Hot spots:
Piaget's basic tendencies of thinking - Adaptation, Assimilation, Accomodation and Equilibration.
Page 38
Preoperational Children - Acquiring reversible thought, Conservation, egocentric thought patterns
Page 40
Concrete Operational stage - compensation and classification
page 42
Formal Operation Stage
page 43
"Do we all reach the 4th stage?"
page 45
Limitations of Piaget's theory
page 47
Questions:
Do we all reach the 4th stage compells me. Do we all reach the 4th stage???
Do people who uphold the ideas of racism and bigotry keep their thoughts/opinions in the concrete stage? Does what gets sealed in concrete stay in concrete?
Can't children sometimes demonstrate consideration for others? In spite of being egocentered?
Are all matters of inspiration some kind of equilibration?
Opinions:
In terms of conrete thinking and maturing into the formal operative stage, I wonder if that only parts of our logic mature into these ideals. I personally find that I have problems wrapping my head around certain matters but in others I can be quick or punctual with a response. I have also observed this when trying to explain some of my ideas about poetry in songs to some people who "just don't understand" what I am trying to say. Not that I am an oracle for understanding song lyric symbolism but it's odd.
In terms of racism, I have expereinced bigotted sentiments from other white people who would just assume that I am sympathetic to their nonsense. When I try to explain to them that the reasons for upholding racism are mostly misconceptions and say things like "well, you haven't met all the black people in the world" they're usually too annoyed by the topic to even open their mind for one conversation. I guess my main question is that, "Does what gets sealed in concrete stay in concrete?"
I feel like some kids have apparent decentered ideas. Once children learn the value of sharing I think they can understand that they'll have their turn on the tireswing, in the conversation, in the reading out loud group, etc... This gets into the idea of the limitations of Piaget's theories. In fact, the issue is not "concrete" unto itself but I believe that Piaget's work provides an interesting guide to the way most people might develop and grow.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
"How people Learn" Chpater 5
Hot SPOT(s):
In considering which findings from brain research are relevant to human learning or, by extension, to education, one must be careful to avoid adopting faddish concepts that have not been demonstrated to be of value in classroom practice. Among these is the concept that the left and right hemispheres of the brain should be taught separately to maximize the effectiveness of learning. Another is the notion that the brain grows in holistic "spurts," within or around which specific educational objectives should be arranged: as discussed in this chapter, there is significant evidence that brain regions develop asynchronously, although any specific educational implications of this remain to be determined. Another widely held misconception is that people use only 20 percent of their brains--with different percentage figures in different incarnations--and should be able to use more of it. This belief appears to have arisen from the early neuroscience finding that much of the cerebral cortex consists of "silent areas" that are not activated by sensory or motor activity. However, it is now known that these silent areas mediate higher cognitive functions that are not directly coupled to sensory or motor activity.
Some neuroscientists explain synapse formation by analogy to the art of sculpture. Classical artists working in marble created a sculpture by chiseling away unnecessary bits of stone until they achieved their final form. Animal studies suggest that the "pruning" that occurs during synapse overproduction and loss is similar to this act of carving a sculpture. The nervous system sets up a large number of connections; experience then plays on this network, selecting the appropriate connections and removing the inappropriate ones. What remains is a refined final form that constitutes the sensory and perhaps the cognitive bases for the later phases of development.
This phenomenon only occurs if an eye is prevented from experiencing normal vision very early in development. The period at which the eye is sensitive corresponds to the time of synapse overproduction and loss in the visual cortex. Out of the initial mix of overlapping inputs, the neural connections that belong to the eye that sees normally tend to survive, while the connections that belong to the abnormal eye wither away. When both eyes see normally, each eye loses some of the overlapping connections, but both keep a normal number.
Very young children discriminate many more phonemic boundaries than adults, but they lose their discriminatory powers when certain boundaries are not supported by experience with spoken language (Kuhl, 1993). Native Japanese speakers, for example, typically do not discriminate the "r" from the "l" sounds that are evident to English speakers, and this ability is lost in early childhood because it is not in the speech that they hear. It is not known whether synapse overproduction and elimination underlies this process, but it certainly seems plausible.
Experience in environment for brain development
Neuroscientists have investigated how the visual-spatial and language processing areas each come together in a different hemisphere of the brain, while developing certain new functions as a result of the visual language experiences. In the brains of all deaf people, some cortical areas that normally process auditory information become organized to process visual information. Yet there are also demonstrable differences among the brains of deaf people who use sign language and deaf people who do not use sign language, presumably because they have had different language experiences (Neville, 1984, 1995). Among other things, major differences exist in the electrical activities of the brains of deaf individuals who use sign language and those who do not know sign language (Friedman and Cocking, 1986; Neville, 1984). Also, there are similarities between sign language users with normal hearing and sign language users who are deaf that result from their common experiences of engaging in language activities. In other words, specific types of instruction can modify the brain, enabling it to use alternative sensory input to accomplish adaptive functions, in this case, communication.
From these findings, it is clear that there are qualitative differences among kinds of learning opportunities. In addition, the brain "creates" informational experiences through mental activities such as inferencing, category formation, and so forth. These are types of learning opportunities that can be facilitated. By contrast, it is a bridge too far, to paraphrase John Bruer (1997), to suggest that specific activities lead to neural branching (Cardellichio and Field, 1997), as some interpreters of neuroscience have implied.
Questions:
Does the concept of synapse creation and destruction support the ideas of "people can't change" or "you can't teach an old dog new tricks?"
Have people with abnormnal psychological tendencies (depression, mania, pedophilia etc) perhaps "learned" the wrong way?
Say for instance a young child witnesses his mother die a long a painful death. When that child is so effected by this tragedy, he resolves to one day become a Doctor to help people who are undergoing the same anguish as to fight the injustice in his heart. Almost like Bruce Wayne I guess in Batman - witnesses his parents get killed during a mugging and one day assumes the role of an above-the-law vigilante. Does the effect of synapse and memory/cognition have an effect on people who have experienced some sort of trauma? What about people with other psychological complexes? (Oedipus, Medea, Peter Pan, Bruce Wayne, etc) I know this might not directly deal with the aspect of teaching but it makes me wonder about things like this in general about what we learn to be reality......
Opinions:
This chapter was pretty enlightening. The sculpture reference really makes it clear to me (and not just because i am an art major.) Seeing that analogy put together with the concept of language development in children vs. adults is pretty fascinating.
Adaptive functioning was also a cool idea. It made me think of Bats because of their use of sonar to gauge distances.
Blood vessel development in brains for active creatures was an interesting idea as well. I am to learn that considering that I have heard random school subjects get spurned as "useless". Even I am at a weakness in my conceptions of Mathematics, where as I am good with writing, reading and creating, I cannot by any means bear math. And at a young age when I decided I hated it and it was useless, I guess I let learning the abstract concepts of math go completely. I always wished I could but now that I am taking this course I wonder if, perhaps, I was not exposed to the right form of instruction? I wouldn't dare say I wasn't partly to blame, heh heh.
Synapse pruning and modification were really the biggest reveleations for me to have in this chapter, mainly because it supports ideas of the freshness of young minds and the ability to learn (or re-learn) based on your experiences.
Overall, I am interested to be learning about the way people learn.
On my last note, I have always believed and told myself that "change comes from within." Change doesn't always happen because you want it to either... I guess you have to wait to be inspired sometimes.
In considering which findings from brain research are relevant to human learning or, by extension, to education, one must be careful to avoid adopting faddish concepts that have not been demonstrated to be of value in classroom practice. Among these is the concept that the left and right hemispheres of the brain should be taught separately to maximize the effectiveness of learning. Another is the notion that the brain grows in holistic "spurts," within or around which specific educational objectives should be arranged: as discussed in this chapter, there is significant evidence that brain regions develop asynchronously, although any specific educational implications of this remain to be determined. Another widely held misconception is that people use only 20 percent of their brains--with different percentage figures in different incarnations--and should be able to use more of it. This belief appears to have arisen from the early neuroscience finding that much of the cerebral cortex consists of "silent areas" that are not activated by sensory or motor activity. However, it is now known that these silent areas mediate higher cognitive functions that are not directly coupled to sensory or motor activity.
Some neuroscientists explain synapse formation by analogy to the art of sculpture. Classical artists working in marble created a sculpture by chiseling away unnecessary bits of stone until they achieved their final form. Animal studies suggest that the "pruning" that occurs during synapse overproduction and loss is similar to this act of carving a sculpture. The nervous system sets up a large number of connections; experience then plays on this network, selecting the appropriate connections and removing the inappropriate ones. What remains is a refined final form that constitutes the sensory and perhaps the cognitive bases for the later phases of development.
This phenomenon only occurs if an eye is prevented from experiencing normal vision very early in development. The period at which the eye is sensitive corresponds to the time of synapse overproduction and loss in the visual cortex. Out of the initial mix of overlapping inputs, the neural connections that belong to the eye that sees normally tend to survive, while the connections that belong to the abnormal eye wither away. When both eyes see normally, each eye loses some of the overlapping connections, but both keep a normal number.
In the case of deprivation from birth, one eye completely takes over. The later the deprivation occurs after birth, the less effect it has. By about 6 months of age, closing one eye for weeks on end will produce no effect whatsoever. The critical period has passed; the connections have already sorted themselves out, and the overlapping connections have been eliminated.
After the cycle of synapse overproduction and selection has run its course, additional changes occur in the brain. They appear to include both the modification of existing synapses and the addition of entirely new synapses to the brain. Research evidence (described in the next section) suggests that activity in the nervous system associated with learning experiences somehow causes nerve cells to create new synapses. Unlike the process of synapse overproduction and loss, synapse addition and modification are life-long processes, driven by experience. In essence, the quality of information to which one is exposed and the amount of information one acquires is reflected throughout one's life in the structure of the brain. This process is probably not the only way that information is stored in the brain, but it is a very important way that provides insight into how people learn.Very young children discriminate many more phonemic boundaries than adults, but they lose their discriminatory powers when certain boundaries are not supported by experience with spoken language (Kuhl, 1993). Native Japanese speakers, for example, typically do not discriminate the "r" from the "l" sounds that are evident to English speakers, and this ability is lost in early childhood because it is not in the speech that they hear. It is not known whether synapse overproduction and elimination underlies this process, but it certainly seems plausible.
Experience in environment for brain development
Neuroscientists have investigated how the visual-spatial and language processing areas each come together in a different hemisphere of the brain, while developing certain new functions as a result of the visual language experiences. In the brains of all deaf people, some cortical areas that normally process auditory information become organized to process visual information. Yet there are also demonstrable differences among the brains of deaf people who use sign language and deaf people who do not use sign language, presumably because they have had different language experiences (Neville, 1984, 1995). Among other things, major differences exist in the electrical activities of the brains of deaf individuals who use sign language and those who do not know sign language (Friedman and Cocking, 1986; Neville, 1984). Also, there are similarities between sign language users with normal hearing and sign language users who are deaf that result from their common experiences of engaging in language activities. In other words, specific types of instruction can modify the brain, enabling it to use alternative sensory input to accomplish adaptive functions, in this case, communication.
From these findings, it is clear that there are qualitative differences among kinds of learning opportunities. In addition, the brain "creates" informational experiences through mental activities such as inferencing, category formation, and so forth. These are types of learning opportunities that can be facilitated. By contrast, it is a bridge too far, to paraphrase John Bruer (1997), to suggest that specific activities lead to neural branching (Cardellichio and Field, 1997), as some interpreters of neuroscience have implied.
Questions:
Does the concept of synapse creation and destruction support the ideas of "people can't change" or "you can't teach an old dog new tricks?"
Have people with abnormnal psychological tendencies (depression, mania, pedophilia etc) perhaps "learned" the wrong way?
Say for instance a young child witnesses his mother die a long a painful death. When that child is so effected by this tragedy, he resolves to one day become a Doctor to help people who are undergoing the same anguish as to fight the injustice in his heart. Almost like Bruce Wayne I guess in Batman - witnesses his parents get killed during a mugging and one day assumes the role of an above-the-law vigilante. Does the effect of synapse and memory/cognition have an effect on people who have experienced some sort of trauma? What about people with other psychological complexes? (Oedipus, Medea, Peter Pan, Bruce Wayne, etc) I know this might not directly deal with the aspect of teaching but it makes me wonder about things like this in general about what we learn to be reality......
Opinions:
This chapter was pretty enlightening. The sculpture reference really makes it clear to me (and not just because i am an art major.) Seeing that analogy put together with the concept of language development in children vs. adults is pretty fascinating.
Adaptive functioning was also a cool idea. It made me think of Bats because of their use of sonar to gauge distances.
Blood vessel development in brains for active creatures was an interesting idea as well. I am to learn that considering that I have heard random school subjects get spurned as "useless". Even I am at a weakness in my conceptions of Mathematics, where as I am good with writing, reading and creating, I cannot by any means bear math. And at a young age when I decided I hated it and it was useless, I guess I let learning the abstract concepts of math go completely. I always wished I could but now that I am taking this course I wonder if, perhaps, I was not exposed to the right form of instruction? I wouldn't dare say I wasn't partly to blame, heh heh.
Synapse pruning and modification were really the biggest reveleations for me to have in this chapter, mainly because it supports ideas of the freshness of young minds and the ability to learn (or re-learn) based on your experiences.
Overall, I am interested to be learning about the way people learn.
On my last note, I have always believed and told myself that "change comes from within." Change doesn't always happen because you want it to either... I guess you have to wait to be inspired sometimes.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Friday January 25th, 2008
Hotspots: 1913 study of hungry cats, in order to escape the lockbox must pull a string. I found this interesting because the idea of being rewarded for their learning of how to handle the situation fueled their need to know it. The phrase "unobservable mental events" also appeals to me.
Questions: How do you objectively know when you are undergoing metacognition? Is it more natural for some than others? Do we understand parts of it better than other parts at first??
Opinions: I am interested in the way the online book sort of brings into a dynamic of different metaphorical (such as the artery/vein idea and the reference to children's literature) and practical viewpoints. I truly appreciate the fact that a book that is stressing a variety of venues in learning is sincerely illustrating clear, interesting examples of these ideas. It amuses me that here we are learning about learning and along the way we're being exposed to some of these new ideas. I am pretty shocked at how clever that is, ha ha ha.
Questions: How do you objectively know when you are undergoing metacognition? Is it more natural for some than others? Do we understand parts of it better than other parts at first??
Opinions: I am interested in the way the online book sort of brings into a dynamic of different metaphorical (such as the artery/vein idea and the reference to children's literature) and practical viewpoints. I truly appreciate the fact that a book that is stressing a variety of venues in learning is sincerely illustrating clear, interesting examples of these ideas. It amuses me that here we are learning about learning and along the way we're being exposed to some of these new ideas. I am pretty shocked at how clever that is, ha ha ha.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Well....
I have not successfully obtained a textbook and I fear I will be unprepared tomorrow for the textbook reading... I am just gonna read the online book twice and hope for the best... Hopefully Donna won't frown upon it too harshly
-M
-M
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The first chapter of How People Learn (online book)
I have always felt a sort of unknowing connection to the facts we read in the first chapter of the online book. It's interesting to me how information is presented to a class and how each individual absorbs it in their own way.
It's also interesting to realize how different teaching and learning must be from when we were kids. To think what has unfolded to today's youth in terms of social and technological development it is quite a prospect when I think about becoming and teacher and what I hope to one day impart onto others. I am also respectful of the fact that there is an all-encompassing idea that reaches into the psychology of education which includes all kinds of behavioral and psychological aspects. It's sort of like the difference of an old way of thinking someone who is "Mad" or "Crazy" to when people began to become sensitive to the needs and causes of the insanity. To be "Mad" was simply to be written off as an insane person but now we realize that there are many multi-faceted levels of mental functioning (for better or for worse)
Personally I also found the reference to Leo Lioni interesting not only because he was one of my favorite authors as a kid but because when remembering such classics as Fish is Fish, it made me recall Swimmy the Fish which focused on the necessity of integration and different kinds.
Anyway, I feel as though I've blogged enough. Ta ta for now
-Mike
It's also interesting to realize how different teaching and learning must be from when we were kids. To think what has unfolded to today's youth in terms of social and technological development it is quite a prospect when I think about becoming and teacher and what I hope to one day impart onto others. I am also respectful of the fact that there is an all-encompassing idea that reaches into the psychology of education which includes all kinds of behavioral and psychological aspects. It's sort of like the difference of an old way of thinking someone who is "Mad" or "Crazy" to when people began to become sensitive to the needs and causes of the insanity. To be "Mad" was simply to be written off as an insane person but now we realize that there are many multi-faceted levels of mental functioning (for better or for worse)
Personally I also found the reference to Leo Lioni interesting not only because he was one of my favorite authors as a kid but because when remembering such classics as Fish is Fish, it made me recall Swimmy the Fish which focused on the necessity of integration and different kinds.
Anyway, I feel as though I've blogged enough. Ta ta for now
-Mike
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