Teaching Philosophy and Enactivism

"The paper presents a concise history of enactivism in education, especially in mathematics education. Cases described by Davis’s, Proulx and Simmt’s work showcase the idea that enactivism is a viable alternative to constructivism or to classical views both in terms of practical teaching and theoretical models related to the process of learning. The idea that the student should solve a fixed problem, discover the universally correct solution, and eventually store that correct solution to find many other universally correct solutions to other fixed problems reduces the student to a very simple mechanism aimed at informational efficiency. This problem is met by the enactivistic tradition that began with Varela and Maturana’s work, now updated to the aforementioned researchers. Contra the classical perspective, enactivism proposes the idea that the student collaboratively produces the problem, being able to see multiple solutions, and eventually becoming a performer of knowledge. The article takes these ideas developed in mathematics education and finds their use in philosophical education. The article especially focuses on the student’s problem of being unable to link a new philosophical text discussed in class with their intuition. The last part of the article offers a lesson design example. The philosophical design focuses on making the students explore their own thinking regarding the topic about to be discussed by using a philosophy text before introducing the text. Keywords: enactivism, phenomenology, philosophy of education, classroom design "

Society of Physicians at Kazan University. Hygienic section. Meeting 8/X 1929; meeting 22/X 1929

Prof. V.V. Miloslavsky. On the issue of training doctors in sanitary-prophylactic affairs. Analyzing the causes of the current crisis in sanitary organization, the speaker came to the following conclusions. 1. We do not have a specific cadre of sanitary workers and are forced to often fill the ranks of sanitation with random material. 2. The crisis of sanitary organization depends primarily on the fact that the medical faculty cannot, within the limits of its curriculum, give two guidelines to future doctors the setting of prevention and the doctor, since an in-depth study of preventive disciplines requires special training. 3. More than 1/3 of the time according to the curriculum of the medical faculty is devoted to clinical subjects, and only 1/10 to prophylactic subjects. There is little reason for a young doctor to turn from a medical to a preventive path, especially since the student will not actually give this tithe to prevention, and, on the contrary, devotes much more time to clinics than is indicated in the curriculum. In the proposed curriculum of the professional faculty, 1/10 of the preventive disciplines is also allocated, the same is allocated to the clinic, but a number of disciplines are introduced that help to better assimilate the preventive sciences and, of course, this 1/10 will be fully used. The lack of practical training in preventive disciplines will be filled up during the 6th year internship. 4. The only correct solution to the problem of training a cadre of sanitary and professional workers is to organize a preventive faculty with a special program that has the task of developing a preventive doctor, from the 1st year of training to accustom him to preventive thinking, equip him with all the knowledge to achieve a single goal of improving the team's health - Debate: doctors Mendelssohn, Trotsky, Schwartz, Mukhamedyarov, Mekhonoshin, Kondakov and prof. Gran.

When the Robin inequality does not hold

In mathematics, the Riemann Hypothesis is a conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part $\frac{1}{2}$. It is one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems selected by the Clay Mathematics Institute to carry a US 1,000,000 prize for the first correct solution. In 1915, Ramanujan proved that under the assumption of the Riemann Hypothesis, the inequality $\sigma(n)<e^{\gamma }\timesn\times\log\log n$ holds for all sufficiently large $n$, where $\sigma(n)$ is the sum-of-divisors function and $\gamma\approx0.57721$ is the Euler-Mascheroni constant. In 1984, Guy Robin proved that the inequality is true for all $n>5040$ if and only if the Riemann Hypothesis is true. Let $n>5040$ be $n=r\timesq$, where $q$ denotes the largest prime factor of $n$. If $n>5040$ is the smallest number such that Robin inequality does not hold, then we show the following inequality is also satisfied: $\sqrt[q]{e}+\frac{\log\log r}{\log\log n}>2$.

Learners’ Performance in a MOOC on Programming

In every course, there are learners who successfully pass assessments and complete the course. However, there are also those who fail the course for various reasons. One of such reasons may be related to success in assessment. Although performance in assessments has been studied before, there is a lack of knowledge on the degree of variance between different types of learners in terms of scores and the number of resubmissions. In the paper, we analyse the performance in assessments demonstrated by non-completers and completers and by completers with different engagement levels and difficulty-resolving patterns. The data have been gathered from the Moodle statistics source based on the performance of 1065 participants, as regards their completion status, the number of attempts made per each programming task and quiz, and the score received per quiz. Quantitative analysis was performed with descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests. Non-completers and completers were similar in resubmissions per quiz, but the former, expectedly, made more resubmissions per programming task and received lower quiz scores. Completers made more attempts per task than per quiz. They could provide a correct solution with a few resubmissions and receive good scores already at a pragmatic engagement level. At the same time, the increased use of help sources in case of difficulties was also associated with a higher number of attempts and lower quiz scores received. The study may have implications in understanding the role of assessments in dropouts and how completers with different engagement and difficulty-resolving patterns cope with assessments.

Solving Math Word Problems with Teacher Supervision

Math word problems (MWPs) have been recently addressed with Seq2Seq models by `translating' math problems described in natural language to a mathematical expression, following a typical encoder-decoder structure. Although effective in solving classical math problems, these models fail when a subtle variation is applied to the word expression of a math problem, and leads to a remarkably different answer. We find the failure is because MWPs with different answers but similar math formula expression are encoded closely in the latent space. We thus designed a teacher module to make the MWP encoding vector match the correct solution and disaccord from the wrong solutions, which are manipulated from the correct solution. Experimental results on two benchmark MWPs datasets verified that our proposed solution outperforms the state-of-the-art models.

Rubik’s Cube Solver

: Rubik’s cube is considered to be the most interesting and challenging problem in the world. It is a 3D combination puzzle that was originally called the Magic cube. It has only one correct solution out of the 43quintillion other possibilities. Building an application to solve such a puzzle is a very challenging task. In this paper, the design of such a Rubik’s cube solver website using Color Recognition has been discussed. This paper includes the overall process flow for solving the Rubik cube [1]. Our website is designed in such a way that when it will receive a scrambled Rubik’s Cube, it will visually evaluate it, will determine how that Rubik’s cube can be solved through manipulations and will provide a guide of the solution to the specific user. We have used Color recognition for detecting the initial orientation of the cube. And Segmentation is used to obtain the color pattern of the scrambled cube.

Understanding Package Crack Signatures in a Leadframe Semiconductor Package

This paper presents the simulation approach used to understand package crack signatures of a leadframe package under different mechanical loading scenarios. Package crack is one of the common problems with semiconductor packages. A better understanding of the different crack signatures would help identify the root cause quickly and be able to find the correct solution. In this study, a high precision materials testing system was used to apply mechanical loading to the package simulating different scenarios that could produce the crack. Based on the testing results, cracks have distinct signatures depending on how the force is applied. With the different signatures identified, this approach makes it easy to find the root cause of the crack in actual applications or assembly processes and resolve the problem faster.

Visually suggestive but mathematically incorrect

Mathematical calculation at times may produce erroneous results because of ignoring particular features of the functions involved, such as restricted domains, ranges and discontinuities. In this Article, to highlight the significance of conceptual understanding, we choose six examples and for each we give a flawed solution followed by a correct solution.

Toss and turn or toss and stop? A coin flip reduces the need for information in decision-making

When deciding between two options, settling can be difficult if one option is superior on one dimension but inferior on another. To arrive at a conclusion, people may gather further information, thereby running the risk of prolonging or blocking the decision-making process or even making suboptimal decisions. Here, we suggest that random decision aids may prove fruitful by reducing the need for further information. Five experiments (total N = 997) examined how information need is influenced after making a preliminary decision between two op- tions and then receiving a suggestion from a random decision aid (a coin flip). Across studies, coin participants are less likely to request additional information (Study 1 and two follow-up studies, combined p = .021) and indicate a lower need for additional information (Study 2, p = .023, and Study 3, p = .001) compared to a control condition without a coin flip. Interestingly, participants do not necessarily adhere to the coin but stick to their preliminary decision as much as or even more than the control group, suggesting that the decision aid does not determine the decision outcome. This is true for hypothetical decisions between changing versus maintaining the status quo without an objectively correct solution (Studies 1, 1b, and 1c), for a decision between two options with an objectively correct solution (Study 2), and for a real monetary decision without an objectively correct solution (Study 3). Random decision aids may thus help to avoid decision blocks or the collection of too much information.

Dogs’ insensitivity to scaffolding behaviour in an A-not-B task provides support for the theory of natural pedagogy

Executive function plays a critical role in regulating behaviour. Behaviour which directs attention towards the correct solution leads to increased executive function performance in children, but it is unknown how other animals respond to such scaffolding behaviour. Dogs were presented with an A-not-B detour task. After learning to go through gap A to obtain the reward, the barrier was reversed, and the dogs had to inhibit their learned response and enter through gap B on the opposite side. Failure to do so is known as the perseveration error. In test trials, dogs taking part in one of two scaffolding conditions, a pointing condition, where the experimenter pointed to the new gap, and a demonstration condition, where the experimenter demonstrated the new route, were no less likely to commit the perseveration error than dogs in a control condition with no scaffolding behaviour. Dogs’ lack of responsiveness to scaffolding behaviour provides little support for suggestions that simple social learning mechanisms explains scaffolding behaviour in humans. Instead, our results suggest that the theory of natural pedagogy extends to the development of executive function in humans. This suggests that human children’s predisposition to interpret ostensive-communicative cues as informative may be an innate, species-specific adaptation.