Re:Banning exploration in my infovis class
by xg15 on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @06:18AM
(#14245264)
When I read the headline and first paragraph, I thought I couldn't disagree more - though when continuing reading I actually grew sympathetic. As a student I've actually found myself "exploring" data in the "meandering" sense quite a few times - trying to find "interesting" patterns without a clear idea what "interesting" means or whether what I'm seeing genuinely constitutes a pattern. Such tasks started out kind of exciting but quickly became incredibly frustrating. So if that guy demands a bit more rigor in order to avoid this situation, more power to him.
That said, I think he states in his article something that I see as a core didactic problem without identifying it as such:
>The student is often engaging in “exploration” for the purpose identifying patterns that influence their design. They are often missing background knowledge and develop it in this step. But this is not “exploration” for the analyst who may already have a mental model of interesting and uninteresting patterns.
So he is expecting students to make a tool suited for the mental model of an expert even though the students have no idea what that mental model should be (and without giving them any hints what that should be). If some motivated students try to derive those tools for themselves on-the-go, he'll permit that in a fit of generosity.
If the problem he has diagnosed is that the students don't know enough rigorous definitions and techniques to find patterns, maybe the curriculum should focus on teaching those instead of going a step further and asking them to build a visualisation tool based on that non-existent knowledge.
That said, I think he states in his article something that I see as a core didactic problem without identifying it as such:
>The student is often engaging in “exploration” for the purpose identifying patterns that influence their design. They are often missing background knowledge and develop it in this step. But this is not “exploration” for the analyst who may already have a mental model of interesting and uninteresting patterns.
So he is expecting students to make a tool suited for the mental model of an expert even though the students have no idea what that mental model should be (and without giving them any hints what that should be). If some motivated students try to derive those tools for themselves on-the-go, he'll permit that in a fit of generosity.
If the problem he has diagnosed is that the students don't know enough rigorous definitions and techniques to find patterns, maybe the curriculum should focus on teaching those instead of going a step further and asking them to build a visualisation tool based on that non-existent knowledge.