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 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
From Brain Mysteries 4-20-12: “We’re seeing that there are a lot of effects of social status on genes, including our own, but we are also seeing that many of the changes aren’t permanent …” Tung said [ lead author Jenny Tung, a visiting assistant professor in Duke University’s evolutionary anthropology department]. This study is “just the tip of […]
Re: Kids’ Cognition Is Changing—Education Will Have to Change With It (The Atlantic 2-29-12) Real educational reform must start with reforming the very mission of education. In the face of the ever increasing rate of techno-social-workplace changes taking place we have to stop assuming that ‘what we think children should learn is more important than […]
The Brain Clock “Times” featured a story entitled: “We only use 10% of our Brains anyway!” The story, while dispelling the “we only use 10% of our brain” misconception, perpetuates an even more insidious one. The author traces the origin of the 10% myth back to William James who is reported to have said: “We […]
Re: Greg Laden’s Blog: Modern Neuroscience Verifies a Peircian Idea Interesting reference to a recent paper in Neuroscience related to the role of long-term memory in orienting attention. It offers an interesting paradigm that is related to our interest in the ‘cycle of engagement’ that enables and constrains learning.
Re: Discovering How to Learn Smarter http://mindshift.kqed.org/2012/02/discovering-how-to-learn-smarter/ Responded on two levels: 1) re: self-esteem: There is a difference between self-esteem as accumulated positivity and self-esteem as a buoyant absence of self-negativity. Of the two major domains of unhealthy learning, maladaptive cognitive schema and unconscious emotional aversions, the later, and in particular ‘mind-shame’, is largely the result of learned self-disesteem. 2) learning about the […]
The post asks: Will the science of the brain give us new ways to engage with kids to improve their chances for lifelong learning? My response: No doubt brain science can provide us valuable information about the difference between brain ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ learning. But it must always be remembered that there is a ‘being’ […]
