Purposive Drift

Just-In-Time Education

I am always slightly amazed at the way that relevant stuff just seems to pop up when you are working on a project. I say "slightly amazed" because by now I shouldn't be surprised. But despite what I know intellectually it still seems like magic. Of course, the magic lies in what you notice and that depends upon what you are paying attention to at the time.

I was reminded of this the other day when I came across a conversation with Neil Gershenfeld in Edge, which was stuffed full of interesting ideas. What leapt out me was some something he said about just-in-time education:

"...You can view a lot of MIT's instruction as offering just-in-case education; you learn lots of stuff in case you eventually need it. What I'm talking about is really just-in-time education. You let people solve the problems they want to solve, and you provide supporting material they can draw on as they progress."

Now the concept of just-in-time education was just what I need for a little project I was hurrying through with little time for the research and the thought that seemed to be needed. Now the point I am making here is that is that I wasn't looking for this concept. I didn't arrive at it through careful research. In fact, I found it when I was distracting myself from what I felt I "ought" to be doing by cruising round the web. Perhaps this is yet another example of the importance of allowing yourself enough time to "drift".