The problem with testing for abstraction

...students learn by doing. Testing for abstraction on an exam can’t be the only way we’re evaluating student learning. If I had taken an exam on leadership in World of Warcraft, I would have likely failed, because the way I was engaged was through the practice of performing the leadership, not by talking or quizzing on it. Thought leader within the game-based learning movement, James Paul Gee, refers to this type of learning as “Situated and Embodied Learning,” where the learning is ...

 Intelligence in Animals, Humans and Machines

To build software that is deemed intelligent, it’s helpful to begin with a definition of intelligence. Intelligence can be simply defined as a set of properties of the mind. These properties include the ability to plan, solve problems, and in general, reason. A simpler definition could be that intelligence is the ability to make the right decision given a set of inputs and a variety of possible actions. Using this simple definition of intelligence (making the right decision), we can apply ...