I know people love the slider metaphor, and I even know that it's often appropriate to represent a polarity as a continuum rtaher than an off-on. But I don't like it. First, it masks the fact that some things actually are off-on. For example, the course is either teacher-directed or student-directed. It can't be both, because in case of conflict, only one wins (and guess which one?). Second, it masks false dilemmas. The dilemma between 'reductionist' and 'complex', for example. These are not contraries, let alone contradictions. Third, it masks complex relationships with simple lables. For example, 'socially cooperative' and 'cognitively cooperative' are lables for something - though it's hard to say what (especially as the midpoint between them is labled 'independent'). So, let's leave it like this: a learning approach isn't just a simple set of controls you can program and let run on its own like a machine.
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