Working memory: consider the limits

Working memory is very limited but highly flexible. A good approaching using it is to identify a small number of key elements to “work” with. For example, we need to know the subject, object, and verb for a sentence (three things), or the cause and the effect for an explanation (two things). Success depends on defining small numbers of central elements in any experience, rather than extensive and complex explanations. Brevity and clarity are the virtues.

In school, this suggests that we should arrange students’ experiences in direct and simple ways. This may be the most difficult part for the educator, since that individual must put himself or herself in the place of the learner. With complex situations, the first step would be to identify a small number of very basic elements. That might even be enough for a whole class period (If we even had classes). Taking working memory as our gauge, we might have shorter classes, or they might be a variable length rather than a set time. Deciding when to end a class would not be a matter of watching the clock, but on watching the ideas. The point would be not to have a lot of ideas, but exactly the opposite. I might judge success not by how much information was “covered,” but by the significance and utility of the ideas, and by how much impact the ideas had on students.

We might have an “idea clock” rather than the time clock.

Zull, J.E. (2011). From brain to mind: using neuroscience to guide change in education.

When the teaching brain meets the learning brain

Inevitably the teacher’s response is an effort to move towards a connected social system. The response is about reaching synchrony of action and thought. This is similar to how the learning brain works, but the most significant difference is that teaching, unlike learning, cannot be carried out independently. Teaching requires human interaction and it requires a feedback loop between teacher and student that displays “success” in order for the process to continue. When this works well we have reached a level of synchrony in which teacher and learner have joined in “knowing” and the process begins again, renewing itself.
This cycle of recursive processing is a continuous loop where the student and his or her learning brain respond to the teacher’s actions and alter the sensory input that the teacher receives. This provides critical iterative feedback that the teaching brain processes to adjust responses; for example, it alters the act of teaching. This constant feedback loop is what I suggest is the source of the intangible synchrony that occurs in teaching, between teacher and student. … This give-and-take between teacher and student, this human interaction, creates a “by-product” Of human synchrony that is hard to define, but you know it when you see it or feel it. It is the flow that drives creativity and higher human thought. It is the X factor that makes in person teacher student relationships irreplaceable as this feedback loop is based on the full body of interaction — not simply voice, visual, or textual. The teacher-student interaction is the engine behind the synchronous educational experience that characterizes the best teaching and learning brains.

Rodriguez, V. (2013). The human nervous system: a framework for teaching and the teaching brain. Mind, brain and education, 7(1), 2-12. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mbe.12000/full

Sent in response to my boss’s “Merry Christmas” email

I work online teaching new faculty to teach online for a public college in a part of the Midwest with deep Bible Belt roots. My boss sent a “Merry Christmas” email to all of our online faculty who are scattered across the country, and even a few outside the country. This was my response.

Dear —

Your cheerful holiday wishes — while undoubtedly well-intentioned — ignore the diversity among our online faculty. I know from personal experience teaching nearly 200 new online faculty at our college that our faculty come from a variety of cultures and perspectives. I have taught many Christians, but I have also taught Jews and Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Confucians, Wiccans, humanists, and atheists. While my courses are secular, the people who take these courses are encouraged to be open about themselves to create a genuine human presence in an online setting, and in that process they often reveal part of their cultural background, sometimes including their religious or spiritual affiliations. I am inspired by this, reminded that one of the wonderful things about online education is that it opens us all up to a much wider world of experience than we might otherwise encounter in our everyday lives. This is a valuable thing for us as educators and for students at our college. I am sometimes concerned that the college and its leadership have a blind spot with regard to diversity that prevents them from recognizing its inherent value in education. That’s what crosses my mind when I see holiday wishes expressed that invoke mainstream traditions without also being fully inclusive. At a public college like ours, and especially in an online program such as ours that has a broad reach beyond the immediate geographical and cultural region, it is my hope that we can recognize and encourage diversity through greater sensitivity to the full spectrum of human experience that our faculty represents.

Sincerely wishing you and your family a joyful holiday season.

School Prayer

Poem by Diane Ackerman
from I Praise My Destroyer.
© Vintage Books.

School Prayer

In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.

Subsequently, professional development for staff also needed to change drastically. In realizing that counting hours and forcing particular PD sessions was essentially a meaningless and an ineffective use of staff time, the professional development model for QCSD moved from a traditional approach of tracking time to an individualized model where teachers evaluate their own needs and develop goal areas for progress. When the district dropped the required seat hours, teachers gained the freedom to grow where needed. The one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work in meeting the needs of students, and it certainly doesn’t work for teachers either. Teachers are now focused on growing professionally, not obtaining a certain number of hours to meet contractual obligations; a shift in mindset. Professional development has morphed from certain days per year to an ongoing, continuous process of growth. The expectation is excellence. The roadmap, however, varies from teacher to teacher.

Traditional public schools must change significantly to meet the needs of today’s students. Learning environments must offer “complete versatility” for this generation of kids. Professional development for staff must be differentiated, outcome-based, and success oriented; not based on teacher seat time. Molded together, these needed changes positively impact the quality of our teachers and the achievement of our students. QCSD is one district on the cusp of this movement, and I’m proud to be a part of this student-centered, technology infused learning environment with high expectations for all.

Tom Murray, director of technology and cybereducation for the Quakertown Community School District in Bucks County, Pa.

via smartblogs.com

“Mindful Schools has been in 40-plus schools in the last four years, reaching 11,000 kids. Generally the results we are seeing are increased focus and concentration, so, the ability to pay attention in class — improved self-awareness, the ability of just recognizing how you’re feeling, when you’re feeling it — which leads to impulse control, which I think is probably the most appealing entry-point for education, that mindfulness helps create impulse control — and that self-awareness also leads to empathy, and the way we interact with others.”

Megan Cowan

How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning

jtotheizzoe:

Jim Stigler is a psychologist who studies the differences in how Eastern and Western cultures approach learning. After watching a Japanese student try and fail and try again, for a whole period, to draw a geometric shape in front of the entire class, and then enjoy the experience … he knew something was different about the philosophy of struggle in Eastern classrooms. A key bit from the NPR story (emphasis mine):

“I think that from very early ages we [in America] see struggle as an indicator that you’re just not very smart,” Stigler says. “It’s a sign of low ability — people who are smart don’t struggle, they just naturally get it, that’s our folk theory. Whereas in Asian cultures they tend to see struggle more as an opportunity.”

In Eastern cultures, Stigler says, it’s just assumed that struggle is a predictable part of the learning process. Everyone is expected to struggle in the process of learning, and so struggling becomes a chance to show that you, the student, have what it takes emotionally to resolve the problem by persisting through that struggle.

“They’ve taught them that suffering can be a good thing,” Stigler says. “I mean it sounds bad, but I think that’s what they’ve taught them.”


Not all Eastern cultures are identical, of course, but I think it could serve American students nicely to realize that yes, this stuff is hard, struggle is part of learning, and not learning something at the same pace as others doesn’t mean you are stupid … it means you are learning the way that you learn.

That idea should be encouraged. Success in learning and in life comes from the desire to work hard to master the problems before you. Intelligence is not bestowed upon us like magical powers from above. 

Very good read over at NPR, check it out.

If you went up to a poet who was busy writing his poem and asked what he was doing, you would be very surprised if he said, “I am using a pencil.” Of course he is using a pencil, but the pencil has become invisible. It’s not a separate thing; it’s part of his life. It’s part of his world. And so, too, the computer. We have only succeeded when it becomes invisible. That doesn’t mean you don’t think about it. You think about it when you need to, when you want to do something with it. But you’re thinking about what you want to do with it; you’re thinking about that subject matter. This is part of appropriation, making it yours. It’s like yourself.
Seymour Papert, 1987

They built it into the eucalyptus-dotted Berkeley hills and under the bright lights of Los Angeles, down in the valley in Fresno and in the shadows of the San Bernardino Mountains. Hundreds of college campuses, large and small, two-year and four-year, stretching from California’s emerald forests in the north to the heat-scorched Inland Empire in the south. Each had its own DNA, but common to all was this: they promised a “public” education, accessible and affordable, to those with means and those without, a door with a welcome mat into the ivory tower, an invitation to a better life.

Then California bled that system dry.

Andy Kroll, “California’s Not-So-Public Higher Ed.” (via utnereader)

(via utnereader)

The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

Alvin Toffler

You have probably seen this compelling quotation attributed to Alvin Toffler thousands of times before on the web. It is especially popular among educators, for reasons that are obvious. Unfortunately, Toffler may never have said it.

The web is awash with all kinds of goofy misquotations and goofier misattributions. I recently saw the proverb, “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand” attributed to Benjamin Franklin, of all people.

The Toffler quote does not appear in this form in any of his writings. The closest similar text is a paragraph from his 1970 book Future Shock, partially in Toffler’s words and partially in a direct quotation of someone else:

“A similar strategy can be used to enhance human adaptability. By instructing students how to learn, unlearn and relearn, a powerful new dimension can be added to education. Psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy of the Human Resources Research Organization phrases it simply: ‘The new education must teach the individual how to classify and reclassify information, how to evaluate its veracity, how to change categories when necessary, how to move from the concrete to the abstract and back, how to look at problems from a new direction—how to teach himself. Tomorrow’s illiterate will not be the man who can’t read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.’” (p. 271)

Ironic, isn’t it, that the original quotation relates to the need to teach people how to “evaluate the veracity” of information.

What makes this even more curious is that the popular version of the quote appears at the top of a quotations page on Toffler’s official web site, without citation. If Toffler ever said it or wrote it in this pithier form, it is unclear where he did so. It would be quite ironic if whoever created Toffler’s web site simply echoed the thousands of other misquotations and misattributed this version of the quote to him on his own web site.

Think about this the next time you reblog a quote.

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Flynn Effect: Modernity Made Us Smarter

Scientific American interviews James R. Flynn

The Flynn Effect is the observation that IQ scores rise over time. Flynn says this effect is continuing at about 3 points per decade.

“We have no idea the gulf that separates our minds from people 100 years ago in America,” says Flynn.

“At conception I don’t think our brains would look any different. At autopsy we would have used our brains very differently than our ancestors … Probably the analytic portions of your brains are enlarged compared to your ancestors, while the rote memory portions are not … And I say you tell me whether we’re more intelligent. This is the cash value of the change. The word is unimportant. I would prefer to say our brains are more modern.”

Flynn has also identified a “bright tax” among the aged. People with higher intelligence have steeper declines in analytic abilities in old age than those with lower intelligence.

“The brighter you are, the heavier the bright tax. Verbal you get a bright bonus. The brighter you are, the less the decline in verbal intelligence. … Working memory is bright neutral. Verbal bright bonus. Processing speed and analytical bright tax. Whatever the reason for the downward go, it’s still good to exercise your brain.”

via Scientific American

Dummy, Welcome to Lore Hi Dummy,  Thanks for bringing your class to Lore. You’ve joined a global network of instructors and students spanning a vast range of topics, interests, and schools. Your class will go beyond the classroom. Students will get to know each other, share ideas, and learn more.  We’re a young company dedicated to making sure you have a great experience. We love learning, so please share your feedback. Your Lore Concierge (concierge@lore.com) is the best bet for a fast response, but I’m here if you need me.  Best,  Joe  —-  Joseph Cohen  CEO, Lore Isn’t it awfully nice of Joseph Cohen, CEO of Lore, to send a personal welcome message to my Dummy Student account?
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Dummy, Welcome to Lore

Hi Dummy, 

Thanks for bringing your class to Lore. You’ve joined a global network of instructors and students spanning a vast range of topics, interests, and schools. Your class will go beyond the classroom. Students will get to know each other, share ideas, and learn more. 

We’re a young company dedicated to making sure you have a great experience. We love learning, so please share your feedback. Your Lore Concierge (concierge@lore.com) is the best bet for a fast response, but I’m here if you need me. 

Best, 

Joe 

—- 

Joseph Cohen 

CEO, Lore

Isn’t it awfully nice of Joseph Cohen, CEO of Lore, to send a personal welcome message to my Dummy Student account?

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