The eCourses
on this web site have a consistent philosophy of course design, and particularly
of testing and scoring.Last Revised January 5, 2004
The eCourses
on this web site have a consistent philosophy of course design, and particularly
of testing and scoring.
The page you are reading now covers more of the mechanics and variables of the eCourses and particularly the criteria used for scoring and passing a quiz or course. This very article could and probably should be converted into an eCourse, or several. This article contains more in depth presentation on the study philosophy than the very Dictionary Usage eCourse, itself, which has already been created.
I, Karl Loren, have a great deal of certainty on the effectiveness
of a study technology developed by Mr. L. Ron
Hubbard. I have studied this technology extensively. In fact,
I have taken courses in this technology and spent several "course years"
in formal training on this material.
However, I have not had experience in applying this study technology in an education setting such as the internet, and specifically with a web-based, automated eCourse. I would have that certainty if I were an instructor in a typical course room, with students who were enrolled and interested in the subject of study. When it comes to having students who are NOT in a course room, and who are NOT under my personal observation, there is some amount of "trial and error" that may be required to perfect the presentation of this technology for web-based eCourses.
With that in mind, here is the explanation of the concept for the initial design of eCourses and setting of the criteria for testing and scoring.
There is a phenomenon that can be described with two words: "inflow" and "outflow." These words mean what they probably seem to mean, to you. "Inflow" is when things are moving into you and "outflow" is when things are moving out, away from you. When you sit and watch TV you are inflowing. When you are talking to a person, you are outflowing.
If you are
catching a ball thrown to you -- you are inflowing. When you throw a ball
to another, you are outflowing.
When you sit and read a book you are inflowing. When you sit in a course room and listen to the teacher, you are inflowing. When the teacher asks YOU a question and you answer, your answer is an outflow.
It is a common observation by teachers and others that students can often NOT sit and study a book for very long without getting "fidgety" and finally sleepy!
You think you want to quit reading when you are tired, but if you examine this closely you will find that you feel tired when you have been inflowing excessively.
People vary, but there is a simple rule that if you inflow "too long" you get sleepy. Some people start reading a book and after a few minutes fall asleep. Others can read for hours and not fall asleep. So, this is a personal variable. But, the general rule still applies -- too much inflow equals "sleepy."
Another
manifestation, particularly in study or reading, is that "too much inflow"
means that you feel like quitting the study or reading. Another manifestation
is that you find yourself disagreeing with the material in the book. This
would be particularly true if it is a study subject and not a work of fiction.
Understand this, that you think your "disagreement" is a "real"
disagreement. If you examine this more closely you will often find that
your excessive inflow has caused you to NOT understand the material and your
so-called disagreement is really caused by your lack of understanding.
The surprising reverse of this is actually more true: Your failure to understand some particular word in a study text acts like an excessive inflow and causes you to disagree with the material, and/or to get sleepy.
Coming across some word in the study material that you do not understand, and not taking the time to clear that up, is like an extra large amount of inflow just at that point. That one word, that one hunk of inflow is often enough, right there, to make you sleepy.
In other words, it is easier to read something with no concern
for "understanding" it, .gif)
such
as a book of fiction, than it is to read a school book. "Easier"
means, here, that you are more sensitive to "excessive inflow" when
you are reading a study text, trying to understand
it.
When a student is in a course room, with a teacher, and other students, the balance between inflow and outflow is usually good. A good teacher understands this "inflow/outflow" concept and makes sure that she gives you a proper balance of the two.
In many course rooms the teacher encourages students to raise their hands to ask questions. "Raising the hand" is an outflow -- as is asking the question.
One of the problems with "self study" is that this form of study makes it very easy to have excessive inflow. There is no teacher, not much chance for outflow. The usual "web study experience" suffers from this. People go on the web, start reading, and give up. They think the material is "too confusing," but in fact it is just excessive inflow.
There
is certainly no shortage of "tutorials" on the web. Most of these do NOT
provide much chance for outflow. There is a tiny amount of outflow when
the reader is asked to click to go to the next page. But, most tutorials
and study material on the web are hopelessly designed and make people give up
study. When you add to this general problem the fact that most tutorials
cover subjects where there are new words, often without close-by definitions,
the extra "inflow effect" of these not-understood words guarantees that the
student will not understand the material.
I, personally, got particularly interested in developing my eCourses when I tried to understand a particular tutorial on the web. I really wanted to understand this subject, and spent some hours on the tutorial. I just couldn't get by one particular point in the tutorial. The tutorial told me to "click here" and then to "click" the button for the "random function."
.gif)
I
did the first click, and on that next page I could find no button for any "random
function." I went back to the very beginning of the tutorial
-- all the way through to the same point, and could not see any button for "random
function." I gave up. I am certainly not immune to this
rule of study -- excessive inflow makes you want to give up.
Knowing this rule is not enough. You have to go further and "do something" about it -- that something is the subject of my first eCourse -- How to Use A Dictionary.
Finally I went back to this tutorial and discovered some "black dots" on the page where I could not find that button! As far as I was concerned these "black dots" were just decorative!
Rather
accidentally I passed the mouse over one of those dots. Well! The
dot "expanded" into a short menu of choices that had been "collapsed" into that
black dot. There, as one of the menu choices, was "random function."
In the meantime, however, I had resolved that there had to be a better method of
teaching on the web! I had started my campaign to design better eCourses
than those research sources I had been finding in many years of searching and researching on the web.
So, there is the problem with many forms of study -- that the "course" is designed so that inflow is common and outflow is not.
With this background you see my first puzzle! How would I create "outflow" in my eCourses and how much outflow would be "right" to balance the inflow of the study material?
I started with an assumption that a study text that might
consist of two pages, on paper, was too much inflow. I decided to divide
the entire text into "study chunks." I decided to do this before
I'd heard
of the word "chunks" as used in study. When I looked into that subject I found
it to be terribly confused with foolish "educational psychology," and that while
"chunking" is a useful procedure, the explanations for it were worthless.
Click here for a rather common comment on
"chunking."
I decided rather arbitrarily on "chunks" of about four to eight paragraphs at one time. It appears to me that this amount of reading will take about 5 minutes or so.
With experience I may find that smaller, or larger, chunks are most effective. Obviously since people vary tremendously in their ability to inflow for long periods of time without getting sleepy, these short chunks may be shorter than they need for the best study system for these people. The real concern is that there may be some number of people whose "inflow index" is so low that they can't read even one paragraph without wanting to quit.
Here is some specific data about this related to one of my most popular web sites:
Generally those who study the behavior of web browsers realize that it is not unusual that most "visits" to a web site are extremely short. These browsers will often click on dozens of links in just a short while -- for whatever reason they do not often stay with one page or even web for very long. In the chart on the "source/link" page below you'll see that almost 80% of the visitors spend 10 seconds or less on one of my web sites!
Why DO so many people visit the web for such a relatively short period of time?
How could you increase the amount of time they spend on your web?
Could there be a large group of web browsers who are so full of excessive "inflow" that they cannot read something for more than 10 seconds before they quit??
If you do some math on the table at the link, you find that there were about 380 hours of "visiting," total, spent on this one web site during a one week period. So, while 80% of the visitors spent about 10 seconds each (11 hours total) there were enough of the other visitors spending so much more time that a total of 380 hours were spent on the web. In other words, 80% of the visitors spend 3% of the total time on the web, while 20% of the visitors spend about 97% of the total time spent on the web. These 20% of the visitors spend about 369 hours, total, on the web!
Obviously it is the 369 hours that results in purchases from the web. Thus some 80% of the visitors not only spend practically no time, but PROBABLY don't make any purchases either.
It is clear, then, that this web site attracts some considerable number of visitors willing to spend considerable amount of time reading web pages. This bodes well for their willingness to have the patience to do the Dictionary Course.
Obviously if I could find a way to motivate more people to spend more time on the web, I should expect to see an increase in sales! (Source)
So, I have arrived at what I hope is a good balance with the size of my study chunks. My hope and expectation is that "chunking" up the study material, plus the other features of my eCourses, will increase the number of people who spend MORE time on my web sites -- because they don't give up so quickly in reading.
The "trial and error" I mentioned above? Well, I can test chunks of different lengths to see if shorter ones, or longer ones, affect the use and results of the eCourses.
The concept of "interactivity" is fairly well
understood -- particularly on the internet. The typical browser who spends
several hours "cruising" the web will visit many different web sites.
Perhaps he is looking for something, not finding it, and moving on.
But, no matter what the reason is, he is moving on.
Every time he stops, probably to read a bit of some page, he is inflowing. Every time he clicks he is outflowing. Some of the reason for rapid clicking is certainly that he didn't find what he was looking for. But, some of the other reason for such rapid clicking may well be that he reaches his tolerance of inflow in a very short time. The educational psychologists don't have much of a clue on this, but they do give it a label -- short "attention span!"
When the study material is presented in short chunks and I then give the student an opportunity to outflow we may well have solved much of the problem of poor study results.
That "opportunity to outflow" is what I call "interactivity." It is simply the student interacting with the web. He reads a question then clicks on an answer. He inflows for a few seconds; he outflows a click; he gets an immediate "score" (inflow); he continues with more interactivity.
Right
click in the box next to this paragraph -- for an example of a audible
interactive event! After you put your mouse into the box, use a right
click. You should see the word "play" in your drop down menu. When
you click on "play" you should hear "typing" sounds. The sound will stop
by itself, or you can right click again and click on "stop." This is, of
course, a gimmick only, but it is also an example of interactivity.
Notice that you would easily get bored with this example of interactivity. The first time it is a novelty, but you would not click on that box hundreds of times! There is no purpose in that repetition. But, if there is INTEREST in whatever is interactive (for instance, as the-below example, if you were interested in the movement of atoms and electrons, you might keep clicking on the atomic model many times).
Here is another example of an interactive feature. Click to jump to this page -- see how long this interactivity interests you? Gimmicks like this may hold the interest of some people, but not for long. However, it IS an example of interactivity!
IF you are interested in the subject, you can learn from the inflow, and increase the certainty of your learning by testing (interaction) that material very quickly after first reading it.
Here is an example of web interactivity in a page I wrote about atoms and electrons.
There is, at the click, an example of the type of interactivity which often retains the interest of the browser -- because he can outflow as well as inflow. However, if he is NOT interested in the subject, then any amount of inflow is too much! (Source)
I have now demonstrated interactivity. You might want to try out a sample eCourse quiz to see what they are like -- click here. The subjects of the questions is not intended to be interesting. You do THIS quiz just to observe what an interactive quiz is like.
Notice, when you do that sample quiz, that the very instant you select an answer to the question you get a "feed back" from the program. If you selected the wrong answer, you had an immediate pop-up window that tells you just that. If you selected the correct answer, you had an immediate pop-up window that tells you that you got a correct answer.
If you notice, you also get a "score" somewhere between 0% and 100%. This score ONLY shows up when you have selected a correct answer to a question. You can have 100% score on the first question, get one wrong answer after that and you will never be able to go back to the 100% score on that quiz.
You can hit the "refresh" button on your browser to re-load the quiz.
For instance if there are two possible answers and you select the wrong answer first, then you cannot get any score for choosing the correct answer. There is no more skill required to choose the only remaining answer.
The formula for figuring your score is complex because it take into account the number of possible correct and possible incorrect answers.
There is a second type of score -- that tells you how many of the questions you answered correctly with ONE selection of an answer for each question.
The only way you can get a 100% score is to answer every question with a correct answer on the first choice. If you get 100% on only one question, you will not be given the next study text or next quiz. You must complete all the questions in one quiz -- even if you get an incorrect answer in one of the early questions.
If you get one incorrect answer and think you can skip doing all the rest of the questions? You figure you can hit the refresh button to just reload the quiz? Well, the program that administers this system makes a record of that. That action would count against you in terms of final graduation.
Now that you understand the interactivity of these quizzes, you should then also realize that any time you get an incorrect answer to any question that is an indication that you did not understand some part of the study text. If your purpose is truly to understand the material then you will not resist doing the quiz repeatedly until you answer all the questions correctly, with no wrong answers. That is what is called a "First Level of Accomplishment." You answer all the questions on a quiz, you answer them all correctly and you don't select any wrong answers.
Most quizzes have five questions on them.
Did the above seem like a stiff expectation to you? It is NOT the level of accomplishment that is expected on these eCourses.
For most quizzes you are required to take the quiz five times in a row perfectly. It may take you 25 attempts? But, if you study the short amount of simple material well, you should get the correct answers on your first time through -- 100% score with no incorrect answers.
Then you take the quiz again. The subject covered is the same study text as was tested in the just-complete quiz, but this time a different set of five questions is chosen randomly from the inventory of about 20 questions. Also, the questions are shuffled every time a quiz is loaded and even the answers are shuffled every time the quiz is loaded.
So, the second time you take this quiz you might have one or two questions that are the same as the first time you took the quiz, but the chances are that you will have almost all new questions. You need to get the 100% score on this second quiz, the first time through, to attain the "Second Level of Accomplishment."
Every time you do one of these quizzes perfectly you are increasing the certainty of your understanding of the study text. By the time you have done a quiz FIVE TIMES on the same study material, FIVE TIMES IN A ROW with 100% scores each time, you will find that you truly DO understand the study material.
The entire eCourse is structured this way.
I am serious when I say that I want you to understand this material.
Is "five" too many? Too few? I don't know! That is another part of the "trial and error" nature of this concept. It will take many students going through this eCourse before I start to get a feeling of whether "five times through" needs to be changed.
The purpose of the first eCourse is to create in you the "habit" of correct study.
You may not have, ever before, considered that it was necessary to get a perfect score. After all, much of society skates along on 55% of the right answers, don't they??
Part of the
problem with that attitude is that you can be skating along with 20% of the
right answers and never be aware of that fact -- you go through life making
mostly wrong decisions, based on selecting wrong answers to the questions posed
to you by life. You think you are at 100% or even just 55%, but in fact
you are at 5% or 25%!
You have just described the great bulk of humanity!
Once you get into the habit of expecting a perfect understanding of anything you study, you know that you can't get any better. You also know that you are NOT cruising at 25% speed!
This course will build in you the habit of expecting and getting 100% perfect understanding.
Do not despair! There is more to learning how to learn than just interactive repetition.
But, do keep in mind that it is your willingness to do this eCourse by the rules required, and to do it eagerly, that will create this habit for 100% perfection in your study. That is entirely possible with the technology disclosed on this eCourse.
So, the SCORE expected of every quiz is referred to as "5x100%" which means five times through each quiz, with different questions each time, with a perfect score each time.
If
you do the quizzes four times through, perfectly, and on the fifth time through
you get ONE wrong answer, you need to be "pleased" that you found the area that
you did not quite understand and that you can now go back and restudy as needed,
and start all over again to take the quiz ONE time through, perfectly, then the
second time, perfectly, etc., until you have done the quiz FIVE SUCCESSIVE TIMES THROUGH
PERFECTLY!
Remember this rule of 5x100% is being applied to just a few paragraphs and only five questions in a quiz. Some types of quizzes don't lend themselves to this "five times" rule.
Can you imagine the difference in your life if you were confident that you understood everything that you studied!
You would look forward to new events with great joy! You would be confident that you now know how to study and could study any new subject, using the habits and knowledge you have gained from this eCourse.
Memorization and repetition have been, for many years, considered very poor teaching techniques, yet the old truth of rote memorization is now coming back with increased recognition that memorizing by repetition is NOT understanding, but just "duplication." It is an essential part of good study practice. There is no way to take advantage of "repetition" without repeating.
The jewel in the crown of American pedagogy has long been Columbia University's Teachers College. Its patron saint, and of American education more generally, is John Dewey, whose idea of school as engines of social change led his disciples in the 1920s and 1930s to define their task as replacing the rigid, the authoritarian, and the traditional [such as memorization] with a school centered on the child's social, rather than his intellectual, functioning. The child would be freed from the highly structured school day, from testing, rote memorization, and drill. Books were to take second place to projects, reading to “life experience.” Cooperation would replace competition; the emphasis would be on the group rather than the individual. The elementary school pupil would learn about here and now, his neighborhood rather than places in the far-off past. The school was to be a socializing institute where children learned through active experience. (source)
The sad state of study in society today is a direct result of the damage done by John Dewey and a host of "educational psychologists" who were much more interested in influencing a child's social life than his intellectual life.
The multiplication tables, touch typing, piano playing, and many other subjects have long depended on repetition. Now it is become clear that there are important roles for repetition to play in the learning of ANY subject. (Source for more data. Most of the "modern" approaches to memorization suffer from other study failure problems, however.)
There is nothing to "learn" about the multiplication
tables. You just memorize them. One of the larger errors made by
many educators is to think that "repetition leads to 'understanding.'"
That is just not the way it works. A student needs to duplicate data before he
can understand it. If he reads "too" as if were "to," he will not be
understanding the usage, but more basically, he did not duplicate the word.
So it is with the alphabet. A is followed by B. There is no logic to this particularly, you just memorize that datum. While many people can recite off the full alphabet, very few can recite it backwards! If you can't recite it backwards, then it may well be that you have not memorized the sequence of each letter, but only a "pattern" of letters -- the sound of A, B, C, D, E -- leads you to say F without much thought, AS IF you had memorized it.
If you "learned" the letter "T" because someone taught you that "T stands for tiger" you were being badly taught. "T" is just a shape that you need to memorize.
Few can instantly tell you what is the third letter
after "R" in the alphabet. If they have to "sound it out, silently" then
they have not fully memorized the alphabet -- that is, they can't recall this
because they have never memorized that datum. When you are using a
dictionary you will often have occasion to arrive on a page with "angry"
and be looking for "anvil" and not have much clue
as to how far ahead, or even behind, it might be in the dictionary.
Repetition is one of the primary ways to create a "habit." Habits don't really require "understanding," but they do require repetition before they are real habits.
How long did it take you to "learn" how to tie a pair of shoes? If you tied those shoes over many years you could probably wear shoes that didn't need tying for several years, I'll bet you would still know how to tie shoes. A habit that is repeated often enough never goes away.
I still play piano pieces, by memory, that I learned some
65 years ago! I can play them even if I don't touch a piano for several
years. I played those pieces so many times that my fingers know where to
go -- it is a habit at the physical body level.
If something is "repeated" incorrectly, the variation in repetition will NOT lead to valid habit, so every repetition, particularly in the earliest efforts, must be carefully scored, with either correct or incorrect feedback messages being instantaneous.
There is an eCourse on this web that gives you a deeper understanding of the role of "habit" and "repetition" in study.
I mentioned above that excessive inflow leads to being sleepy and wanting to quit!
I also mentioned that when you go by some word that you don't fully understand, this "inflow effect" is greatly multiplied.
This is the one datum that, when you accept it and use it, will change your life forever. It takes some considerable persistence and personal integrity to learn this technology in a way such that it becomes a habit for you, and so that you have certainty on its validity.
Let's look deeper into this philosophy.
I wrote above that "inflow" and "outflow" need to be balanced. As you have seen that balance is what makes this eCourse so different from any other. But, there is an issue that you might have almost missed here.
I
used the example of reading as an "inflow" and talking as an "outflow."
These are two activities we are all very familiar with -- these examples of inflow and outflow.
I also used the example of clicking on a link as an "outflow" and catching a ball someone threw to you as an "inflow."
But, there is an enormous difference between an inflow of catching a ball and the inflow of reading a book.
In the first case, with a ball, the ball is an
object, not a symbol of something else. In the case of the book the inflow
is all of "symbols" ("words") that stand for something else.
Throwing the ball UP is an outflow. Catching it is an inflow. The
boy who is throwing the ball up and immediately catching it and again throwing
it up is inflowing and outflowing repeatedly, with a very fast change. Now
the question of how long he can continue to do this type of inflow and outflow
has to do with how interested he is in the activity.
If you are NOT interested in the subject of your study, you will not do well at
it -- no matter how interactive it may be!
The ball "stands for itself." Receiving the ball is the inflow, and whether the ball is made of leather, or green, or stolen does not change the fact that the ball flowed in toward you.
But, the word on that page! The word
could be "blue." All by itself this one word has entries
in a web-based
dictionary I often use -- entries from 13 different dictionaries or other
sources. Just one of these sources, American Heritage Dictionary, has
noun, adjective and verb types of definitions. There are also slang and idiom
meanings that include the word "blue."
There are 31 different idioms with the word "blue" -- where the word "blue" has a special meaning because of some other word it is often used with!
There are nine different definitions listed among the adjectives!
When you see that word, by itself, which of these dozens of different meanings is the "correct" one?
Let's put it in a phrase:
"lonely and blue in a strange city"; "depressed by the loss of his job"; "a dispirited and resigned expression on her face"; "downcast after his defeat"; "feeling discouraged and downhearted"
It happens that ALL these phrases are examples of the same definition for blue. But, let's try putting down a mix of phrases, combining different definitions for the word. Can you look through these phrases and tell exactly which of all the many possible definitions is being used?
When you inflow a ball, it is a ball. The significance of whether it is leather, green or stolen is much less of a factor in measuring the effect of inflow than the mass of the object.
Words don't have much mass -- they are small smudges of ink on a paper. The small mass of that smudge is the only mass you have -- the significance of that is hidden within its definition.
You know that you caught a ball! You may not know, when you read "blue" which of dozens of definitions it might be. The context of a phrase, you say, will give it to you? Well, consider these two phrases:
a long-unseen friend who appeared out of the blue.
criticism that came out of the blue.
There are two quite different definitions for
these two phrases. You can check all of this out
HERE.
There is much more to this!
When you study the subject of "tractors" you can either have a symbol (word)
such as "tractor," or you can have a picture of "tractor" or you can have a real
tractor parked in your front yard!
When you study the real
tractor there is constant inflow and outflow as you look at som
e
knob or wheel (inflow) and move your body (outflow). If you actually try
to drive the tractor you have both inflow and outflow going on, pretty much at
the same time. You are controlling the speed, or the steering (outflow)
and you are also observing the route and the dials (inflow)! This would be
the way to study that would almost completely avoid the "sleepy" problem most
students have with reading.
As long as you were really interested in learning about tractors!
Even
have a "study manual" about tractors where there were dozens of pictures of
various parts of the tractor displayed -- this method would be "better" than a
study manual with no pictures. The pictures give you some hint of the mass
of the tractor. The words give you no real substitute for the mass of the real
thing.
Opposed to all these "real tractors" and pictures is the most common method of study -- reading words in a book, or on a computer screen. When you read the word "blue" and are not quite sure of how many different meanings there are, or what would be the exactly correct definition, you can actually "pick up" mass and fall asleep!
This is a revolutionary concept -- not one that I intend to push, but only suggest as something to think about. You'll find more on this in the How To Use The Dictionary eCourse.
As the consequence of all the above, in this section, the study of any subject, to be successful, must ensure that the student understand individual words as he reads. When he goes by some word and wasn't quite sure of its meaning, you will find that the reading becomes a bit confusing. When he does this a couple times, or whatever, he is very likely to start getting sleepy.
This
"sleepy" is not an instantaneous "head falling to the desk" asleep! It
will start with a bit of fidgeting, an itch that needs scratching, a bit of
discomfort with the chair, a need to adjust the light so it is better -- or any
of dozens of reactions. In most cases the student thinks the "itch" is
real, and worthy of scratching. When and as he realizes that the "itch" is
just one of the ways he uses to quit some subject where he has skipped over some
word he did not fully understand -- then he will have started to understand and
apply this technology of study. At some point this advances to a slight bit of
drowsiness, and then perhaps a few eye blinks, and closings, and even a nod of
the head!
If you wait until you have actually fallen asleep, you have gone by many words that you didn't fully understand and now the job of clearing them ALL is much more complex.
Now you can see WHY the first course is "How To Use A Dictionary," since it is, exactly, USING a dictionary that is the remedy you need to apply when you find a word you do not fully grasp.
If you think that this subject sounds complex, just wait!
First, it is complex almost only because it is so foreign to anything you have been taught about study. Educational Psychology has a long an infamous history that I have written extensively about HERE. There IS a reason why test scores typically get worse and worse, the more years our students are exposed to the current teaching philosophy. It is "educational psychology" which has dreamed up theories on learning -- theories which, when applied, have been proven to decrease intelligence and learning.
Students, and parents, have been told, on the very "best authority" that the educational psychologists have the answer to learning. They do not. They miss the data presented on this page. Instead, the present false data about study, learning and child development. Many people will have to unlearn the false data they accepted from these psychologists -- making it all the harder for them to realize that they NEED this new approach to study.
If you haven't yet read that article, I urge you to do so. You will be amazed at the history behind the present deplorable state of study in society.
In other words, the very subject of "study," itself, contains much false data. "False data" means that there are words being used, within that subject, where false definitions are being used -- deliberately.
If you were VERY careful to check out the individual words in many of these texts, you would find that many of them have absolutely no meaning within the context. This is so true in the subject of health that I have had to spend a great deal of time exposing the false claims made by many companies. These are often false claims based on using certain words that have "emotional content" but do not have any useful meaning in the context where they are used!
Here is an example:
Apparently, according to the MLM promotional claim (in red), [Did you know that] water has some level of bio energy, but that this level needs realigning, balancing and enhancement? The Q2 machine will realign this energy. The Q2 machine will
balance it! The Q2 machine will enhance it!
How could there be any possible connection between such words and commonly understood physics and chemistry? There is no meaning to the word "balancing" that fits within the above usage.
What is the "bio energy" of water? You could struggle with a dictionary, trying to find some way to make sense of that sentence in red. You will fail.
If your "study interest" is to understand how to judge promotional claims, and thus select the right items for your own use, AND if you use the technology of study presented in this eCourse, you can detect these words being used "falsely" leading to "false data."
The sucker doesn't know what these words mean, but he is NOT interested in the science of this, but in the millions of dollars he can make in the MLM. He fools himself into thinking that this mysterious machine can make people healthy. But, underneath it is only greed that drives such dumbness.
In other words, his "purpose" for study of these promotional claims is NOT to understand them, but to be able to repeat this false data and persuade another sucker into falling for the claims. (source)
An important, even vital, element of study is that the student should have a purpose for studying.
There is some value in studying "French" for just the purpose of "learning" French, but the purpose part of study is far more effective when a person studies "French" so that he can "live and work in France."
The important part of "purpose" is application. Whatever purpose a student may have for studying any subject, he SHOULD have an application of whatever he learns as part of that purpose.
This is sadly missing in many students today. Kids go to college with no idea of why they are studying any particular subject. They will even brag that they are going to "discover" a purpose during their study!
A terrible purpose, but not rare, is "I'm studying this subject for the purpose of graduating from school!" Or, "for the purpose of getting a high grade!"
The best type of "application" will be expressed in the general terms of :
Changing Conditions
If your purpose is to "study French so I can then talk to people in France," there is, at least, "a" purpose. But, it will be found that study is more likely to be successful when the purpose is "I am studying French because I want to persuade French people to improve their laws about child welfare!" or some such.
The
"changed conditions" don't have to be something you might agree with. The
person who wants to study "bomb making" so that he can build better bombs, and
better blow up Americans? Well, that purpose may not be one you would approve
of, but it meets the criteria of his having a purpose which includes
"application" with the further purpose of changing conditions. That
prospective "bomb making student" is likely to be much more highly motivated to
study, and learn, than the kid who studies algebra "because
his mother said he should!"
Society might be better off with the kid studying algebra, and failing, than a successful bomb-making student. But, purpose is am important element of any study.
You should figure out what is your purpose in taking any course of study. "Idle curiosity" is not a very useful purpose.
Some of the philosophy of course design is also presented on THIS PAGE.
You might think that the intellectually gifted person, or the gifted student, would not need a course in How To Use The Dictionary?
Not true!
This eCourse presents a "technique of study" that is not native to a person. It is the very nature of the problem that when one has skipped over some word, not fully understood, he becomes confused and starts finding false reasons for his feeling that he wants to quit.
The gifted child may well know more words than normal kids, but this study phenomenon of skipping such words causes much mischief among gifted students also. An analogy might be that you can be very good at digging into a gold mine, making fast progress with your digging, but if you miss the vein of gold by two inches, you may as well have missed it by a mile.
The gifted person, or gifted student, may progress through this course more rapidly than others, but he will, even so, learn habits that make him far more successful, particularly in "self-study" or "home study."
For information on how the gifted students are now being "left behind" as the nation spends more money and attention on helping the poorer students, click here.
The original intention here was to design an eCourse system to cover many of the 100,000 pages I have already published on the web.
I knew, as a first step, however, that the great bulk of my visitors suffered from the failed teaching methods that have driven us to a nation of illiterates. Since I had come out of that downward spiral, personally, through study of the study methods developed by Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, I realized that the very first eCourse anyone would have to take would be a course on How To Use A Dictionary. That was the beginning.
I planned then to convert many of my major articles, already freely available on the web, to eCourses for which people would have to pay a fee for the superior method of presentation. Those are definitely coming along.
As I thought, for instance, about my 3,000 pages on diet, alone, I realized that an eCourse on "diet" would be too large. I figured that I would break that general subject into smaller chunks. So, at some time in the future I will develop an eCourse on "What Is A Protein?" and other similar eCourses.
But, as I further developed this concept, and in particular started planning for the "Learning Management System" which would administer these eCourses, I realized how rare this type of study is on the web. And, I know that the web is growing at a very rapid rate in its supply of information and services to a growing number of people on the planet.
So, I have broadened my vision of the range of eCourses that can and will be presented by this system.
Since the first course, the "How To Use A Dictionary" eCourse, is so vital, I've decided to follow that eCourse by many more in that same subject area.
For instance, when you do that course, you'll find very explicit instructions for how to look up a word in your dictionary. I have in mind, now, a series of small eCourses on how to look up SPECIFIC WORDS, following the approach presented in the larger eCourse.
I can see the great benefit in having an actual eCourse on one word -- the word "blue" for instance, described above as having many and very complex different definitions. When you consider the word "to" (or "too" or "two") and how to understand and use THOSE words, you open a very large door of opportunity for study of the very basics of language.
There is a desperate need in society for techniques for teaching any of the general subjects now taught in public schools -- particularly those grades where the students have their IQ and test scores DECLINING because of the very negative impact of today's teaching techniques.
It is no longer inconceivable to me that "Vibrant Electronic Courses" web site, and those many that may be licensed from it, can spread all over the planet, teaching in many languages, the many diverse subjects that our modern society (and some ancient ones) build into the standard curriculum.
For years I was pleased with my purposes in bringing truth to the field of health, and providing the simple answer to most problems related to heart disease and cancer. Surely those were sufficiently grand objectives for any person.
But, I see the crying need for good education as a far, far grander purpose, and am delighted to set my life and career off, at this wise old age of 72, to bringing about a true revolution in the field of study, applying the technology developed by Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, and widely available in course rooms -- applying this technology in the field of eCourses.
