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.
Re: Stanford School of Medicine – March 21, 2012 – Imaging study reveals differences in brain function for children with math anxiety This study is important reading for anyone interested in understanding the emergence of neuroscience in support of unhealthy learning, maladaptive schema, and Mind-Shame. Absent from the article are two critical distinctions: 1) Math Anxiety is a form […]
Re Scientific American’s piece: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=mind-wandering-is-linked-to-your-wo-12-03-17 Working memory is but one of a number of variables to consider when it comes to staying engaged and not ‘drifting’ out. Another under-appreciated cause of mind wandering is the erosion of attention that accompanies skipping over things we don’t understand. Attention is constantly cycling in and out of coherence and […]
Re: “Tuning In to Dropping Out” in the Chronicle of Higher Education We could learn a lot more than we are about education through the lens of economics and economic models of thought. We’ve talked with Heckman, Hanushek, Rolnick and others about our general lack of appreciation for the ‘capital value’ of ‘healthy learning’ and […]
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: 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’ […]
