Re: Researching decline Minimalist instruction for dissertation and need help...

[Peter Neilson <neilson -at- alltel -dot- net>]

It looks like the technique has suffered from what I call "flavour of
the month".  It was likely popular among some who had enthusiasm but
little understanding, was tried briefly by those not trained in its
use, and then abandoned.  This happens all the time in the quality
engineering field.  Management go to a one-day seminar, come back,
announce the new system. The guys on the shop floor say, "We've seen
'em come; we've seen 'em go," pretend to do the new system for a bit
and then go back to the way it was always done.  Maybe someone cooks
up a few numbers to show that the experiment was almost a success.

I've used something like minimalist instruction when teaching
mathematics.  My theory is that the best instruction occurs when
the student is working out all the tiny details on his own, maybe
counting on his own fingers (not me counting on mine).  Instead of
spoon-feeding the student at each step, I ask him to re-read the book
until he understands, and to work the problems out for himself.

Here's remedial subtraction work for a 13-year-old, six years behind:
"How did I do on this?" the student asked. "You got seven of the
twenty right," I replied.  "Which ones?"  "Figure it out for
yourself," I grumbled.

Personally, I prefer learning a new computer language from the
reference manual and some good examples, and perhaps a "pitfalls"
book, rather than from a tutorial book.  Is this a minimalist
approach?

Oh, and thank you for being the first person in about a decade to use
the word "hopefully" correctly.

HELEN CLAIRE COOK wrote: