I'm continuing a thread started in The Curse of Knowledge, Part 1 about process modeling, teaching excellence and success, and statistics that aren't. Process modeling is (in my opinion) probably the more powerful teaching-learning method there is. It's used in all cultures to teach all kinds of things...that have great history.
This is where NextStage comes in. The examples I gave in The Curse of Knowledge, Part 1: The mother who cooks while her daughter or son is first watching then helping then experimentally cooking preparing the main meal while mother looks on is learning via process modeling. The tribal elder who makes a flint tool while the youngster first watches then helps then tries a few knaps then proudly makes a high-quality spear tip is learning via process modeling.
You can appreciate that these models aren't as common as they use to be in western industrialized, informationalized society.
This means that the first step in process modeling any modern activity is creating a model of that activity and...umm...knapping it until you have the model honed to the point where it's razor sharp. This modeling involves some highly evolved mathematics.
This brings us back to statistics and statisticians who are not.
The truth is, process modeling is always successful when certain base line conditions are met. But how to explain this to a statistician, especially explaining to the statistician that the numbers he was looking at weren't where he should have been looking.A real challenge in any educational environment, especially ones in which a given methodology has acquired protected status, is convincing stakeholders that the protected methodology is invalid. This problem is compounded by surrounding that educational environment with a business paradigm. It's kind of the enigma wrapped in an illusion. Put a bow of misunderstanding your metrics on top and you have The Curse of Knowledge; someone knows just enough to convince others to look in the incorrect place for something that doesn't exist there, then uses whatever they find to claim understanding.
The Curse of Knowledge. It's not just for breakfast anymore!
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