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Removing mention of Honey and Mumford
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Greg Wilson committed Jan 13, 2016
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Expand Up @@ -149,117 +149,6 @@ Baume's guide to
[writing and using good learning outcomes](papers/baume-learning-outcomes-2009.pdf)
is a good longer discussion of these issues.

## Who Are Our Learners?

The complement to clarifying the objectives for our lessons
is to be clear about who we're trying to teach.
One *[well-known scheme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Learning_modalities)*
characterizes learners as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic
according to whether they like to see things, hear things, or do things.
These classifications are easy to understand,
but are [almost certainly pseudoscience](http://www.amazon.com/Great-Myths-Brain-Psychology/dp/1118312716/):
what little evidence exists for them is very weak.

Another classification scheme developed by Honey and Mumford is based on an idealized learning cycle.
It is also frequently criticized,
but provides a more useful vocabulary for describing interactions with learners.
The four stages in the cycle are:

1. *doing* something or having an experience,
2. *reflecting* on the experience,
3. *concluding* from the experience (i.e., developing an explanatory theory), and
4. *planning* the next steps to apply or test the theory.

Different learners prefer to start with or spend more time in
different parts of this cycle.
This leads naturally to a four-way division:

<table>
<tr>
<th>Type</th>
<th>Learn best when</th>
<th>Learn less when</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Activist</th>
<td>
<ul>
<li>involved in new experiences, problems and opportunities</li>
<li>working with others in games and team tasks</li>
<li>being thrown into the deep end with a difficult task</li>
<li>chairing meetings, leading discussions</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td>
<ul>
<li>listening to lectures or long explanations</li>
<li>reading, writing or thinking on their own</li>
<li>absorbing and understanding data</li>
<li>following precise instructions to the letter</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Reflector</th>
<td>
<ul>
<li>observing individuals or groups at work</li>
<li>they have the opportunity to review what has happened and think about what they have learned</li>
<li>producing analyses and reports</li>
<li>doing tasks without tight deadlines</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td>
<ul>
<li>acting as leader or role-playing in front of others</li>
<li>doing things with no time to prepare</li>
<li>being thrown in at the deep end</li>
<li>being rushed or worried by deadlines</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Theorist</th>
<td>
<ul>
<li>they are put in complex situations where they have to use their skills and knowledge</li>
<li>they are in structured situations with clear purpose</li>
<li>they are offered interesting ideas or concepts even though they are not immediately relevant</li>
<li>they have the chance to question and probe ideas behind things</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td>
<ul>
<li>they have to participate in situations which emphasize emotion and feelings</li>
<li>the activity is unstructured or briefing is poor</li>
<li>they have to do things without knowing the principles or concepts involved</li>
<li>they feel they're out of tune with the other participants e.g. with people of very different learning styles</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Pragmatist</th>
<td>
<ul>
<li>there is an obvious link between the topic and job</li>
<li>they have the chance to try out techniques with feedback e.g. role-playing</li>
<li>they are shown techniques with obvious advantages e.g. saving time</li>
<li>they are shown a model they can copy e.g. a film or a respected boss</li>
<li>there is an obvious or immediate benefit that they can recognize</li>
<li>they are given immediate opportunities to implement what they have learned</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td>
<ul>
<li>there is no apparent pay-back to the learning</li>
<li>the event or learning is "all theory"</li>
<li>there is no practice or guidelines on how to do it</li>
<li>they do not see sufficient reward from the learning activity</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

## Learner Profiles

Another way to characterize the audience for a course is to write *learner profiles*.
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -290,6 +179,19 @@ A learner profile for Software Carpentry might be:
> It will also show him how to put his programs and files under version control
> so that he can re-run analyses and figure out which results may have been affected by changes.
> ## Pseudoscience
>
> One [well-known scheme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Learning_modalities)
> characterizes learners as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic
> according to whether they like to see things, hear things, or do things.
> This scheme is easy to understand,
> but are [almost certainly false](http://www.amazon.com/Great-Myths-Brain-Psychology/dp/1118312716/):
> what little evidence that does exist for it is very weak.
> Unfortunately,
> that hasn't stopped a large number of companies from marketing products based on it
> to parents and school boards.
{: .callout}

## Challenges

> ## Develop Learning Objectives
Expand Down

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