Thinking, Teaching, and Learning Words

Lecture 18

A

ccording to the Greek historian Plutarch, “The mind is not a vessel
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mean that education does not involve simply lecturing to students but
actively engaging them to construct meaning in an inspiring way. Learning,
in other words, is active. It’s also true that our minds are innately disposed
to detect patterns. In the process of learning, we look and listen for patterns
we already know to help us remember, store, and retrieve information. In
this lecture, we’ll explore words related to thinking, teaching, and learning
and, as always, apply some strategies for identifying patterns and similarities
among words to help us remember them.

Induction (noun)

The process of inferring general principles from individual facts or instances.

Deduction (noun)

The process of reasoning in which a conclusion necessarily follows from

the stated premises.

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to the general. Deduction is the opposite of induction; it’s top-down

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z Deductive reasoning is often introduced in philosophy with the

following syllogistic argument:

ż All men are mortal.

ż Socrates is a man.

ż Therefore, Socrates is mortal.