Scott writes: > Some of us oldsters were taught deductive reasoning; however, I prefer the > inductive approach. Give sufficient very specific examples "good" and > "bad" > and let the students come up with the general rule. This sounds fine and dandy but it fails to address the following problems: 1. Variable IQ results in variable success on the part of students. 2. This means that as some students are not successful, the teacher must finally resort to direct explanation to make sure that everyone understands thus partially defeating the purpose of the original exercise. 3. There is ample research to demonstrate that students on the whole prefer the deductive approach. (refs on request) 4. The weaker students end up being passive as they know that sooner or later the brighter students (or the teacher) will provide the answer. Further, in my experience and based on a study done by one of my students, the brighter students resent being put with less bright students because they end up doing all the solving in group work 5. There are numerous problems which even the brighter students cannot solve. I doubt, for example, that there are many students who could work out the function of the semi-colon. 6. There is NO empirical evidence as far as I know demonstrating that the inductive is more effective than the deductive whereas at least in the case of SLA, there is ample evidence for the opposite. (refs on request). By the way, could Scott explain exactly what he means by 'deductive reasoning'.. Ron Sheen To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/