Teach the Brain Forums

Most all of us learn better when we have a motivation or reason to want to know something. I found that when teaching about the brain and education et.al. that if the student has a prior knowledge connection to be tapped then they learn much much better. An example of this is: Class: Masters canididates in education and psychology: Name of class: Discover Learning in the Mind, Brain and Body.

When teaching this class I allow a great deal of latitude, when going outside the box [so to speak] to make a cogent point. My students are very interested in neurological diseases and the latest research. Mainly because they have someone they love or an aquaintance with MS or Parkinson's disease etc. etc. With a strong disclaimer not to go outside my ken when speaking of the anatomy and physiology of the brain, I make it very clear that I am not an expert on disease nor pretend to be.

For example a number of students are interested in MS and how it seems to affect people. This gives us a opportunity to discuss neurons in detail along with the synapses and the myelin covering the axon. Right here we have several critical subjects for the students to peak their interest. We can discuss how the communication occurs in the neuron and that the axon is critical for this purpose. We can discuss the demyelination of the axon and actually show through video snaps on the internet the loss of action potential from the axon that harms and is pernicious to communications and other symtoms of MS. My students seem to be really "fired up" and bring newspaper articles and journal articles etc. that they are now somewhat familiar. This lesson on MS will bring in more than twenty-five or thirty salient neurobiological and anatomical areas of the brain and nervous system.

Teaching about the brain and education can be very exciting when students become the driving force and the teacher is the catalyst. What experiences have you had by tapping the students' interest or prior knowledge? Please share them if you like.
Best,
Rob
Segarama

Hi Rob,
I just came across a summary in the latest online edition of Denmark's Learning Lab newsletter of the 5 insights that have been compiled in a "Gold Guide" by the Danish Ministry for Family and Consumer Affairs. Although aimed at teachers from 0-6 I think it gives some interesting ideas in response to your posting about learners only taking in things of relevance etc., and the importance of allowing children to develop as individuals, and that a child should not learn something just because it will be a benefit in later life, and that these concepts should be instilled at a young age. I'd be interested in your response.
See: http://www.lld.dk/consortia/playlearning...forgold/en

Quote =OECD Administrator:
I just came across a summary in the latest online edition of Denmark's Learning Lab newsletter of the 5 insights that have been compiled in a "Gold Guide" by the Danish Ministry for Family and Consumer Affairs. Although aimed at teachers from 0-6 I think gives some interesting ideas in response to your posting about learners only taking in things of relevance etc., and the importance of allowing children to develop as individuals, and that a child should not learn something just because it will be a benefit in later life, and that these concepts should be instilled at a young age. I'd be in interested in your response.

Hi OECD Administrator,
Thank you for your reply. I don't believe that I said that learners only take in things of relevance. My comments of course were referring to wage earning adults in a graduate master's degree program. Where many students have families to support and little time for the combination of work, family life and school. Yet I am extremely interested in your comments and the "Gold Guide" of which I am not familiar. However I am very familiar with the education of young children being a former superintendent of schools for twenty years and the headmaster of the elementary division of the International School of Lusaka in Zambia, Africa for a year through the auscpices of the Office of Overseas Schools in Washington D.C.(school to school program) ... years ago.....however.

The International School of Lusaka was comprised of children from 32 nations; grades one through 12 and included the Israelis and Arabs durning difficult times at home. My wife and two young children and I flew into Lusaka International Airport with a group of families from Denmark who were scheduled to attend our new school for the year. We were all meeting together in a far away country to spent a years time together educating each other. We ate dinner many weekends with families from India, Denmark, Austrailia, Canada, Israel, Egypt, etc. etc.

Since my task was to head the elementary division, I was particularly interested in the different stages of learning that each child brought with them. Their early years are very important and I was most interested.

I will particularly address the children from Denmark since the Danish Parliament in 2004 passed an Act calling for every day-care institution for children aged 0 to 6 to produce educational teaching plans outlining goals for children's learning, activities and the pedagagical methods applied to reach these goals. I read the five key learnings setforth and communicated by co-author Jesper Olesen. It is important for those reading this to know that my school district in the United States had child care beginning at 7 weeks of age up to the end of sixth grade for all employees' children (great recuiting tool for good employees).

Spending a year with the Danish families shed a great deal of light on their educational philosophy. The Danish children used their early years 0-6 or even older than 6 in some cases to interact with their environment and build a plethora of early experiences that when formal reading and math etc. was taught the child was really ready.

We found without exception that the Danish children learned easier and quickier in our one year than any other of the 31 nations represented.
The five learnings setforth in the Gold Guide are not surprising to me since unless we REALLY KNOW what their objectives are then the five learnings are
just words. To really know what the politics or educational reason behind the report and knowing how education in Denmark is philosophically espoused then the words could be anything at this point. They do believe in experiencial learning and do not mandate the formal education until the children are ready. (This may have all changed, but the Danes are well adjusted and well educated people on the things that they hold important.)

I have put in a call to the Danish Ministry for Family and Consumer Affairs and the Danish Ministry for Education. I am curious about the 2004 legislation and what it really means. They will be back to me after the first of next week.
Change of plan...I will be gaining information over the internet rather than the telephone...I have signed up for their mailing list. We Americans are always in a hurry...which brings me to comment on your question. It is my opinion that children are learning a great deal through their play. As a matter of fact, it is vital for the 0-6 group in particular to learn for the present since that is how they build the knowledge base, creativity and verbal communications. I read over portions of the March 2004 Act by Parliament and it does not really preclude children learning in the present and having fun doing it. The parents still have a major role in what they feel is good for their children. More and more children are attending day care in Denmark[as in United States], it is a good idea to be sure that the teachers and students are providing a warm learning environment with many hand on activities. [I believe it is wise for them to re-think their 0-6 program since the day is long]
Be well,
Rob

Thought this would be good. I enjoyed it....learned something too.
Best
Rob :o

URL http://www.msnbc.com/modules/brain/

Professor Kurt Fischer and the dynamic learning lab that he operates at Harvard along with his plethora of experience make a presentation regarding learning that I believe is important. You will come to a picture of Dr. Fischer and in the box at the right of him, you will find the word presentation. That is the hyperlink that you use to watch Dr. Fischer speak.

URL: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features...12004.html

Enjoy,
Rob

Excellent URL....if you want to see a fine review of the body and review of the underpinnings, you might find this interesting.

URL: http://www.brainexplorer.org/brain_atlas...ndex.shtml

Best to you...

Rob

New news.....Url retrieved 8-17-05
Rob
URL: http://www.rxpgnews.com/research/neurosc...2085.shtml

Of course learners form better constructs [n] when relevant information is experienced. It is relevant because it has the prior knowledge to back it up. Things are most often more interesting if you know just something about something....but not always....some constructs are built with neuronal networks that are chronologically premature, but new to the learner.

Remember learning is physical.
Best,
Rob

In relation to prior learning, I would offer this quote from How People Learn:

Research has also indicated that the mind is not just a passive recorder of events, rather, it is actively at work both in storing and in recalling information. There is research demonstrating that when a series of events are presented in a random sequence, people reorder them into sequences that make sense when they try to recall them (Lichtenstein and Brewer, 1980). The phenomenon of the active brain is dramatically illustrated further by the fact that the mind can "remember" things that actually did not happen. In one example (Roediger, 1997), people are first given lists of words: sour-candy-sugar-bitter-good-taste-tooth-knife-honey-photo-chocolate-heart-cake-tart-pie. During the later recognition phase, subjects are asked to respond "yes" or "no" to questions of whether a particular word was on the list. With high frequency and high reliability, subjects report that the word "sweet" was on the list. That is, they "remember" something that is not correct. The finding illustrates the active mind at work using inferencing processes to relate events. People "remember" words that are implied but not stated with the same probability as learned words. In an act of efficiency and "cognitive economy" (Gibson, 1969), the mind creates categories for processing information. Thus, it is a feature of learning that memory processes make relational links to other information.

What this highlights to me, is the crucial role that relational links play in the memory process.
But crucially, if direct relational links, [or prior knowledge I would suggest]. Do not exist.
Then the Brain will use 'Inferences' to process it into memory.
Where as noted in the above quote, inferences can easily lead to 'false' memory/ understanding?
Which in turn results in 'false memory' becoming the prior knowledge.
So that further learning is built from this false memory.

Perhaps the inferential processes that the brain utilises in learning?
Has some parallels with Experiential Learning?
Where experiential learning provides new accompanying inferences, rather than relying on Students already having valid inferences to refer to. Which may or may not be accurate?
Though isn't all learning about developing prior knowledge, from which to draw inferences? Which are surely developed in synchrony.

Geoff.

Thanks for this Geoff! This is a very interesting example of contructivism.

The following work provides an interesting sociocultural extension of constructivism:
Smagorinsky, P. 2001. If Meaning is Constructed, What is it Made From. Toward a Cultural Theory of Reading. Review of Educational Research, Vol. 71, No. 1, pp. 133-169.

All the best,
Christina

Of course learners form better constructs [n] when relevant. If we are discussing learning then, we must be talking prior knowledge...and prior knowledge is relevant in all cases of learning. Just learn incorrect knowledge or nonadaptive knowledge and see how relevant this is.....this is a problem that is not an easy fix.
Best,
Rob

January 4, 2006

Learning, memory, etc. etc...... all seem to be more active and motivated when the instructor is pleased and excited about the curriculum. Children really love to read stories that they personally or through imagination have a connections with.....I am thinking of my young granddaughter who experiences life so fully the she has many things she learns well becomes of her positive attitude during learning [ prior learning]. Things become more relevant the more they are brought within the circle or web of child's or adults choices.
Be well,
Rob

March ll, 2006

Good Morning

We have absolute proof that learners form better contructs [n] when relevant.

In Eric R. Kandel's new book titled: In search of memory, winner of the nobel prize speaks candidly of memories that he will never forget EVER...when a boy in Germany during the NAZI domination of his home land. Some things that Professor Kandel experienced will never ever be forgotten since they were up close and person...such as the holocaust.

We read things with more motivation and intensity when we are personally involved and relevant.

The first chapter in Eric Kandel's new book is called Personal Memory and the Biology of Memory Storage.

Very good read.
Best,
Rob

Memory: Is VERY IMPORTANT...

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March 12, 2006

Good Morning,

Oliver Sacks calls Eric R. Kandel's new book "A Stunning book." Oliver Sacks states in the inside cover of Kandel's new book....MEMORY BINDS OUR MENTAL LIFE TOGETHER......I believe this to be so very true....I am going to give you more information on this excellent book....

Book: In Search of Memory by Nobel Prize Winner Eric R. Kandel: The Emerence of a New Science of the Mind. @ 2006 by Eric R. Kandel, ISBN 0-393-05863-8 (Hardcover) USA $29.95

Very interesting book that really makes you think....
Best,
Rob

March 15, 2006

Good Morning,

Every book, journal article, newpaper etc. that I have read is grounded in prior learning [a physical change in the brain]. When we learn things in isolation for no particular reason then the dearth of motivation of nonrelevancy comes in to play. An example of this could be the the study of biology. When I took biology in college many years ago, I was doing the memorizing thing....not the understanding thing because there did not at that time seem to be any compelling reason to understand it. Now the new science of learning tends to point out relationships that make biology much more relevant.

Eric Kandel points out in his book In search of memory: The emergence of a new science of the mind that the importance of understanding is fundamental to learning and memory. Along with Harry Grundfest (1904-1983) Dr. Kandel's professor at Columbia University, Kandel was encouraged to realize the importance of understanding how nerve cells function and Dr. Grundfest's resolve on a "cellular approach to brain funtion was critical to the emergence of the new science of the mind".
Kandel points out that the biology of nerve cells (neurons) is grounded in three principles...that we have come in contact before yet, this puts it in real perspective for me. These three principles seem to form the core of our understanding of the brain's functional organiation.

l. Remember the [B]neuron doctrine [/B](the cell theory as it applies to the brain). We went into detain on this form regarding the fact that each neuron is a separate entity delineated with dendrite receptors et al. to axon terminals....there is a synapse between each receiving neuron. The neuron doctrine was formulated by Spanish antomist, Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934). The neuron doctrine again the cell theory as it applies to the brain states that the "nerve cell, or neuron, is the fundamental building block and elementary signaling unit of the brain."

2. The second principle of the ionic hypothesis focuses on the transmission of information within the nerve cell. This is where individual nerve cells generate electrical signals, called action potential that travel the length of the individual
neuron. This I suppose could be said is intraneuronal travel until it gets to the axon terminal...right before the synapse that divides indivual neurons from one another.

3. The chemical theory of synaptic transmission focuses on the transmission of information BETWEEN the nerve cells. It describes how one nerve cell COMMUNICATES with another nerve cell by releasing a chemical signal called a neurotransmitter, the second cell recognizes the signal and responds by means of a specific molecule in the surface membrane called a receptor. "All three concepts focus on individual nerve cells.

Principals number one, two and three were quoted and/or paraphrased from the writing in Eric R. Kandel book In search of memory. [2006]

A very good read...
Be well,
Rob

April 19, 2006
Good morning,

Learner form better constructs [n] when relevant...what could be more relevant that yourself! Check Dr.Kathie Nunley's newsletter on the internet url.

................"Hearing one's own name in everyday situation is an attention
grabber as it causes a sudden rise in our self-awareness." Researchers used
PET scans to see what happens in the brain when we hear our first name. They
found a significant cerebral blood flow change in the right superior temporal
sulcus and an even stronger change in the medial prefrontal cortex, suggesting that
this region plays a big role in our processing of "self". Perrin, F. et al. (2005).
Neuropsychologia, Vol 43(1), 12-19.
Retrieved from the internet today:Kathie Nunley's Educator's Newsletter.

Rob

June 14, 2006

Good Evening

Does this refer to experential learning? Sure it does!
Best,
Rob

June 21, 2006

Good afternoon
The Yale Initiative retreived today from the Yale University on the internet is quite interesting....enjoy... URL: http://www.teachers.yale.edu/story/gov/i...p?page=gov
Best,
Rob