I am basically a teacher; so would like to analyze issues. When i teach a course in Denmark with this approach I get very high feedback. But when I taught the same course with this approach in my own institute, the students gave me a very poor feedback. I was baffled, why? They wanted to be taught with a training approach, I guessed. Most other teachers had adopted that approach as many of them are from industry. So next time, I adopted the training approach with the next batch of the same course. Interestingly, i got a very high feedback from them in my institute as well. This involved de-learning and new learning

Now, I have learned to adopt different approaches with different sets of students. It is not very easy to change your style, but somehow I could do that.

I am basically a teacher; so would like to analyze issues. When i teach a course in Denmark with this approach I get very high feedback. But when I taught the same course with this approach in my own institute, the students gave me a very poor feedback. I was baffled, why? They wanted to be taught with a training approach, I guessed. Most other teachers had adopted that approach as many of them are from industry. So next time, I adopted the training approach with the next batch of the same course. Interestingly, i got a very high feedback from them in my institute as well. This involved de-learning and new learning

Now, I have learned to adopt different approaches with different sets of students. It is not very easy to change your style, but somehow I could do that.

I think that the only thing I have to unlearn and relearn again is the history of my country! The official view is full of lies. (may be this is true for many counties!) My other knowledge essentially was accumulative.

Unlearning and relearning is ongoing process of life. It could be through either self realization or from the feed back.

Dear Miranda, thank your analythical questions asked and others ask, posted comments by you and by the others, I constantly review and rethink my personal concepts and approach to varieties and hybrids of learning process. So, I'm open to new ideas in learning process.

I agree with Kamal; discarding outdated information is part of the learning process.

The most expensive things is that you are ready to change your old principles if you recognize the absolute truth, if during your research, you really want to find the truth , just for this reason ! It is very strong!

Thank you, friends, for your views. It's all so encouraging. So let's say the new updated knowledge is about 2%. Then when the proceeding is published as a chapter in a conference book, I still keep the same title right? After all, the empirical results are all the same.

What is the best way to indicate that it has been revised when I got the new info? (I have added one new reference.)

How do you handle this case study as a teacher (see example below)?

Google Scholar .

Key word 'Art': 4.720.000 hits (0.05 seconds)

Key words 'Human art': 3.820.000 hits (0.03 seconds)

Key words 'Animal art': 3.110.000 hits (0.07 seconds)

Marcel,

When I typed ART, I got different data: 'About 4,940,000 results (0.04 sec)'.

Different again :)

Thanks @Lijo, I will make the few changes :)

We are living at a time of rapidly changes and of technological transformations that influence the daily life and the formation of the persons. To be kept updated in such a volatile and changeable world is simple, the problem is not of lack of information, but exactly the opposite. If there is a clear effect of the globalization it is an excess of information very difficultly to process, due to the immediacy of the news, the web 2.0 where every person can generate content in order that others we see it and the social networks. In the middle of this informative maelstrom, one traverses a serious risk of knowing too much of the immediate thing, and very little of the important thing.

Dear Rolando/Miranda et al.,

Teachers and students are overloaded with information. How to handle this reality?

Going back to art/ART:

If you have the time to discuss during a teaching course information from 10 sources out of 4 million sources listed, how do you proceed, accepting that the writers of the sources were confronted with the same information deluge? Perhaps teachers might focus on review papers. Review papers with imposed space limits will discuss let's guess 300 out of 4 million sources potentially accessible. One could argue that the 4 million sources are mainly discussing examples supporting a limited number of concepts/ideas/theories... Then the question is: which examples to be highlighted in courses (old versus new examples)....

How to define an education team being able to handle the fast growing literature?

- Do multi-author publications involving let's propose >80 co-authors help to up-date individual literature knowledge of participants?

- Are publications that are written and verified by >80 participants modern methods of teaching for those that are involved?

- Are multi-author papers less biased than single-author papers and therefore more valuable as a basis for teaching towards non-specialists?

I completely agree with Marcel in this connection.

Also in agreement with Marcel.

I'm constantly learning and updating, for reasons directly connected with my research, maths and statistics. Those are fundamental and daily developed issues.

Albeit in a tottally different perspective, I had to relearn how to use my hands after a nasty bite form a moray eel cut my 3rd and 4th finger flexor tendons from my left hand.

However, learning and relearning are strictly connected and are a permanente aspect of our daily work as scientists.

Cheers,

JP

Could someone explain the difference of learn and unlearn?

If I have to change an opinion, I don´t unlearn it, I learn that I was mistaken.

Dear All,

I think we look at and recognise things differently. In addition, we use a foreign language words of which have sometimes half a dozen different meanings. Regarding this thread, as I could see, approaches even to the question of Miranda seemed to be very dissimilar.

Miranda focused on her own feelings a bit(?) psychologically.

Debi concentrated on the demands and acceptance of students or the audience.

Costas had ethical troubles regarding the common behaviour (lying) of power. I can propose to him that his opinion can differ from that of the politicians but it is risky to fulfil.

Marcel, cannot choose among the very opportunities and sources. I think when teaching elementary things one should not (and cannot) teach according to the most recent information especially if the level of knowledge of students is not sufficiently high.

And Hanno recognised this little Babel and asked a very logical question.

An now, I do not know what may be the expectations of Miranda towards us?

What are the feelings of Miranda? She probably sleeps.

Cheers

Thank you friends, for your views.

@Joao: 'However, learning and relearning are strictly connected and are a permanente aspect of our daily work as scientists.'

@Prof Kamal: 'Unlearn mean erasing the mistaken information'

@Marcel and all, yes, I woke up just about 2 hours ago, at 8 am.

Dear friends, this was what happened. During our Intellectual Discussions, in 2010, we who came from school to the college, were advised by our seniors to view the Electron Transport Chain as having 5 carriers, of which 3 were trans-membrane proteins. So the 5 carriers are Complex 1 (carrier 1), Ubiquinone Q or carrier 2, Cytochrome c reductase (carrier 3), Cytochrome c (carrier 4), and Cytochrome c oxidase (carrier 5). This view is still correct.

But our seniors also told us that the trans-membrane proteins are to be called complexes. In that case, Cytochrome c reductase would be Complex II, and Cytochrome c reductase would be Complex III. However, after in Dec 2013, we were told to refer to another text, where Cytochrome c reductase should be Complex III and Cytochrome c oxidase should be Complex IV. [Unlearning and relearning #1].

The second matter of unlearning and relearning was that Complex 1 was to be given its formal name NADH-ubiquinone oxidoreductase, whereas in my song I said 'Complex 1: NADH dehydrogenase', meaning that complex 1 has the enzyme to remove Hydrogen and electron from NADH. I did ask 'Isn't a dehydrogenase an enzyme belonging to the class of oxidoreductases?' To that, the senior teacher agreed, but he said, we just use the name they suggest. [Unlearning and relearning #2].

I thank God, I had a chance to make corrections based on this unlearning and relearning when I was told to make changes to my conference paper, that would be compiled with other papers into a conference book. I am so thankful to all of you who view that: 'learning and relearning are strictly connected and are a permanent aspect of our daily work as scientists'. Thanks ;)

Dear Hanno and Kamal

Unlearning, apart from shedding the old information, as Kamal rightly said, mainly relates to shedding certain earlier attitudes and behaviours due to discovery of new facts, relationships, expectations, contexts, proprieties, realities, etc.

For example, when we emigrate to a foreign country, we need to unlearn all those attitudes and behaviours, that were our habit, and that are in conflict with the local culture there; and then learn new sets of attitude and behaviours so as to be acceptable in the new environment.

Likewise, when we interact with people from the new generation, we may have to change our existing attitude towards humans, beliefs, values, etc, as the new generation has different values and expectations of behaviour.

Also, for example, when you marry, you need to change habits so as to be in sync with the spouse's expectation, which may be a difficult thing. So, unlearning always is somewhat difficult, as habits get formed.

Unlearning may also involve ceasing to work with e.g. old technology as the new technology might have made the old one totally obsolete.

Thanks Prof Debi, so unlearning an relearning is not just confined to science or research. It's all important in many aspects of life. Great advice for young and old, for single an married people alike :)

The learning we get on RG is great.

Dear Debi,

I totally agree with your statements. We often have to change our behaviour by learning the old one is not more favourable and the new one is asked now. All of us know a lot of these situations. It´s one of our attributes, that we are posible to subjugate ourselves to the recent challenges.

PS1: Sometimes it´s not so bad, to keep old behaviour and not to match perfectly new situations. We have an "EGO".

PS2: My ask for "learning" and "unlearning" should not demonstrate missing knowledge of these facts but aimed to the diffuse linguistic construct.

Miranda: My pleasure, I have gained so much from RG. You are right; we need to learn in all spheres of life.

I will also say that de-learning and re-learning are two sides of the same coin. When we de-learn, our objective is to re-learn after that as per the new realities.

Dear Profs Debi and Hanno, and all: thanks for the lessons I learn on this thread. I learn fast because I'm humble and quick to admit my errors. I will do my best to remain in this blessed state :)

@Shashank: I agree with you about fast changing society. However the terms "unlearn" and "re-learn" is not so appropriate. When you learn something and you need make compatible with some other knowledge, then you do not "unlearn" but rather accommodate the old knowledge to new one. Let me give an example: Suppose a native Greek, has to live in US. Essentially he accommodate the way of living in Greece to that of US. He does not un-learn since when return to Greece he knows the habits there. Thus instead of the pair "unlearn-relearn" I propose the term "accommodate" the old to the new, even if this refers to Technology.

Miranda, I think it is a habit of me to re-learn. I always review those that I have learned, But I guess I do not and cannot unlearn. Things I ;learned which later turned out to be "bad" or good but later obsolete, are all part of my learning. Things I learned which later turned out a "mistake" serve as guide or warning to my new learning, Ed

Thanks friends. I like many things you have written:

@Costas: When you learn something and you need make compatible with some other knowledge, then you do not "unlearn" but rather accommodate the old knowledge to new one.

I also remember you views about unlearning the history of your country. What you say concerning other countries is quite likely...

@Ed: I agree:

'Things I learned which later turned out to be "bad" or good but later obsolete, are all part of my learning. Things I learned which later turned out a "mistake" serve as guide or warning to my new learning,'

@Miranda: I have just suggest that the terms "learn-unlearn" to be replaced by the term "accommodate". In the case of history of a country, of course you accommodate your history knowledge by clean it up from lies. The Piagetian terms Assimilation-Accommodation, is more appropriate terms than "learn-unlearn".

see my article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261412431_Gognition_Mathematics_and_Synthetic_Reasoning?ev=prf_pub

Chapter Gognition, Mathematics and Synthetic Reasoning

@Costas,

I agree with your proposal to eliminate the double "learn-relearn" by another combination term. I´m not sure that "accomodate" is the best solution, because not each new learning process is an accomodation, in the most cases it´s an extension of the earlier intellectual horizon.

Dear Profs Costas and Hanno: I will always consider your requests and that of RG friends, but just wait a while for some feedback, ok? I've been out for tea, to attend a farewell for my good friends who are transferred to other colleges. Some of us have been crying. I'll get back soon, thanks.

Dear All,

I have consulted my biggest dictionary. I am sure, our dictionaries differ hugely. Unlearn means in my dictionary forgetting something which was earlier well known or being out of practice.

I can be thankful to the continuous teaching (often four courses of various subjects at the same time) and the level of knowledge of the students that unlearning cannot threaten me. However, being a pseudo-addict of perfectionism I try to improve the standard of my subjects. Unfortunately, some students are not fond of this attitude.

Regarding new knowledge, task of a teacher is to present the newest but proved knowledge of a scientific field. Sometimes, I do this in vain because at BSc and MSc level degree holders cannot use this knowledge in practice.

Dear A.,

From an individual perspective I would say that all knowledge is new when you learn or see it for the first time. What is old knowledge for some is new knowledge for others...

@Hano: You are right in some respect. But learn-unlearn, essentially means that you unlearn something you already know and then you re-learn. As for learning something for the first time we have the term "assimilation". Have a look at my paper https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261412431_Gognition_Mathematics_and_Synthetic_Reasoning?ev=prf_pub

Chapter Gognition, Mathematics and Synthetic Reasoning

Dear friends, thanks for feedback. I have made a slight correction on the question, it must all be within 150 characters. Thanks, have a good day :)

Dear Costas,

I read your posts and paper with great interest and agree, that assimilation will be a matching description of learning for the first time. But could you comment please on the time scale of this assimilation process for adults and students, which info-intensity you suppose and and which existing structures or schemes you apell.

Dear Hanno,

To help other to follow the discussion let me copy a paragraph from my paper:

"Functions are biologically inherited modes of interacting with environment. There are two basic such functions: adaptation and organisation; organisation being the ability to form compound, higher order structures out of simpler, lower ones, while adaptation consists of a pair of dialectically opposing functions: assimilation and

accommodation. Assimilation is the process to ¯fit the `objects' or `events' to the existing `structures' or `schemes'.

These functions are depicted in the following picture:

These processes are related to evolution and they never stop. I should note that "structures" or "schemes" are the mechanism of brain that understand the real world "objects" and "events". So learning is essentially described by this theory. The "structures" and "schemes" are the ones developed by the brain's biologically inherited modes of interacting with environment. If these structures fit the given objects and events, then we say that we have an absolute knowledge, otherwise we have some good ot bad approximation to the true state.

@Costas et al., thanks for sharing your definitions of 'adaptation, organization, accommodation, assimilation' with us all :)