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The Glossary
What do we mean by Analyze? Synthesis? What are Conventions? All of the operational terms that come under cognitive taxonomy, academic tools, and categories of knowledge must be defined. Interdisciplinary committee members need these definitions. Students need them. Not only must we define them, we must give familiar examples. Conventions, for example, that relate to punctuation and spelling in reading and writing must be associated and equated with math conventions. The Glossary also helps the faculty integrate basic themes, such as ethics, law, ecology, into the curriculum.
One of the roles of the helpdesk mentor is to mediate these terms so that the student can not only understand them but to obtain a psychological "feel" for the unity of knowledge. Classroom lectures cannot do this. Computers, textbooks, books, and worksheets cannot do this. Only the mentor can bring elegance to this process.
From years of field usage and study, nearly every day the mentor will discover a new term that should be defined. The more disciplines represented in our interdisciplinary committees the broader must be the reach of the Glossary. For these reasons we must be able to update the Glossary frequently. We must keep it "on-line" and easily updated. It is the one function of the Matrix program that keeps everybody working in concert.
FairPlay has done much work to develop a glossary for the integration of math with reading and writing. But much work needs to be done to include social studies, history, music, and the sciences. The Document Summaries on the next two pages nutshell the work that FairPlay has done and has yet to do. The FairPlay Publications Catalog indicates when these documents will become available. See the left border for these links.
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