Discussant Remarks

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Discussant Remarks

• Jon R. Star
• Michigan State University

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Reframe the problem...

• Push a bit on what you are calling error and
  generalization
• Challenge
• Are you over-generalizing?
• Is focus on errors on target?

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New situations
Known strategies or reasoning
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Errors of generalization

• There are many ways for this process to go awry

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Appropriate generalization?
New situations
Known strategies or reasoning
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Over- generalization?
New situations
Known strategies or reasoning
X
X
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Absence of generalization?
New situations
Known strategies or reasoning
8
Appropriate generalization?
New situations
Known strategies or reasoning
9
How to generalize?
New situations
Known strategies or reasoning
?
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Errors?

• Useful for researchers and teachers to understand
  how students decide to apply known strategies and
  reasoning to new situations
• What features of the source are useful in
  deciding to how to apply strategies or reasoning
  in new situations?

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Analogical reasoning

• Retrieve strategy from memory
• Map elements of new problem to elements of known
  strategy
• Adapt known strategy for use in new problem

Gick Holyoak, 1980 Novick Holyoak, 1991
Novick, 1988, 1995 Reed, 1989 Ross, 1987
Gentner, 1983
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Retrieve
New situation
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Map
Known strategies or reasoning
New situation
BlueRoundOvalIsosceles Triangle
BlueRoundMedium-sizedCircleNo other shapes
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Adapt
Known strategies or reasoning
New situation
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Challenges...

• Retrieve
• Hard
• Map
• Harder
• Adapt
• Hardest

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Thanks!

• Jon R. Star
• jonstar_at_msu.edu
• Michigan State University