Nice interview from Salon with scientist Shimon Edelman about how scientists are discovering neural patterns to the behaviors and activities that make humans happy; turns out the act of learning is often more rewarding than what we learn:
Shimon Edelman, a cognitive expert and professor of psychology at Cornell University, offers some insight in “The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life.” In his new book, Edelman walks the reader through the brain’s basic computational skills – its ability to compute information, perform statistical analysis and weigh value judgments in daily life – as a way to explain our relationship with happiness. Our capacity to retain memories and develop foresight allows us to plan for the future, says Edelman, by using a mental “personal space-time machine” that jumps between past, present and future. It’s through this process of motivation, perception, thinking, followed by motor movement, that we’re able not only to survive, but to feel happy. From Bayes’ theorem of probability to Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Edelman offers a range of references and allegories to explain why a changing, growing self, constantly shaped by new experiences, is happier than the satisfaction any end goal can give us. It turns out the rewards we get for learning and understanding the workings of the world really make it the journey, not the destination, that matters most.
Great article from The Atlantic about how squeezing recess and playtime out of education is a really bad idea:
Play is important for the emotional, social, cognitive, and physical development of children. In addition to being critical for general health and a preventative against overweight, play develops life skills for children and communication skills among peers and family members.
Children living in poverty experience these barriers and more, according to a recent clinical report from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Underprivileged children often have less access to recess and school-based creative arts, music, and physical education programs. Additionally, the socioeconomic stressors on poor families often conspire against parents having the time, energy, or skills to engage in play with their children.
Poor children’s access to outdoor play spaces may be compromised by the safety of their neighborhoods and the decrease in parks and open spaces in urban areas. Children who are unable to play outside tend to spend more time on screen-based activities such as watching TV or playing video games. Excessive screen time takes a huge toll on mental and physical health and academic achievement
Many urban schools have replaced recess and purely recreational after-school activities with academic enrichment activities to help close the academic achievement gaps between lower-income children and their more privileged peers. While improved academics is an important goal, the report emphasizes that the developmental role of play should not be forgotten and the benefits of play should not be traded off in favor of academics.
According to the report, play’s benefits extend to psychological well-being. Play provides an opportunity for a student to shine in areas that are not strictly academic and thus contributes to the child’s personal sense of pride and belonging in her school environment. This has the potential to discourage truancy and encourage children to remain in school to complete their education
Twenty-eight percent of schools with children in the highest poverty levels have no recess at all. This impacts a population of children who already have limited opportunities for creative experiences and social play, especially since research that has shown that physical education periods and recess enhance a child’s readiness for academic pursuits during the school day. They suggest that the elimination of these pace-changing opportunities may in fact be counterproductive for academic success.
What makes a career seem achievable, especially in STEM fields? Image via Wikipedia
Interesting article about making science appealing to youngsters, particularly girls:
Addressing the country’s shortfall of students in the STEM disciplines (science, engineering, technology and mathematics) begins with persuading students that scientists are people, too.
A series produced by the science program NOVA, available online, is a good place to start. The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers (tag line: “Where the lab coats come off”) features footage of scientists working in their labs and sitting down for interviews. The researchers come off as curious, playful, even goofy — people you might want to befriend, or become. The same process of humanization can work with written materials. Susan Nolen, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, gave two different statistics texts to groups of female students. One selection was written in the remote, impersonal style of most textbooks. The other struck a more accessible tone, sharing the writer’s views and opinions on the information. The text with a “visible author,” as Nolen describes it, prompted the students to engage in mental interactions with the author as they read, a process that promoted their understanding and retention of the material.
Do you agree or disagree with Paul’s assessment? Are scientists scary, unapproachable beings that nobody wants to be when they grow up?
From my personal experience I know that making that kind of job and expertise seem attainable was important to me as a high school and college student. I had a journalism professor in college that I greatly admired, Conn Hallinan. He was so GOOD at what he did; he seemed to know the history of every issue. In his provost house (not even his “real” house) he had an entire room full of file cabinets filled with clippings of stories, and somehow kept track of all of it. It was somewhat intimidating as a budding journalist. I remember thinking a couple of times “I will NEVER be this organized/dedicated/whatever. How will I ever become a journalist?” Thankfully he was very supportive of my budding talents, and I ended up writing for a scientific magazine for several years.
That being said, I think it helps to have the mask removed and being able to see the real people behind some of these professions. At the same time, probably the most helpful course I took in college was a two-credit seminar on writing professions. Each week they brought in guest speakers who talked about how they made money writing, and what they did as side-jobs if/when the writing didn’t pay enough. One journalist who’s name I can’t remember told us that she was a terrible introvert, but loved being a journalist because it gave her an excuse and a reason to talk to people. As a fellow introvert, that helped me a lot.
So, I do think it’s important to humanize jobs if we want kids to pursue them. I was going to say this is especially true for girls, but I think it’s true for both genders.
What are your thoughts? Was there a person that inspired you to get into your current career? What were they like; were they very approachable, or more legendary/iconic? Leave your story in the comments.
Learning how to empathize improves the entire learning process. Image by familymwr via Flickr
How does empathy and social learning improve the learning experience at schools? A lot, apparently! And some research is finding that actively teaching empathy and social understanding can be taught in a public school setting, with great benefits for the entire learning process:
At a time of contentious debate over how to reform schools to make teachers more effective and students more successful, “social emotional learning” may be a key part of the solution. An outgrowth of the emotional intelligence framework, popularized by Daniel Goleman, SEL teaches children how to identify and manage emotions and interactions. One of the central considerations of an evolved EQ—as proponents call an “emotional quotient”—is promoting empathy, a critical and often neglected quality in our increasingly interconnected, multicultural world.
Brackett quickly learned that developing empathy in kids requires working on their teachers first. Ten years ago, he and his colleagues introduced a curriculum about emotions in schools, asking teachers to implement it in their own classrooms. When he observed the lessons, he was struck by the discomfort many of the instructors showed in talking about emotion. “There was one teacher who took the list of feelings we had provided and crossed out all of what she perceived of as ‘negative’ emotions before asking the students to identify what they were feeling,” Brackett says. “We realized that if the teachers didn’t get it, the kids never would.”
So in 2005, Brackett and his team at the Health, Emotion, and Behavior Lab at Yale developed a training program—now called RULER—that instructs teachers in the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary for emotional health, then helps them shift the focus to children. The program focuses on five key skills: recognizing emotions in oneself and others, understanding the causes and consequences of emotions, labeling the full range of emotions, expressing emotions appropriately in different contexts, and regulating emotions effectively to foster relationships and achieve goals. Classrooms adopt “emotional literacy charters”—agreements that the whole community agrees to concerning interpersonal interactions—and kids use “mood meters” to identify the nature and intensity of their feelings and “blueprints” to chart out past experiences they might learn from.
This brought up several reactions for me. For one thing, I hated middle school. I was teased for being a smarty pants with the wrong clothes, scolded by my teachers for being too bossy, and became convinced I wasn’t good at Math. Later on, as I grew up and eventually made it out into the “real world,” I realized that I had a “classic” fashion sense, my “bossiness” came in handy when working with contractors and employees, and I was good at Math if I didn’t let my phobia get the best of me. Rather than learning a great deal about the world, I feel like I forgot a lot of important lessons during middle school. If anything, I wish there were things I could go back and tell my middle school me not to worry about, or worry more about them.
That is not the case for everyone, though. Some people had great experiences in middle school, and felt like they grew as individuals and started to become truly who they were meant to be. Middle school was enriching for them, a good experience.
And to be fair, middle school wasn’t all bad. Middle school is the place of first crushes, first dances, joining sports teams, finding your passion, breaking free from your parents a little bit, meeting new people, starting to be taken seriously adults, but still getting to be a kid and have time to play.
What are some of your lessons from middle school? Were they good, bad? How did those experiences enrich your life, or how did they make them worse? What is one thing or rule you learned in middle school that you wish you still followed, or what is one rule you wish you could forget?
A couple of years ago I taught a course on digital storytelling to a group of middle schoolers. In preparation for the course, I remember arguing why this method of teaching was important in that it allowed students who were visual learners to be able to learn how to tell a story in a visual way, and auditory learners could listen to the story archs out loud. Now, some research is finding that people AREN’T in fact visual or auditory learners.
Several psychologists say education could use some “evidence-based” teaching techniques, not unlike the way doctors try to use “evidence-based medicine.”
Psychologist Dan Willingham at the University of Virginia, who studies how our brains learn, says teachers should not tailor instruction to different kinds of learners. He says we’re on more equal footing than we may think when it comes to how our brains learn. And it’s a mistake to assume students will respond and remember information better depending on how it’s presented.
For example, if a teacher believes a student to be a visual learner, he or she might introduce the concept of addition using pictures or groups of objects, assuming that child will learn better with the pictures than by simply “listening” to a lesson about addition.
In fact, an entire industry has sprouted based on learning styles. There are workshops for teachers, products targeted at different learning styles and some schools that even evaluate students based on this theory.
I disagree with the idea that people’s brains are all uniform and work the same; we have all had the experience of having to explain the same thing in three different ways so three different people get the concept. And the researchers acknowledge we all have strengths and weaknesses. But I appreciate the idea of using evidence-based learning and variety, since they both make learning fun and easier to retain the information. If I ever get to teach that course again, I may instead argue that digital storytelling is beneficial for it’s hands-on, evidence and experiential based learning methods.
Playing with Flashcards as a kid could give you a step up in your future. Cover of Numbers (Step Ahead)
I’m crunching numbers this morning, and after reading this I wish I’d paid more attention to Math in first grade; at least I got to study addition twice thanks to moving to a new school half way through the school year!
A long-term psychology study indicates that beginning first graders that understand numbers, the quantities those numbers represent, and low-level arithmetic will have better success in learning mathematics through the end of fifth grade, and other studies suggest throughout the rest of their lives.
“Math is critical for success in many fields, and the United States is not doing a great job of teaching math,” said David Geary, Curator’s Professor of Psychological Sciences. “Once students fall behind, it’s almost impossible to get them back on track. We wanted to identify the beginning of school knowledge needed to learn math over the next five years. We found that understanding numbers and quantity is a necessary foundation for success as the student progresses to more complex math topics. In order to improve basic instruction, we have to know what to instruct.
I also remember loving Math until about middle school when I had the Algebra teacher from hell! What are your Math memories? Are they good, traumatic, mediocre? Share in the comments.
I saw technology in the classroom change even during my twenty-plus years as a student, from slide projectors to overhead projectors with the write-on plastic to laptops with a projector plugged into a USB port. My elementary class was probably one of the last for which it was still okay to turn in a hand-written paper; I think by 6th grade it was expected you had to type it out, either at home or on one of the school’s four-colored Apple computers. As school evolves, so does technology. While some are skeptical of change, others embrace it:
Los Angeles history teacher Enrique Legaspi… went to a workshop that discussed ways to use Twitter in teaching and now his students—even the shy ones—at Hollenbeck Middle School in East L.A. are speaking up more.
In the video [below], you can watch Legaspi teach a World War I lesson, and hear him explain how Twitter has revolutionized discussions, helped him know more about his shy students, and modify his instruction to meet their needs.
I’m still ambivalent towards using technology for technology’s sake, especially when it comes to school and learning. However, I also understand how hard it can be to engage kids in learning, and I’m open to using different tools, even if it’s Twitter. I’m curious what other experience teachers and educators have had with using technology.
*Edit:* This experiment is also interesting in light of recent surveys that say Gen Y students don’t actually use Twitter all that much: http://t.co/eEOohph via @jeffbullas.
These little guys need a break just like your muscles. Image via Wikipedia
The brain is an amazing thing. It allows us to problem solve, combine ideas, and create out of seemingly thin air. But only if we let it.
As a play advocate, I run into a lot of people grumbling that play takes away from learning; but the fact of the matter is, play is ESSENTIAL to the learning process. More and more science is showing that the brain needs that down time to process what it’s learned, digest it a little bit, in order for us to use it for any useful purpose.
People who study creativity and innovation are aware of this all too well:
Current neuroscience research confirms what creatives intuitively know about being innovative: that it usually happens in the shower. After focusing intently on a project or problem, the brain needs to fully disengage and relax in order for a “Eureka!” moment to arise. It’s often the mundane activities like taking a shower, driving, or taking a walk that lure great ideas to the surface. Composer Steve Reich, for instance, would ride the subway around New York when he was stuck.Science journalist Jonah Lehrer, referencing a landmark neuroscience study on brain activity during innovation, writes:
“The relaxation phase is crucial. That’s why so many insights happen during warm showers. … One of the surprising lessons of this research is that trying to force an insight can actually prevent the insight.”
It’s nice to see that science is finally taking relaxation and play seriously. I just wish the rest of the world, or at least our education system, would too. I know my work would benefit greatly if I took time to just relax and contemplate things more, to relax and let my brain explore a little bit. Hmmm, another exercise to try…
Is your college degree really worth it? Image via Wikipedia
This is a great Op-Ed piece from the New York Times. More and more people are getting brave enough to come out and say that a college education, as it currently exists, is often NOT worth it for students.
In a typical semester, for instance, 32 percent of the students did not take a single course with more than 40 pages of reading per week, and 50 percent did not take any course requiring more than 20 pages of writing over the semester. The average student spent only about 12 to 13 hours per week studying — about half the time a full-time college student in 1960 spent studying, according to the labor economists Philip S. Babcock and Mindy S. Marks.
Not surprisingly, a large number of the students showed no significant progress on tests of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing that were administered when they began college and then again at the ends of their sophomore and senior years. If the test that we used, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, were scaled on a traditional 0-to-100 point range, 45 percent of the students would not have demonstrated gains of even one point over the first two years of college, and 36 percent would not have shown such gains over four years of college.
Why is the overall quality of undergraduate learning so poor?
While some colleges are starved for resources, for many others it’s not for lack of money. Even at those colleges where for the past several decades tuition has far outpaced the rate of inflation, students are taught by fewer full-time tenured faculty members while being looked after by a greatly expanded number of counselors who serve an array of social and personal needs. At the same time, many schools are investing in deluxe dormitory rooms, elaborate student centers and expensive gyms. Simply put: academic investments are a lower priority.
I LOVE learning and have seriously considered continuing my graduate studies beyond my MA. But after looking at the hard facts of cost vs. time investment vs. returns, even at the undergraduate level, I have unfortunately determined that it’s just not a good investment, especially for a non-engineering or similar degree.
Some students swear it’s worth it, and while I’m glad I have my BA and (almost) MA, I know enough people who are doing fine without theirs that I wonder if those of us with a BA aren’t slightly brainwashed, or simply trying to convince ourselves it’s worth it because we put so much time and money (and for some of us sincere effort) into getting it.
What has your experience been? For those who want or have a career outside of a University, what has your experience been and what kind of education did you WISH you had received? I, for example, had wished they had required more Science and Math as an undergrad (or high school), even for a social science major like me. It was all stuff I ended up needing for my MA and wishing I’d studied it earlier in my academic career.
Nice interview from Salon with scientist Shimon Edelman about how scientists are discovering neural patterns to the behaviors and activities that make humans happy; turns out the act of learning is often more rewarding than what we learn:
Mental Flowers 