Total Productive Maintenance ◽  
Initial Product ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Institute Of Technology

The author developed and taught the second hands-on graduate course in a series of three Environmentally Friendly Manufacturing (EFM) courses offered at the Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering and Technology (MMET) Masters Program at the Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT), Portland Center. Courses in this series include Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing (ECM-1), Lean Manufacturing (LM) emphasizing Green and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), and Emission Control in Manufacturing (ECM-II). The first two-thirds of the course curriculum consisted of regular classroom lectures, limited homework, two case studies, discussions, videos, and visits to two companies that were implementing or had implemented LM. In addition, a guest lecturer from Washington State Department of Ecology discussed relevant LM and environmental case studies. The final third of the course curriculum consisted of hands-on industry-based case studies. Students gained real-world experience in the manufacturing facilities of the four companies that elected to participate in the pilot project. The LM course, taught from an engineer’s point of view, emphasized the engineer’s role at the initial product design stage, and or manufacturing process design, including building design. This paper describes the course content of the LM curriculum, the innovative methods developed to teach the course, and the methods used to teach LM to graduate students with different undergraduate educational backgrounds including individuals with no prior industrial experience. It discusses three industry-based case studies, company profiles, and the benefits derived by participating companies and graduate students. Curriculum effectiveness was determined at the end of the course in part through students’ and industry participant’s comments. Future publication will describe the contents and case studies of the third ECM II in the EFM course curricula.

The Google Online Marketing Challenge

E-Marketing ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 1289-1308
Author(s):  
Sven Tuzovic ◽  
Lyle Wetsch ◽  
Jamie Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online Marketing ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Advertising Campaign ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Search Engine Advertising

In 2008, a collaborative partnership between Google and academia launched the Google Online Marketing Challenge (hereinafter Google Challenge), perhaps the world’s largest in-class competition for higher education students. In just two years, almost 20,000 students from 58 countries participated in the Google Challenge. The Challenge gives undergraduate and graduate students hands-on experience with the world’s fastest growing advertising mechanism, search engine advertising. Funded by Google, students develop an advertising campaign for a small to medium sized enterprise and manage the campaign over three consecutive weeks using the Google AdWords platform. This article explores the Challenge as an innovative pedagogical tool for marketing educators. Based on the experiences of three instructors in Australia, Canada and the United States, this case study discusses the opportunities and challenges of integrating this dynamic problem-based learning approach into the classroom.

Logic and Abstraction as Capabilities of the Mind

2010 ◽  
pp. 132-148
Author(s):  
David J. Saab ◽  
Uwe V. Riss
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Logical Thinking ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Analytic Thinking ◽  
General Role ◽  
Computational Approaches ◽  
Input Processing ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Sensus Communis

In this chapter we will investigate the nature of abstraction in detail, its entwinement with logical thinking, and the general role it plays for the mind. We find that non-logical capabilities are not only important for input processing, but also for output processing.  Human beings jointly use analytic and embodied capacities for thinking and acting, where analytic thinking mirrors reflection and logic, and where abstraction is the form in which embodied thinking is revealed to us. We will follow the philosophical analyses of Heidegger and Polanyi to elaborate the fundamental difference between abstraction and logics and how they come together in the mind.  If computational approaches to mind are to be successful, they must be able to recognize meaningful and salient elements of a context and engage in abstraction. Computational minds must be able to imagine and volitionally blend abstractions as a way of recognizing gestalt contexts.  And it must be able to discern the validity of these blendings in ways that, in humans, arise from a sensus communis.

Mega Events and Their Effect on Mesoeconomics

2021 ◽  
pp. 208-230
Author(s):  
Teodora Kiryakova-Dineva ◽  
Vyara Kyurova ◽  
Yana Chankova
Keyword(s):  
Economic Activity ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Scientific Investigation ◽  
Mega Events ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Mega Event

The chapter proposes an analysis that claims the importance of phenomena successfully revealed only in view of mesoeconomics. The authors argue that the economic processes in the field of organizing events should not be conceived merely as resulting from macro- and micro-level relationships but rather as resulting from relationships on mesoeconomic level (where a large number of unresolved and unexplored issues still exist), discussed by the authors in terms of the black box relationships on the mesoeconomic level. The main aim of this study is to investigate a specific mega event so as to trace and analyze the roles of the operators at the three levels of social-economic activity, and finally to identify the specific roles of the operators functioning at the mesoeconomic level. Making up a small part of scientific investigation in interdisciplinary research, the chapter proposes further perspectives for a proper application of mesoeconomics when discussing issues bridging micro-economics and macro-economics.

Operator Control Parameters and Fine Tuning of Genetic Algorithms (GAs)

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-127
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithms ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Control Parameters ◽  
Solution Quality ◽  
Internal Working ◽  
Size Number ◽  
Crossover Probability ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Operator Control

Genetic algorithms (GAs) are heuristic, blind (i.e., black box-based) search techniques. The internal working of GAs is complex and is opaque for the general practitioner. GAs are a set of interconnected procedures that consist of complex interconnected activity among parameters. When a naive GA practitioner tries to implement GA code, the first question that comes into the mind is what are the value of GA control parameters (i.e., various operators such as crossover probability, mutation probability, population size, number of generations, etc. will be set to run a GA code)? This chapter clears all the complexities about the internal interconnected working of GA control parameters. GA can have many variations in its implementation (i.e., mutation alone-based GA, crossover alone-based GA, GA with combination of mutation and crossover, etc.). In this chapter, the authors discuss how variation in GA control parameter settings affects the solution quality.

Language and the subconscious

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan M Cyna ◽  
Suyin GM Tan
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
External Environment ◽  
Conscious State ◽  
Routine Activities ◽  
Logical Thinking ◽  
Verbal Cues ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Extreme Stress ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind

Many of the communications commonly encountered in anaesthetic practice elicit subconscious responses, and, because this is so, they frequently go unrecognized. This form of communication involves verbal and non-verbal cues also known as suggestions that can elicit automatic changes in perception or behaviour. Much of this chapter is based on language structures that are thought to make subconscious changes in perception, mood or behaviour more likely, both with patients and anaesthetists themselves. Recognizing subconscious responses will facilitate communication. As is discussed later, anaesthetists can communicate with patients and colleagues in ways that utilize subconscious functioning. To all intents and purposes this looks like intuitive communication, when in reality it has structure and therefore can be learned and taught. The conscious and unconscious states are familiar to all anaesthetists. However, it is frequently unappreciated that all patients, whether in an unconscious or conscious state, will also be functioning subconsciously. In the unconscious patient it is well recognized that subconscious activities still occur—for example, in implicit awareness. Most people would appreciate that there are times during consciousness when they switch off the ‘logical brain’ and enter ‘daydream’-type thinking or they ‘tune out’. People including anaesthetists tend to function subconsciously most of the time—for example, during routine activities such as driving home on ‘autopilot’ and arriving home without realizing it consciously. The ability we all have to function automatically—that is, subconsciously—frees up the conscious part of the mind to focus on other things such as planning tomorrow’s ‘neuro’ case. The teleological basis for this ability lies in being able to filter the massive amount of information continuously presented to the individual. This allows the conscious mind to focus on what it perceives to be important—facilitating learning, logical thinking and problem solving. During activities where logical thinking is not a requirement, the subconscious comes to the fore. This is characterized by dissociation from the external environment—being ‘in your own world’. Paradoxically, at times of extreme stress, the subconscious tends to take over when the conscious part of the mind becomes so overwhelmed by external inputs it ceases to function logically.

Behaviorism and Developments in Instructional Design and Technology

2011 ◽  
pp. 153-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Chen
Keyword(s):  
Instructional Design ◽  
Mathematical Analysis ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Design And Technology ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
Specific Stimulus ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
Observable Change ◽  
The Mind

The theory of behaviorism concentrates on the study of overt behaviors that can be observed and measured (Good & Brophy, 1990). In general, the behavior theorists view the mind as a “black box” in the sense that response to stimulus can be observed quantitatively, ignoring the possibility of thought processes occurring in the mind. Behaviorists believe that learning takes place as the result of a response that follows on a specific stimulus. By repeating the S-R (stimulus-response) cycle, the organism (may it be an animal or human) is conditioned into repeating the response whenever the same stimulus is present. The behavioral emphasis on breaking down complex tasks, such as learning to read, into subskills that are taught separately, has a powerful influence on instructional design. Behaviors can be modified, and learning is measured by observable change in behavior. The behavior theorists emphasize the need of objectivity, which leads to great accentuation of statistical and mathematical analysis.

Increasing the Accessibility of Hands-On Science for Blind Students

1976 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-63
Author(s):  
Dennis Schatz ◽  
Herbert D. Thier
Keyword(s):  
Small Groups ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Upper Elementary ◽  
Elementary Level ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Scientific Principles ◽  
Visually Handicapped ◽  
Science Activities ◽  
Blind Students

The Adapting Science Materials for the Blind (ASMB) project has developed a number of individualized sets of science activities and experiments for upper-elementary level visually handicapped students. Working independently or in small groups, students are able to learn fundamental scientific principles and the basics of the scientific method using the hands-on approach. The ASMB materials are tested in actual classroom situations and then refined further.

scholarly journals Unpacking the Black Box: Demystifying Ecological Models Through Interactive Workshops and Hands-On Learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brook D. Herman ◽  
S. Kyle McKay ◽  
Safra Altman ◽  
Nathan S. Richards ◽  
Molly Reif ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Box ◽  
Ecological Models ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Hands On Learning

An intensive hands-on course designed to teach molecular biology techniques to physiology graduate students

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea D. Weston ◽  
Sasha Stasko ◽  
Gerald M. Kidder
Keyword(s):  
Polymerase Chain Reaction ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Rna Expression ◽  
Chain Reaction ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Similar Information ◽  
Polymerase Chain ◽  
Intensive Course

To address a growing need to make research trainees in physiology comfortable with the tools of molecular biology, we have developed a laboratory-intensive course designed for graduate students. This course is offered to a small group of students over a three-week period and is organized such that comprehensive background lectures are coupled with extensive hands-on experience. The course is divided into seven modules, each organized by a faculty member who has particular expertise in the area covered by that module. The modules focus on basic methods such as cDNA subcloning, sequencing, gene transfer, polymerase chain reaction, and protein and RNA expression analysis. Each module begins with a lecture that introduces the technique in detail by providing a historical perspective, describing both the uses and limitations of that technique, and comparing the method with others that yield similar information. Most of the lectures are followed by a laboratory session during which students follow protocols that were carefully designed to avoid pitfalls. Throughout these laboratory sessions, students are given an appreciation of the importance of proper technique and accuracy. Communication among the students, faculty, and the assistant coordinator is focused on when and why each procedure would be used, the importance of each step in the procedure, and approaches to troubleshooting. The course ends with an exam that is designed to test the students’ general understanding of each module and their ability to apply the various techniques to physiological questions.

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