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Stephen Downes

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I followed a link to what was an utterly uninformative article in AACE about Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, found another less-than-useful Top Hat article, and dug deeper to find these resources. I found two related threads: one, the idea of debunking neuromyths, which she covers in a book and in this report (115 page PDF), and the other on what she called 'neuroeducation' but which Delphi panelists renamed 'mind, brain and education (MBE) science', which is closer to the topic of her  dissertation. I appreciated the care taken in documenting beliefs (of both facts and myths) by people in related disciplines, but I also found the tension between lines of thinking (including, for example, describing 'free will' as a factor that shapes the brain, or listing 'mind' and 'brain' separately, over the objections of at least one panelists). And I think she should find a tension between 'symbol' and 'pattern', but maybe not. Overall, my brisk look at her work again raises the question of whether we can determine what is true (cf. page 263 ff) by looking for a consensus a la the Delphi method. I still think not. Image: op.cit., p. 293

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Apr 23, 2024 11:38 p.m.

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