“’Seeing’ Sounds: Echolocation by Blind Humans” By Christine
Uy
This article is basically focused on the problem of echolocation. What makes
this research particularly interesting is the author’s attempt to extrapolate
the experience and knowledge concerning the world of animals, notably bats on
human beings. In fact, Christine Uy traces the similarities and differences
between the abilities to echolocation bats and blind human possess. Remarkably
she finds out that humans also possess such ability. To put it more precisely,
on analyzing a serious of researches and developing her own research the author
emphasizes that blind people are able to learn echolocation not simply to detect
objects in their environment but also the dimension of objects, including their
size. At the same time, the researcher indicates that human ability to define
distance is closely related to the size of an object that makes them different
from bats since the former can perceive distance in isolation from size of an
object while for the latter they are interdependent.
In this article, the author uses statistical information which actually could
be represented the data of researches more widely in order to support her position.
At the same time graphs and tables are practically absent though they could
contribute to visualization of the comparison between bats and people and reveal
the difference that research demonstrated.
Obviously, this article is quite noteworthy because it refers to very important
problem of echolocation that is traditionally attributed to the animal world
but as the author reveals this ability may be used to facilitate the life of
blind people. It is a very important point for the further researches aiming
at the improvement of the position of blind people. Furthermore, this article
is quite persuading and interesting to read for different audiences due to understandable
language and vivid examples and it is not overloaded with statistics to the
extent that some additional information in form of graphs or tables could make
the article even easier for perception.
“Multiple Intelligences Power Up Math Teaching” by Mark Wahl
The article concerns the problem of teaching math in American schools. The author
identifies an extremely important problem that often the variety of methods
of teaching math does not really provide students with profound knowledge and
this is the dilemma he attempts to solve in the article. On analyzing the current
situation he arrives to the conclusion that it is extremely important to develop
not only math intelligence but a variety of intelligences that, according to
the author, could increase the efficiency of learning and make the process of
learning easier and more interesting for students. Basically, what he suggests
is the use of multiple intelligence approach since it develops different skills
and abilities contributing to the general improvement of students perception
of the learning material.
Obviously, the author uses few statistical information that is obviously insufficient
for a persuading argument though the article possess sufficient amount of statistics
for an ordinary reader.
Anyway, this article, being quite interesting to read is still lack persuasiveness,
not in the last turn due to the lack of statistics. In such a situation even
examples and practical recommendations can be hardly positively assessed since
for a critical reader they may be not sufficient enough to support the author’s
point of view.
“Using WebQuests to Teach Content: Comparing Instructional Strategies”
by Janet Strickland
The article represents a profound research of two different instructional strategies
and their impact on students learning perspectives and perception of the learning
material. To put it more precisely, the author compares WebQuests with traditional
instructions, notably in the experiments students completed a WebQuest and a
poster activity. In fact the author attempts t o convey to reader all details
of his research, methods he used, the experiments that were held and their results.
Eventually, Janet Strickland reveals that students completing a traditional
poster activity gained higher scores compared to those completing a WebQuest.
Naturally, the author attempts to find out the reasons for such a difference,
practical implications of the study and even future perspectives of researches
in this field.
This article is sufficiently supported with statistics and even includes tables
that is an obvious advantage of the article compared to the previous articles.
At the same time, statistics is used where it is essential for better understanding
of all stages of the research.
In general, the article may be characterized as a very interesting and profound
research that reveals to readers all details of the study by Janet Strickland.
It is important that the author does not simply inform readers but explains
the details of experiments and research, supporting it with essential statistics,
though it is possible to recommend to use more examples in order to make the
article less sophisticated and easier to perceive. On the other hand, the profoundness
of research is really impressing and what is more it indicates at the future
perspectives of researches dedicated to the problem the author of the article
discusses.
Bibliography:
1. Strickland, Janet. Using WebQuests to Teach Content: Comparing Instructional
Strategies, Retrieved Oct. 18, 2006 from http://www.citejournal.org/vol5/iss2/socialstudies/article1.cfm
2. Uy, Christine. ’Seeing’ Sounds: Echolocation by Blind Humans,
Retrieved Oct. 18, 2006 from http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~husn/BRAIN/vol1/echo.phpl
3. Wahl, Mark. Multiple Intelligences Power Up Math Teaching, Retrieved Oct.
18, 2006 from http://www.resourcefulhomeschooler.com/files/MarkWahlMathArticle.phpl
