Week 4: Emotions and Cognition

This week’s discussions about BTT #1 have deepened my understanding of the relationship between cognitive and emotional factors in learning. The cognitive and emotional are intertwined and inseparable. Accepting this at a deep level, if I’m honest, is harder than it may seem. It contradicts centuries of philosophy, art, literature, and common thinking about the “objective” versus the “subjective,” the heart versus the mind, the brain versus emotions. (Perhaps a rose truly is not always a rose, but sometimes a thorny symbol of love lost and other times a thrilling hint of love just beginning…) This idea is truly radical at a very deep level, but the evidence for it is convincing. Equally convincing, the risks of ignoring it appear significant when it comes to helping students develop deep, transferrable understanding and the skills to apply knowledge and understanding in novel settings. While I think I have already adopted some practices that reflect social and emotional learning, there are specific things that are new, and important things I need to work on.

Prior to this class, experience had taught me that relationships had to precede learning. As a new, mid-career teacher 7 years ago I quickly came to realize that I am not an imparter of knowledge. The challenge is not to pour knowledge into waiting heads and a teacher can’t be replaced by a jar of knowledge – a book, computer, or canned activity. The challenge is to excite learners to actively incorporate knowledge and understanding, and to be truly effective a teacher must have a RELATIONSHIP with students before that can happen. Greeting students at the door, writing personal comments, acknowledging students’ interests and interacting beyond the school day are all important ways to build those relationships. Engendering trust and being genuine are part of it, too, as is letting students know that they are part of a community where it is safe to share ideas and take risks. Those are ideas that I believe I have been incorporating into my teaching practice – more effectively each year – for a while.

What’s new are some of the deeper and perhaps more radical ideas proposed by Immordino-Yang and Damasio (2007). First, they suggest that learning simply cannot happen devoid of emotion (p. 9). Emotion is not something that is along for the ride and it’s not only about students trusting teachers and having good relationships with them. Emotion is part of the way in which knowledge is understood, memories are made, brain connections are created. My new understanding is that trying to remove emotion from learning is like removing a piece of the track and still expecting a train to go from point A to point B. Hardiman (2003) also talks about this as she traces the path of a visual stimulus going from the thalamus to the neocortex and simlutaneously to the amygdala where emotional relevance is determined (p. 29). This idea tells me that any learning to which I am trying to expose students is being understood through a lens or channel or filter of emotion, and it’s not just me as the teacher that creates that emotion. Students may be responding to self-concepts, peer relationships, home struggles, and social preoccupations, as well as their relationships with me. I have a role in helping the student manage the emotional…lens, but it’s about a whole lot more than a student’s relationship with me.

My second deeper understanding is also based on Immordino-Yang and Damasio (2007). They propose that efforts to teach students only “objective” learning – a misguided effort anyway based on what I just discussed in the last paragraph – may result in the student creating a body of learning made up of knowledge that is inherently less useful – knowledge that doesn’t really transfer to “real-world” situations (p. 9). To me this means that by trying to be objective, to focus on something dressed up as being strictly objective and not personal, is focusing our efforts on teaching students things that does not accomplish what is really important: to “prepare skilled, informed, and ethical students who can navigate the world’s social, moral, and cognitive challenges as citizens” (Immordino-Yang and Damasio, 2007, p. 3).

Specifically, for me, these ideas have specific implications for my own growth as an effective educator. First, I need to broaden my lens of what it means to create a positive, emotional climate. How do I help students understand themselves emotionally and help them develop the skills to self-regulate and ensure that they are open to relevant, important learning? Second, I need to adjust my own view of what I am teaching. I’m not saying that I will reinvent content standards – I accept the responsibility to teach what my state tells me I must teach. However, I may need to delve deeper into those standards and understand not only how to present them in engaging ways, but how to appreciate and communicate their inherent emotional dimensions. Finally, I need to find ways to effectively assess the emotional climate in which my students are immersed. Is it positive? Can it be better? What about it is within my sphere of control and influence? And how can I measure whether needed improvement is occurring?

References
Hardiman, M. (2003). Connecting Brain Research With Effective Teaching: The Brain-Targeted Teaching Model. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Eduation.

Immordino-Yang, M. & Damasio, A. (2007.) We Feel Therefore We Learn: The Relevance of Affective and Social Neuroscience to Education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), 3-10. Retrieved from http:/olms.cte:jhu.edu/olms/data/resource/8038/Week4_ArticleWeFeelThereforeWeLearn.pdf

Week One - New Questions

This first week has stretched my thinking in many new ways. The reading was, in many ways, review – but an important and useful review of the basics of the structure and organization of the nervous system and the structure and organization of the Brain-Targeted Teaching Model. I love that this is part of the course because it lays a consistent foundation for all of us – providing common background knowledge and vocabulary that can ground our conversations.

The more challenging part of the week involved the conversations on the discussion board. From a fairly simple prompt – How do you think the neuro- and cognitive sciences may be able to help inform your previous, current, or future work in educational settings? – dozens of different ideas and interests emerged. For me, I’ve formulated three new questions that will help shape my inquiries in this course. Thank you to the classmates whose posts prompted these questions for me!

1. What is perception and what does it mean/take for a student to change his or her perception and be more open to learning?

2. How can a better understanding of the brain help us identify and address the wide range of variables that contribute to “magic moments” of teaching and learning?

3. How does the internal process of learning (memory or sense-making) differ when a student is actively connecting to previous knowledge and extending ideas in creative ways…vs. when a student is memorizing a fact?

Perception: Thanks to one classmate I am thinking about what perception is. Is it something we experience? Or is it a filter that is created by our experiences? If it is a filter…what can influence how it is constructed and how it might be able to change? I have often said to students, family and friends – especially my own children -- that they have the power to change or adjust their attitudes and perceptions of what they experience…but do they? To what extent is that hard-wired or programmed and depending on that previous programming, how open is it to adjustment? Can understanding the reward system of the brain shed light on this?

Magic Moments: One of the most important things I took away from the portion of my student teaching in first grade was the incredible awe I felt for my cooperating teacher. Watching her graceful and purposeful planning and transitions through the day I felt as though I was watching a beautifully choreographed dance. She was able to bring together so many different threads to construct beautiful and 1st-grade-appropriately brief moments of intense learning all day long. I try to achieve that same thing each day with my fifth-graders, but it’s not always nearly so elegant. What if I knew better how to be sure that we shared the background knowledge, that we all feel safe and comfortable emotionally, that we achieve the right balance of guidance and independence? That our bodies are healthy and open to learning? Can the neuro- and cognitive sciences help me? Thank you to the early childhood educator who focused my thinking in this area.

Creativity: Thank you to another classmate whose post re-focused my attention, reminding me of the importance of creativity and higher-order thinking. As I wrote to her on the Discussion Board, developing creative thinkers is an important focus for me in the classroom, but to date I have compartmentalized it in a different place from my personal inquiries into neuroscience and learning about memory encoding. I think I need to bring those ideas together. What makes new learning higher level? Is it encoded differently? Is it linked to other learning differently? Is it accessed differently? How can I “enrich” for learning that becomes…higher?

Thanks to all the teachers in this cohort – not just those on the JHU payroll. Your posts have stretched my thinking in new and important ways.