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Emotions and Learning - Christina - 20-07-2005
It is very clear that emotions have a powerful impact on learning. I have read about the impacts of fear, depression, stress, motivation, and attention on the brain's receptivity to learning. If anyone has come across a good article related to these topics, I would be very interested to read it. Thanks very much.
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 20-07-2005
Hi Christine...Biological underpinnings might have to be with rats or animals...or shall we stay with humans only. Rob 
Emotions and Learning - Christina - 21-07-2005
Yes, we can certainly discuss animal studies. They provide very useful information.
As my thinking on this is progressing, I am beginning to conceptualize learning as a holistic experience, with cognitive, emotional, and physiological components, where the distinction among the three is useful for discussion and study but an arbitrary product of the human tendency to categorize.
Has anyone read a psychological argument describing the human tendency to categorize?
Is anyone aware of other neuroscienctifically-based arguments for this type of “holistic†learning?
Rob… What do you think?
I am very excited to hear responses!
All the best,
Christina
Emotions and Learning - geodob - 21-07-2005
Hi Christina,
In conceptualizing learning as a holistic experience, I might suggest that we add a category for Motor Skills, given that the Cerebellum has been shown to be a factor in cognitive development.
Yet we may also bundle all of our 8 senses into another category, as well?
In regard to the psychological tendency to 'categorize'.
I have read studies that have shown that new born babies have an innate ability to count up to about 5. Also that many different animals have a 'number sense'.
Though it doesn't involve 'counting'. For example, if I put 4 pencils on the table in front of you. You wouldn't need to count them individually, to conclude 4.
Though for this 'number sense' to operate at this very basic level of a baby or animal. I would suggest that a primordial ability to categorize must be in automatic operation.
Yet it raises the question of how much variation is allowed amongst items. Before the brain excludes one or more? 3 blue pencils and 1 red pencil.
Or 3 pencils and a biro?
Is the biro or red pencil a different category?
Or a sub-category?
Where before long, we'll have sub-categories of the sub-category? And so on and on? Where sub-categories may then extend so far, as to now become more associated with another different category altogether?
Or perhaps this merging results in the development of a whole new category?
Which is integrated with other categories through this chain or network of sub-categories surrounding it. In an ever expanding process of category/ sub-category/ category/ sub-category development?
Is this perhaps how Nuero-genesis and Learning actually occurs?
Just speaking categorically?
Geoff.
It therefore occurs to me, that
Emotions and Learning - Christina - 21-07-2005
Hi Geoff,
Thanks for this. Your deconstruction of categorization is quite exhausting!
Yes, I agree about the motor component. I had intended to write, "with cognitive, emotional, and physiological components," not psychological components. I am sorry for this confusion. The body certainly plays a very important and integrated role in learning!
All the best,
Christina
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 21-07-2005
Hi Christina,The word holistic and it's history is interesting...I would not begin to subscribe to holistic learning. It is too political and there is enough politics in education as is. Too much. I do subscribe to the whole learner. I would pick and choose in the holistic area and in many others. But since I do not like labels, I enjoy doing it my way.
As a former superintendent of schools for twenty years, I have seen the many many excellent teachers who subscribed to different educational theories and stye and "what have you". In California the newspapers cannot wait to label you. The parents label you and your colleagues label you. Be eclectic and keep the learner the priority.
Best,
Rob
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 24-07-2005
Thought you might like some thoughts on emotion.URL: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/07.17/17-gaze.html
Be well,
Rob
Emotions and Learning - Christina - 25-07-2005
Dear Teachers,
Do you feel that emotions can be separated from cognitive processes in a classroom context?
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 25-07-2005
Hi Christina.I think it really depends on the age of the student. We have them as young as preschool and as old a I am. I can split emotion from cognition but not at all time during a hot board meeting........
RobI sometimes care too much....
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 27-07-2005
Emotions and learning are a good pair. When we think of emotions, generally we think of someone being emotionally upset or hurt feelings. Yet it can be also good strong involved and excited emotions. All types of emotions depending upon the intensity of the involvement in the student's project can affect learning...one way or another. I believe we have established biological underpinnings to provide a causal effect.Be well,
Rob
Emotions and Learning - Karldw - 27-07-2005
segarama Wrote:
Be well,
Rob
I am reading a paper that includes the idea of self-directed neuroplasticity. I see this as the objective of the teacher – to get the student to restructure his brain to acquire new knowledge ( self-directed neuroplasticity). The following from the paper relates to emotion and cognitive science.
“..."self-directed neuroplasticity" to serve as a general description of the principle that focused training and effort can systematically alter cerebral function in a predictable and potentially therapeutic manner
...
The introduction into neuroscience and neuropsychology of the extensive use of functional brain imaging technology has revealed, at the empirical level, an important causal role of directed attention in cerebral functioning. The identification of brain areas involved in a wide variety of information processing functions concerning learning, memory and various kinds of symbol manipulation has been the subject of extensive and intensive investigation .... Neuroscientists consequently now have a reasonably good working knowledge of the role of a variety of brain areas in the processing of complex information. But, valuable as these empirical studies are, they provide only the data for, not the answer to, the critical question of the causal relationship between the aspects of empirical studies that are described in psychological terms and those that are described in neurophysiological terms.
... the cognitive frame in which neuroscience research, including research on cerebral aspects of behavior, is generally conducted contains within it the assumption that brain mechanisms are in principle fully sufficient to explain all of the observed phenomena. In the fields of functional neuroimaging this has led to experimental paradigms that focus primarily on changes in brain activation as primary variables used to explain whatever behavioral changes are observed --- including ones understood as involving essentially cognitive and emotional responses. As long as one is investigating phenomena that are mostly passive in nature this may be fully justified.
...
When people practice self-directed activities for the purpose of systematically altering patterns of cerebral activation they are attending to their mental and emotional experiences, not merely their limbic or hypothalamic brain mechanisms. And while no scientifically oriented person denies that those brain mechanisms play a critical role in generating those experiences, precisely what the person is training himself/herself to do is to willfully change how those brain mechanisms operate --- and to do that requires attending to mental experience per se. It is in fact the basic thesis of self-directed neuroplasticity research that the way in which a person directs his attention, e.g., mindfully or unmindfully, will affect both the experiential state of the person and the state of his/her brain. The existence of this close connection between mental effort and brain activity flows naturally out of the dynamical principles of contemporary physics, but is, within the framework of classical physics, a difficult problem that philosophers of mind have been intensively engaged with, particularly for the past fifty years. The core question is whether the solution to this problem lies wholly in the eventual development of a more sophisticated philosophy that is closely aligned with the classical known-to-be-fundamentally-false conception nature, or whether the profound twentieth century development in physics that assigns a subtle but essential causal role to human consciousness can usefully inform our understanding of the effects of human consciousness in neuropsychological experiments that appear to exhibit the causally efficacious presence of such effects.â€
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 27-07-2005
segarama Wrote:
Be well,
Rob
Hi Karl,I don't believe this quote of mine is any more than what has already been discussed or proven about emotions affecting learning etc.
Be well!
Rob
Emotions and Learning - Karldw - 28-07-2005
Karldw Wrote:But, valuable as these empirical studies are, they provide only the data for, not the answer to, the critical question of the causal relationship between the aspects of empirical studies that are described in psychological terms and those that are described in neurophysiological terms.
assumption that brain mechanisms are in principle fully sufficient to explain all of the observed phenomena. ... As long as one is investigating phenomena that are mostly passive in nature this may be fully justified.
...
When people practice self-directed activities for the purpose of systematically altering patterns of cerebral activation they are attending to their mental and emotional experiences, not merely their limbic or hypothalamic brain mechanisms. And while no scientifically oriented person denies that those brain mechanisms play a critical role in generating those experiences, precisely what the person is training himself/herself to do is to willfully change how those brain mechanisms operate --- and to do that requires attending to mental experience per se. It is in fact the basic thesis of self-directed neuroplasticity research that the way in which a person directs his attention, e.g., mindfully or unmindfully, will affect both the experiential state of the person and the state of his/her brain. The existence of this close connection between mental effort and brain activity flows naturally out of the dynamical principles of contemporary physics, but is, within the framework of classical physics, a difficult problem that philosophers of mind have been intensively engaged with, particularly for the past fifty years. The core question is whether the solution to this problem lies wholly in the eventual development of a more sophisticated philosophy that is closely aligned with the classical known-to-be-fundamentally-false conception nature, or whether the profound twentieth century development in physics that assigns a subtle but essential causal role to human consciousness can usefully inform our understanding of the effects of human consciousness in neuropsychological experiments that appear to exhibit the causally efficacious presence of such effects.â€
Please reconsider the above. For self-directed activities (i.e. student learning) there is a question of adequacy of present interpretations. I hope you are not anticipating students who are a "phenomena that are mostly passive in nature".
Emotions and Learning - Karldw - 28-07-2005
segarama Wrote:
biological underpinnings to provide a causal effect.
Be well,
Rob
Rob
You bring many interesting facts to the forum, but I am not sure what you mean by the statement, “Emotions and learning are a good pair.â€
I would also like to know what the “...biological underpinnings to provide a causal effect.†are. Could you be more explicit?
Best
Karl
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 04-08-2005
Interesting URL.... Retrieved from internet,8-4-05Individual differences in trait anxiety predict the response of the basolateral amygdala to unconsciously processed fearful faces.
Etkin A, Klemenhagen KC, Dudman JT, Rogan MT, Hen R, Kandel ER, Hirsch J.
Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, Columbia University Medical Center, fMRI Research Center, 170 West 168th Street, Box 108, New York, New York 10032, USA. ae157@columbia.edu
Responses to threat-related stimuli are influenced by conscious and unconscious processes, but the neural systems underlying these processes and their relationship to anxiety have not been clearly delineated. Using fMRI, we investigated the neural responses associated with the conscious and unconscious (backwardly masked) perception of fearful faces in healthy volunteers who varied in threat sensitivity (Spielberger trait anxiety scale). Unconscious processing modulated activity only in the basolateral subregion of the amygdala, while conscious processing modulated activity only in the dorsal amygdala (containing the central nucleus). Whereas activation of the dorsal amygdala by conscious stimuli was consistent across subjects and independent of trait anxiety, activity in the basolateral amygdala to unconscious stimuli, and subjects' reaction times, were predicted by individual differences in trait anxiety. These findings provide a biological basis for the unconscious emotional vigilance characteristic of anxiety and a means for investigating the mechanisms and efficacy of treatments for anxiety.
Rob
Emotions and Learning - 4th grade teacher - 06-08-2005
OECD expert Wrote:Dear Teachers,
Do you feel that emotions can be separated from cognitive processes in a classroom context?
In a word, no.
In an ideal situation, teachers would have students that learn everything they are taught as soon as they are given the information, and would be able to produce evidence of understanding on their own. This is the image many of us have of education. If this isn't happening, then something is wrong with the teacher or the student. I believe there is nothing wrong with either except a lack of understanding of their emotions.
One example of this is in learning basic math facts. In fourth grade, students who can "automatically" give answers to times facts learn more difficult computation problems more quickly than those who don't. (Of course there are many students who are poor in timings and good at more complex computation, but when dealing with large numbers of children, teachers tend to look at the big picture.) So, many teachers have timings on these facts. Long ago, I realized that doing this as a group activity in the classroom was too destructive to continue. Students who acceled were exstatic. Everyone who didn't get the most felt bad. For a few, the competition made them work harder. For more than a few, the competition reinforced the image of themselves as being bad in math. Every year I have parents tell me their children hate being timed because for one reason or another they can't think quickly enough. Therefore, they say, math facts are not important, so please don't give my child timings. I say, let's give it a couple weeks and see how it goes. Now I have parents do individual timings in the hall. When students are by themselves, no one sees how they work, and every one of my students makes progress. The kids are happy, the parents are happy, and some of them even thank me.
I'm reading with interest the comments on this forum regarding the involvment of holistic learning, motor skills, physics, philosophy, and biological underpinnings. In order to understand the content of each message, I try to envision the person writing and their background to find their intent. Having an emotional understanding of the person helps to put into context their reasoning and use of words. This is another example of what teachers do in teaching literacy. All people have "voice" in their writing, no matter what they are writing. Voice is characterized by the writer's personality, which is based on the person's emotions.
So, separating emotions from cognitive processes does not seem do-able to me. In fact, I think it is quite necessary to develop a certain level of passion in learning. However, focusing, changing, containing in other words, dealing with emotions, is very do-able, and is, in fact, what teachers spend most of their time doing. Perhaps it depends on what you mean by separating.
Emotions and Learning - geodob - 07-08-2005
Hi 4th GT,
I must say that you have raised a most important overarching issue, in relation to the 'Timing' of Students performance!
Which I would suggest is a form of Emotional Abuse of Students?
Where as you suggest; Students who 'take the longest' to complete an exercise/test, arrive at the conclusion that they are 'Bad at that Subject'!
When this occurs repeatedly, then it establishes this 'Subject I'm Bad at', as a part of their personal identity. Which will remain with them throughout their entire life, when again encountering this Subject!
Which is equated with; 'can't do!'
Though more than often, it's simply a case of that they take a bit longer to complete the 'exercise'.
For which a Student should not feel condemned or inadequate!
Where in fact it may reflect that instead of an 'automatic' response, they reflect more laterally before arriving at a conclusion.
In regard to Elementary and Secondary School Testing of Subjects.
What is the relevance of Time/Speed to the Test?
Where surely the singular concern is with an Understanding of the Subject?
If a Student takes 'longer' to just as adequately answer questions on a Subject. Surely it is the quality of the Answer, not simply the Speed in which it was given that is the most important factor?
Yet, given the dominance of the Time/Speed factor in Testing, this brings with it varying degrees of Anxiety.
Which only serves to undermine an individuals performance.
Surely no Child should complete Schooling with an idea that they are: Bad At Some Subjects ? With their confidence completely destroyed!
Put in the 'Never to be opened again, box!'
Anyway 4th GT, you raised an issue that is of overwhelming concern to millions of Students and Parents.
Geoff.
Emotions and Learning - Christina - 08-08-2005
Thanks for your response. Allow me to share a neurobiological perspective on this...
Emotive and cognitive processes operate seamlessly in the brain (Davidson, 2003; Fischer and Bidell, 2005; LeDoux, 2002). This is because emotion and cognition are categorical concepts that do not reflect brain organization (Damasio, 2002). The brain is organized into assemblies of neurons with specialized properties and functions, a principle termed modularity (Ramani et al., 2002). These assemblies regulate very specific functions, such as spatial perception or tonal discrimination. A stimulus elicits a network response of various assemblies to produce a certain experience. Particular components of this experience can usefully be labelled cognitive or emotive, but the distinction among the two is purely categorical and not based in brain function (Davidson, 2003; Lane and Nadel, 2000; LeDoux, 1995; Morgane et al., 2005; Parrot and Schulkin, 1993; Rogan and LeDoux, 1996).
From my perspective, the emotion that your students feel when learning mathematics and the cognitive engagement in the task are not dissociable. It seems that you view the experience in a holistic way as well. Do others have similar or different perspectives on this?
Thanks,
Christina
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 18-08-2005
:o Interesting and fun Urls that I retrieved from the internet on August 18, 2005.
Emotions and learning....
URL: http://www.oecd.org/document/12/0,2340,en_2649_14935397_33813516_1_1_1_1,00.html
l
Have a good day.
Rob
Emotions and Learning - Christina - 02-09-2005
Dear forum members,
Are you familiar with Nel Noddings, The Challenge to Care: An Alternative Approach to Education? In a simple and striking question Noddings asks, What are our goals for our children? Let's take some time to answer this question...
~Christina
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 14-09-2005
Christina,I know that you have read this but it might be good for others who have not.....emotions, fear, etc.
URL retrieved 9-14-05 from internet.
Best,
Rob
URL: http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/fear-conditioning
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 14-09-2005
Emotions and fear are dicey... they can really hurt.I retrieved a URL from the Internet 9-14-05 also Url retrieved 9-15-05....and you can go there with this hyperlink; The Infinite Mind...very very good website to know.
Best, URL:http://lcmedia.typepad.com/katrina/
URL: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro98/202s98-paper2/Holt2.html
Rob
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 16-09-2005
Good articles....Amygdala.....URL retrieve today from internet.URL: http://www.thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_04/i_04_cr/i_04_cr_peu/i_04_cr_peu.htm
URL: http://www.psycheducation.org/emotion/amygdala.htm
URL: http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/news/in-vivo/Vol2_Iss16_oct13_03/Human_Behavior.html
URL: http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2005/01/eyes_wide_with_fear.html
Be well,
Rob
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 17-09-2005
Are fears learned? Let me state this another way. Can fears be learned? Can some fears be innate? Seems so.....Why are some fears innate while others are learned. Interesting read...by Thompson and Madigan, MEMORY: The key to consciousness [2005] Back of book cover comments by Larry Squire.These are just a few thoughts about fear....and fear does have some really interesting biological underpinnings. But why hurry...we will discuss them in due time. URL retrieve from internet 9-16-05
URL: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=fear+amygdala+learned+innate&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Search
Very good read: Emotions revealed by Paul Ekman [2003] ISBN 0-80-50-7275-6
Best,
Rob
Emotions and Learning - segarama - 27-09-2005
Hi....Interesting URL table of Contents...The Neuron.....about fear.......retrieved Sept.26, 2005 from the internet. You will need to follow up on the table of contents to the article...cannot send it.."Long Term Synaptic Changes Induced in Cerebellar by Fear Conditioning..."
URL: ttp://www.neuron.org/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS0896627304003034
URL: http://www.neuron.org/content/issue?volume=42&issue=6
best,
Rob