Pedagogically-strategically, leading learners into confusion means we can meet them in the confusion – we can arrange to be together in the confusion. For both their learning and ours, feedback, from their experience of confusion, is the best possible source of intelligence from which to tune/improve instructional design.
Higher Vocabulary ~ Higher Intelligence ~ Higher Income = Reading Matters It must be added that the differences in vocabulary here are not differences learned in oral conversation. After grade 4 vocabulary growth is largely driven through literacy not speech. Because most of the difference in adult vocabulary is a result of reading, using vocabulary as […]
Working Memory: IQ is not fixed. For better and worse, learning changes IQ. Because intelligence both shapes and is shaped by learning our conversation about the plasticity of IQ is another case in point for: “I” become the “me” I learn to be.
In response to a Harvard University release summarized by Brain Mysteries: Re: Wiring the brain, through experience Whether our brain’s ‘wiring’ starts minimal and extends through learning or starts maximal and is pruned by learning is less important to our common understanding than ‘getting’ that (to a profoundly significantly degree) our brain’s wiring is learned.
This is in response to David Roberts’ article: “Getting used to being in charge of the planet” David Roberts (DR): “the decisions made by people alive today will determine the fate of life on Earth for centuries to come” Yes. And, it’s always been true that what each generation profoundly affects the generations that follow. The […]
The following is in response to Pat Smith’s piece in the Columbus Dispatch, which I highly recommend. http://goo.gl/UA26f With gratitude and respect, a couple of points: 1) A lot more than 1/3 of our kids are in danger. Every child that is reading below the proficiency level assumed by the written materials in his or her […]
A company has developed software that can compete with human authors in writing news stories. Education Week (4-12-12) put out a similar story about a computer competing with college professors at scoring essays. Extreme Tech carried a story (Will an IBM computer be your next mayor?) about the use of IBM’s Watson to manage the […]
From “Brain Mysteries” 5-2-2012: Tape measures. Rulers. Graphs. The gas gauge in your car, and the icon on your favorite digital device showing battery power. The number line and its cousins – notations that map numbers onto space and often represent magnitude – are everywhere. Most adults in industrialized societies are so fluent at using […]
This is the first in a series of posts that explores the brain processing issues underlying difficulties in learning to read. In this post we focus on ‘processing stutters’ and their relationship to ‘processing speed’. We also establish the ‘speed of language’ as a baseline for understanding the processing speed demands of reading.
More great evidence for the vastly under appreciated role of learning in brain health and development – another example that not only do “I” learn, “I am learned” – we become who we learn to become. Highly recommended reading. Wall Street Journal: 4-30-2012 The Bilingual Brain Is Sharper and More Focused, Study Says
