One of the largest movements in modern education is a shift towards social-emotional learning. In addition to internal and external reflection, SEL entails collaborative learning by means of teamwork and teaching others. In Chapter 2, Shenk discusses how IQ scores have been rising at an unprecedented rate over time and how less isolated populations will have a greater intelligence quotient (p41-44), but also describes how competition within a culture fosters success in chapter 4 (p 110). Similarly, there are costs and benefits of independent learning versus community learning/ collaboration. Compare and contrast the benefits of a collaborative learning environment versus a competitive learning environment in terms of ecology and development. Use terms such as cognition and altruism or describe symbiotic relationships between students to relate the concept of educational environment to interdependence in nature.
-Kyle Mueting (kylemueting@comcast.net)
In environments in where the population is less isolated, there is a higher IQ for many possible reasons. One might be that because there is a greater amount of individuals, there is a greater population, there is the symbiotic relationship competition. By the theory of competitive conclusion, "Even a slight reproductive advantage will eventually lead to a local elimination of the inferior competitor" (Campbell 1199). Thus, this competition drives individuals to try and gain an advantage. Another reason why less isolated communities have a higher IQ is that "animals learn to solve problems by observing the behavior of other individuals," which is observed in chimpanzees learning to use a rock to crack open an oil palm nut (Campbell 1128). This "teaching" likely occurs in cases of altruism, the selflessness of organisms, as the organisms that live in a community are closely genetically related. As Shenk states, "children develop only as the environment demands development," the theme of interdependence in nature can be seen through these examples.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are some benefits of learning individually. Cognition, "the process of knowing represented by awareness, reasoning, recollection, and judgment," likely led to new-found knowledge in the first place. Whereas some organisms are taught by other organisms in their community, cognition helps other organisms to learn new other information through reasoning, such as bees learning how to distinguish patterns based on color (Campbell 1128). Furthermore, as the flaw in measuring is seen in the negative correlation between herbal remedies and school intelligence is seen in the children from Kisumu, Kenya (Shenk 50), interdependence in nature shows that different environments demand different traits. The Kenyan kids were relatively isolated to Western culture, and thus their intelligence on Western intelligence tests were not supposed to be high.
Such cases can be seen in farmers, who know plenty of agricultural knowledge but are somewhat deficient in school knowledge. Also, the difference between captive and wild lions reflects how the environment demands specific knowledge. As captive lions are isolated from the habitat of wild animals, which requires the ability to hunt, captive lions show less of an ability to hunt (http://www.actazool.org/temp/%7B89 F5C728-8FE9-45EE-883B-0BE3E05594A6%7D.pdf). As seen by these many examples, the advantages and disadvantages intelligence of being isolated and having a diverse environment depends on what intelligence the environment demands.
Matthew Yang (matt.y.yang2013@gmail.com)