Observations on observations...

While I was in Kruger, I had a lot of time to think and learn about observing and learning new things. There were a few specific experiences I had that prompted these thoughts. First, I was trying to learn new birds and to identify trees. I found that I had been trying to look at characteristics that were not defining in order to tell them apart, rather than characteristics that are more appropriate. The color of a bird's wings is less telling than the length of their legs, and the shape of their beak. Those things tell about their habitat and feeding habits. The color is pretty, but not necessarily defining - what if the bird is female or adolescent? They won't have the same color as the male shown in the birding book's artist rendition! Once I knew what to look for, it started to make more sense and I was able to learn more. With trees, the shape of the bark and the color of it is more important than the shape of the branches, which had previously held most of my attention. It's also hard to say something about "pointy leaf shape" if you don't have other leaf shapes to compare to, so being able to identify requires familiarity with a range of similar things. The other thing that really got me thinking about this was when we saw a dwarf mongoose run across the road quickly. If you had asked me what it was, I would have said it was a squirrel, because they are similar sized and scurry in a similar manor and are both brown. Because I am not familiar enough with the mongoose characteristics, my brain saw "small, scurrying, brown" and filled in the details that I am familiar with.

This is really interesting for me as an education researcher. It is well known that students will sometimes say they saw something different happen in a physics demonstration from what actually happened. This is known as "confirmation bias" - students will think what they thought would happen did actually happen. My favorite physics education person also says that when showing students a new phenomenon to observe, it is important to point out to them what to pay attention to. They won't know what details to focus on. I always thought it was kind of cheating to point out what to look for - but now I see it's important. If I wasn't pointed out what aspects of birds and trees to look for I would not have been able to start learning about them. (It's also funny how this ties into Ontology - how we characterize what is fundamental - which I've been discussing in detail with my host's masters student...)

Those are my thoughts on this, anyway. I always find that pushing myself to learn something new that I find difficult helps me learn about my students and is really beneficial.

I hope I have typed this clearly... All year they have been doing renovations to the physics building at UCT, and currently they are hammering right outside my window... The first day I was here there were 4 guys on scaffolding looking in the window at me - kind of creepy!