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The Didactron
Educators' Fiction
Life in a High-Tech Teaching-Learning Space

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The Heed

"Look at these pictures. The male and female students are expressing the six emotions: happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, and disgust. However, these are split and mirrored images. You are seeing each person's face as if composed of two left sides or two right sides.

"In all cases for men and women, the left side of their face shows the greater emotion.Watch the left side (your right as you face them) for you will gain more insight into their emotions than by observing their whole face or the right side."

Fran was working with teachers.

"I can't see that" someone said."It's pretty indistinct."

"That's true, but observe the other slides and, within the group, you will see it clearly. This is a subtle difference but by becoming a good observer, you can become a better teacher." She meant skilled observer, but she would not go back now. Recent experience with taped lectures and TV presentations had made her self-conscious about the roughness, flows, and errors in "live" presentations.

"This knowledge of the facial expression can give you only a few percentage points in improved interpretation, but these add up. We, as teachers, must be continually watching, reading the signs, listening to our students with more than our ears.

"So what?" Her favorite question. "Do you know what controls the facial expression?" She paused; the class squirmed. No one answered. Before nervous frustration set in, she answered for them.

"The right brain hemisphere.

"There we have dominant the analytic processes. There we have the left-handers pegged -- a clear connection; we can read most of them like a book. (Thus, we need to know handedness as I've expressed before.)

"So what? You want more?"In future meetings, sit where you can see the left side of people's faces. Realize your deficit when you cannot see entire faces (for example at a long table).

"We're biased innately, studies have shown, to think that the face to our left, is most expressive of the whole face. It is not.

"By knowing these basics, we can begin to master better our students."

Fran was a behavorist as well as a pharmacologist. She told a few confidants of how at boring faculty cocktail parties she would march some old goat around the room without him knowing what was happening. She would invade that invisible bubble of his personal space. He would retreat. She would continue the conversation, then invade again. He would retreat. She would then retreat continuing to talk. He would advance to keep the proper social distance for talking. These were traits known to her. There were cultural differences. An Arabian guest responded much differently than one from England -- they both were usually equally boring, so she had done the ethologist's cocktail party dance many times. _

"The insecure students go to the back of the classroom," she said to the teachers. "The wall is the greatest security; the corner a special place. A person who seeks a rear corner chair when few seats are taken is very insecure. He or she needs special attention and precautions in your approach.

"The non-glasses wearer who sits on the front row is either very confident, perhaps to the point of arrogance; or in need of attention and willing to take an abnormally precarious position in order to be close to the dominant person in the room. Knowing that does not give a specific recommendation to a teacher but it reduces the vastness of options and may prevent an early mis-step in relationships.

"These are animal-based behaviors. The corner with protected sides, is an excellent defensive position. In the open, you can feel the hair on your neck move as you think of your vulnerability.

"Hands held, legs crossed, eyes averted is a sub-dominant position -- a kind of dog-with-tail-tucked message."

She went on to describe noise levels in classes, the rates that students entered and left classrooms, and the changing sequence of the types of students that first enter class. These told her about her students. Of course she talked to them, but they often were not very open, often there was too little time, and often instant answers were needed. The first few days of any class are such times.Control as well as effective teaching for the students and avoiding mistakes - these were the reasons these techniques were needed in the first days of class.

She showed slides of key postures, then commented on a movie of a classroom explaining the behaviors seen. She then asked questions about another film, and students analyzed classes and individuals based on their newly learned insights.

"In the Didactron we have the Heed. It is a system for monitoring the class as the total of all people in it."

The teachers were already aware of the Heed. At each seat there were devices for monitoring each student's heart rate, skin moisture, blood pressure, and bodily activity or movement. Once these all had wires, but now the system was largely radio-based, freeing students to move anywhere in the classroom.

"On an oscilloscope screen can be seen the classroom dynamics. I can shout and scream and show anger or disgust and get predictable lines on this graph. There will usually be outlier students -- those that are thick-skinned and can shut out such action, but that is expected.There is an effort to work with the entire group. Each student's data are shown on their screen at their seat but it is captured and analyzed in connection with the taped lectures or presentation, with other students, and...of course...the teacher.

"The teacher is also wired up. When they tire, or become monotonic, or just plain boring, it is clear on the screen for the student as well as for the teacher. It is no more fair to let the teacher see the inner workings of the class than to let the class see the teacher's graph on the green oscilloscope screen.

"Students taught to 'work' a teacher can tell when they've fallen into the deep rut of a dozen lectures on the same topic. When seen, they can then lift that graph to new levels and great diversity. Teachers, (otherwise unaware of boredom or quiet within the group) may inquire (have you had this before?) or take other action.

"It is fairly well established that vigilance is needed for short term memory to occur. The Heed, all of the machinery, wires, radios, and programs that compose it, can show when such conditions exist and allow a teacher to present at the precise moment for maximum brainstorm activation brief material to be processed and memorized."

At each student station within the teaching rooms of the Didactron were large work areas. Each contained an eleven-number, 0 to 10, response device having keys like those on a hand calculator. The teachers would show a series of images with questions and answer options. The students would tap the correct number on the keyboard and the class average score on that question would appear on the screen. The teacher could, from the console, save each student's response and the total group response on the question. This allowed immediate feedback about the question and its content and later record keeping.

Where many gave wrong answers, it was time to re-teach or provide directions or explanations to the correct answers. The notion of a few large tests gradually slipped away from use in the Didactron for students mastered material as they went along under the watchful eye of the technology-aided teacher. Grading tests at home at night and then presenting such delayed feedback was no longer necessary and rarely tolerated. Such interruption had been known for years to be silly in any reasonable learning sequences.

Students could use other techniques such as marking wrong answers. On a scale of 1 to 7 or 0 to 10 they could then assign weights to perceived importance, intensity, and even certainty of a choice.

The same devices were used by teachers being taught by a superior teacher about teaching.In a few groups, experiments in evaluation were conducted. In the first years, the concept of the Didactron being an 'experimental facility' had been erroneously translated into it being a place for research. Research was done, but that was not a major intent. It was a teaching place but that now included study and adaptations.

"Today we shall evaluate your knowledge of and aptitude for managing a fire-fighting crew."A professor worked with a class in forestry.

Weeks had been spent in learning about fire fighting, about fire behavior and physics. Fuel moisture and type, wind currents, effects of weather, and the equipment and labor crews needed to attack a forest fire were all behind them now. They had used the full range of resources of the Didactron -- computer models, physical terrain models, movies of conflict situations, economic graphs, a field demonstration of smoke behavior and texts, and simulations. They had had to physically put out a fire in a log using only a shovel and earth.

The curtains were drawn away from a large TV screen. Stereo music was in the background. A fire situation was created. Maps, manpower, weather were all shown rapidly and repeatedly. The group quickly learned and saw the whole situation from views close to a fire line to an aerial flight photograph of the area. Teacher and students, as usual, were connected to the Heed. Students were assigned roles of leaders and workers. A leader was given a problem. Her responses were monitored. The teacher noted great anxiety. The teacher immediately pointed out her feeling and how to control it. It showed on the screen, before and after. The student and class saw the curve stabilize in 40 seconds. Many other student curves stabilized also, for they too were anxious as they struggled in the role: "What if I were in her shoes?"

The conflicts were resolved. Computer entries of decisions which were made caused a new scene to appear. The modeled fire had shifted as intended, but new problems arose. A worker was cut with an axe; the fire had jumped the line at X; a water pumping truck was stuck at Y; a fight had started in a prison inmate work crew which had been called for the emergency. Sarah was tapped; she was now to be in control!

At least up to that point, that was what she had been told. She had gotten the pieces very well. She was the typical straight-A student.She had learned to read the smoke columns, predict weather better than the average TV weatherman, and had memorized a fuels table -- for her own satisfaction. She had attended, front row, every role-playing situation in which fairly common occurrences were enacted (like the fire line injury). She was attractive, glib, and dominant. Her answers were typically solid. They were uninteresting and unimaginative, never humorous. They were the type you could take to court and know a jury would award an A.

She was straight A. Today she failed. She did not know what to do! She knew everything and nothing. She had the information but not the procedures. She could not process all of the information rapidly in a unique situation that was full of values.

Values are discussed but rarely used in classes. Priorities are discussed, rarely used. Risk is mentioned, rarely discussed, never used. She realized late in her school program how it felt to fail. Most of her student colleagues were well aware. They knew the feeling. This was her first, unqualified, total failure throughout high school and college. She cried. She was embarrassed at crying, also at failing. The Heed recorded it all along five dimensions. So were her peers reactions. Some were glad; others perplexed, incredulous; others very distraught.

The teacher's responses were as interesting as those of the "fire boss." Dr. Powell's anxiety, a sharply rising area on the oscilloscope curve was over whether to take this condition as given. But is not the role of the Didactron to change behavior? An F is an F! Is it too late? Why fail now? Can I change her processing in conflict situations sufficiently in the time available? What will become of her if I don't? Must we populate the agencies with those who are as dumb as dog dung but who can operate well in conflict situations? What does 'operate well' mean? Not cry? Rapidly? Informed, optimal, within sufficient time?

She consoled her, asked her which of the four conditions needed attention by her? Which were for information only? Which could she do anything about? Which needed the most immediate attention?

She then asked her to think about her answers, write the questions, and write other similar questions. The work had begun on developing within her a new process. She knew that she could, with the Heed, change the panic emotions with feedback, increase her multiple experiences to reduce novelty, and improve breathing and posture techniques.

Other students assumed the role of the fire boss. By the third one, 60 percent of the emotional and strategic situations in the educational unit had been engaged. Some students (not selected at random for being boss) felt they had not gotten a chance to use the system; others were glad they had not been exposed.

All had learned, for they were, at least on a secondary level, in the role of fire boss. The system was used once more. In the available time, 90 percent of the unit capability was used, 50 percent of the students had been in the 'fire boss' seat. All had changed substantially. The Heed analyzed data and pointed to two students who needed to be assigned the boss role and to use the unit.

"Preformed solutions, that is the answer" claimed Dr. Powell before the inspection and overview committee. "We do not give answers. We -) give pre-formed solutions for frequently occurring situations needing rapid responses. Everything is not new or unique. There have been thousands of forest fires, first-aid situations, cantankerous pack mules, hostile employees. Every graduate of this place does not have to solve creatively every situation…as if it had mysteriously appeared like some mushroom from the forest floor. I"

"But doesn't this school-solution approach stifle creativity?" A small group of visitors was discussing with her a class they had observed. One of the visitors was doing his job. The others were watching her, wondering, approximately, what a nice girl like that was doing in a place like this? Brenda was not a nice girl. She was the incarnate goal-oriented professional. She was as confident in her karate as in her craft. 'Nice' was a word that few people every considered calling her.

"I know of no school-solution approach. We have pre-formed solutions gained from the experienced people in our fields. These are for recurring, classical, and emergency situations. They are of the type used in medical schools. We collectively and cost effectively distill the working tools from the wealth of knowledge in reports and in current and retired staff. It is amazing how few truly new situations and problems exist. We've worked them out. They were taught, slowly, to apprentices years ago. Now we have new needs and situations, no apprentices. We do not need to have every person use every option before he can decide what is best. Experience is not the best teacher; it is too slow and costly and, in some cases, intolerably destructive. The teacher is the best teacher! The teacher of tried and proven solutions is the important teacher.

"The teacher of creativity is also important. That is a process. The key process in creativity is analogy. The pre-formed solution, besides useful in its own right, is an analog. How is this new problem like that old problem? I shall use the old as a template, a pattern, a paradigm to solve the new problem. This is what we expect students to do. We have intuitive as well as experimental evidence. It is what we all do.

"The pre-formed solution is thus information and analog for our, students. It is a small system, a conceptual unity, in which the wealth of the ages is brought to modern decision makers by the technology of the Didactron."

Another visitor didn't want any more long answers. He felt like he had to ask a question. "How long have you been here?"

"Four years," she replied. She had no idea what he would do with that answer.

Neither did he.

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Last revision November, 2007.