Participating in this program has been a wonderful experience for me. I have benefited from in-depth introductions to specific aspects of neuroscience research with implications for education. I’ve been able to explore, discuss, and evaluate proposed applications of research for the classroom – some thoughtful and evidence-based, and others arguably premature or misguided. Perhaps most important, I’ve become more interested in pursuing further coursework to learn more, as well as exploring opportunities to participate in research. Overall, the experience has made me more knowledgeable about what is known about understanding and supporting the brain’s readiness for learning, and more committed to applying evidence-based research in my own classroom.
I have enjoyed the balance of exposure to what neuroscience reveals about literacy and numeracy. I initially expected a stronger emphasis on more fundamental learning about the physiology and biochemistry of brain function – and would still like to learn more about those topics. However, focusing instead on the two prongs of literacy and numeracy provided useful lenses into how researchers study cognition and development, and the complexity of constructs and systems that must interact in each realm. I wrote two papers on aspects of literacy, including How Reading Changes the Reading-Ready Brain: A Literature Review, and Building a Model for Visual Word Recognition: A Review of Whitney C., & Cornelissen P. (2008). Through both efforts I was able to dig deeply into how behavioral and neuroscience research can be combined to construct models – both at an early stage to focus ongoing research and at a later stage to build approaches for more applied testing in learning situations – and the importance of those models to enhance collaboration and communication between vastly different research departments – education, psychology, neurobiology – and their traditional methodologies.
The numeracy course, which I found to be the most challenging and rewarding in this program, provided a different lens for examining development and neural processes that contribute to math success. The research and effort required to write two papers -- Activation Differences during Math Tasks among High Achieving Math Students: A Review of Desco, M., Navas-Sanchez, F.K, Sanchez-González, J., Reig, S., Robles, O., Franco, C., … Arango, C. (2011) and Understanding Learning Processes and Implications for Instruction: A focused analysis of the NMAP Report, Chapter 5 – gave me much greater insight into the need to build on existing cognitive competencies or platforms in very young math students and to encourage development of automaticity.
While we studied each strand – literacy and numeracy – in relative isolation, as a science teacher I am well aware that both kinds of learning are integrally related in many disciplines and learning situations. I am hopeful and excited to read about efforts to bridge the gap between them, understanding the complex interconnections, and also better understand how other processes – for example attention and emotional connection – are involved.
Beyond the more solitary work of reading, researching, and writing papers, one of the most valuable aspects of the program was discussing ideas with educator-peers from around the world under the watchful eyes of experts. Heated debates about multiple intelligences, testing, and the importance of “deliberate difficulties”, along with less heated sharing about ways to implement universal design for instruction and appropriate accommodations all resulted in thoughtful exchanges based on science and research. I am better prepared to engage in these same kinds of conversations with peers closer to home, and more motivated to challenge ideas that may be the “latest thing” in district professional development, but not well-supported on the research front. I am grateful for the introduction (through this program) to website resources such as http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/ and http://www.cast.org/index.html and
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/, which I will use and share with colleagues. My capstone project about The Testing Effect has also inspired me to explore using a web quest model to share other information from this class via self-paced learning module formats and inspire others to seek out and use research to make more informed decisions about practice. I hope to find support within my district to do so.
Finally, I am motivated to keep learning. I would like to pursue additional graduate work to learn and contribute to research about critical periods -- readiness to learn and appropriate pacing and sequencing of instruction for different types of learners. I am also interesting in the concept of automaticity – both in math learning and development of literacy – and how learning/classroom structures and routines can be more effective in helping students develop this important component to enhance their access and success when it comes to problem-solving and higher-level critical thinking. On a more basic level, I am also very interested in the understanding neural development in evolutionary terms, and interplays among structure, function, and flexibility when it comes to adaptive advantage, for example the proposed neuronal recycling ideas proposed by Dehaene and their implications beyond the development of reading. I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this program, and hope that it’s the start of an ongoing journey to better understand the relationship between mind and brain, and its important implications for learning and education.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
So Many Questions...
There are so many interesting questions that I want to pursue, based on ideas and discussion from this course, that I want to record some of them here so I don't lose them. They include:
How can a student's response to a teacher's efforts to create a positive emotional climate (BT-1) best be measured? How do we know if a student feels safe, encouraged, and positive? And can we use those measures to evaluate our efforts and gauge progress as teachers?
To what extent does background knowledge influence/change the activation of neural patterns during reading. For students lacking background knowledge in a subject, does the activation of neural pathways differ versus students who have relevant background knowledge to apply? (And what about those who apply irrelevant background knowledge?)
Can differences in math facts automaticity (fluency) explain differences in later math achievement in specific areas? (This builds from my Week 10 post.)
To what extent are efforts to teach children to filter out less important inputs (effortful control) counter to efforts to teach children to think divergently or creatively? Can both be achieved? Or are they two ends of a spectrum? Are less inhibition-able children more divergent and creative thinkers?
To what extent are attention struggles in the early years root causes of future academic struggles? For example, evidence from reading research suggests that lack of reading experiences may lead to differences in brain development and activation patterns. (An example is that white matter reductions in corpus callosum may be an effect rather than a cause of dyslexia, as suggested by Carreiras, et al, 2009.) Consider identifying groups of students at ages 4-5 with identified attention struggles and with identified reading struggles and track their progress over the next 4 years in reading. Compare progress of those who received attention-related interventions -- at any point -- and those who did not. Will students who receive intervention for attention progress more appropriately/effectively as readers?
____________________
As you can see, my questions are broad-ranging and not well-defined enough for research yet! But this course has helped me better embrace the potential for cognitive neuroscience and behavioral research to help address important questions that influence how learning is structured in the classroom.
In particular I am most fascinated right now by the idea that the way we use our brain influences its structure and function. The reading research for my literature review (How Reading Changes the Reading-Ready Brain) deepened my thinking about the role that our past experiences and habits play in shaping the tool with which we sense, interpret, and understand any future experiences. As we learn we are building our learning tool in very specific ways.
Caution is needed -- this kind of thinking can lead to very unscientific journeys very quickly -- and that's not where I want to go. However, the idea that in the classroom we are helping students construct the neural tool that will mediate their future interactions with ideas -- and which may possibly limit how they are able to interact with ideas -- is a daunting one.
It clearly leaves behind those early behaviorist "black box" models we began the course with. Education is not about pouring knowledge into brain. Constructivist views took us to a place where we recognized that what is added to one's...mind...has to fit with what is already there, and students -- perhaps optimally in social interactions -- actively construct the new knowledge and understanding. But I sense that this newer thinking goes a bit beyond that...it's the idea that students aren't only constructing their understanding, but constructing their very means of understanding.
How tragic for those who don't build a quality tool. How vital that teachers understand what is needed to ensure that a quality tool is built.
Carreiras, M., Seghier, M. L., Baquero, S., Estevez, A., Lozano, A., Devlin, J.T., & Price, C.J. (2009). An anatomical signature for literacy. Nature, 461, 983-986.
How can a student's response to a teacher's efforts to create a positive emotional climate (BT-1) best be measured? How do we know if a student feels safe, encouraged, and positive? And can we use those measures to evaluate our efforts and gauge progress as teachers?
To what extent does background knowledge influence/change the activation of neural patterns during reading. For students lacking background knowledge in a subject, does the activation of neural pathways differ versus students who have relevant background knowledge to apply? (And what about those who apply irrelevant background knowledge?)
Can differences in math facts automaticity (fluency) explain differences in later math achievement in specific areas? (This builds from my Week 10 post.)
To what extent are efforts to teach children to filter out less important inputs (effortful control) counter to efforts to teach children to think divergently or creatively? Can both be achieved? Or are they two ends of a spectrum? Are less inhibition-able children more divergent and creative thinkers?
To what extent are attention struggles in the early years root causes of future academic struggles? For example, evidence from reading research suggests that lack of reading experiences may lead to differences in brain development and activation patterns. (An example is that white matter reductions in corpus callosum may be an effect rather than a cause of dyslexia, as suggested by Carreiras, et al, 2009.) Consider identifying groups of students at ages 4-5 with identified attention struggles and with identified reading struggles and track their progress over the next 4 years in reading. Compare progress of those who received attention-related interventions -- at any point -- and those who did not. Will students who receive intervention for attention progress more appropriately/effectively as readers?
____________________
As you can see, my questions are broad-ranging and not well-defined enough for research yet! But this course has helped me better embrace the potential for cognitive neuroscience and behavioral research to help address important questions that influence how learning is structured in the classroom.
In particular I am most fascinated right now by the idea that the way we use our brain influences its structure and function. The reading research for my literature review (How Reading Changes the Reading-Ready Brain) deepened my thinking about the role that our past experiences and habits play in shaping the tool with which we sense, interpret, and understand any future experiences. As we learn we are building our learning tool in very specific ways.
Caution is needed -- this kind of thinking can lead to very unscientific journeys very quickly -- and that's not where I want to go. However, the idea that in the classroom we are helping students construct the neural tool that will mediate their future interactions with ideas -- and which may possibly limit how they are able to interact with ideas -- is a daunting one.
It clearly leaves behind those early behaviorist "black box" models we began the course with. Education is not about pouring knowledge into brain. Constructivist views took us to a place where we recognized that what is added to one's...mind...has to fit with what is already there, and students -- perhaps optimally in social interactions -- actively construct the new knowledge and understanding. But I sense that this newer thinking goes a bit beyond that...it's the idea that students aren't only constructing their understanding, but constructing their very means of understanding.
How tragic for those who don't build a quality tool. How vital that teachers understand what is needed to ensure that a quality tool is built.
Carreiras, M., Seghier, M. L., Baquero, S., Estevez, A., Lozano, A., Devlin, J.T., & Price, C.J. (2009). An anatomical signature for literacy. Nature, 461, 983-986.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Magnitude Representations -- What Lingers?
To some extent I see the transition that Siegler & Opfer (2003) suggest -- a developmental progression in students’ representations of number and magnitude, moving from an earlier fuzzy representation which has been described as logarithmic – bigger numbers get more closely clumped together – to a more linear model among older students with more equal intervals regardless of magnitude. However, it’s interesting to me that while in many applications my 5th grade (accelerated to 6th grade curriculum) math class students seem to function with an equal interval representation, logarithmic thinking seems to “overstay” it’s typical developmental timeline when it comes to graphing.
In fifth/sixth grade students create a wide variety of graphs in both math and science. The focus is using graph representations to better understand change. A key concept in line graphing, of course, is that students need to represent quantities at equal intervals. Otherwise, they are not able to observe trends in change – linear vs. non-linear, increased change vs. decreased change. In the past, I have viewed this as being an issue more about clustered data…when you have more data, you need more “room” to separate and organize it. However, after reading this week’s work and reflecting on how many of our examples have clustered data of lower magnitudes, I wonder whether this “unequal interval” problem I see a lot is related possibly to a lingering logarithmic representation – the intervals get closer as the numbers get larger – moving out along the x, or more typically the y, axis. For example, if a student were graphing a series of temperature readings of ice melting (let’s say degrees Celsius) of 0, 1, 1, 3, 4, 3, 4, 8, 10….Then the student would put a lot of effort into making room to distinguish between the more highly clustered numbers (0-4 degrees) and then put 8 and 10 shortly after them. That could be considered logarithmic – in a sense – the larger numbers have smaller differences.
There are other situations in which complexities of magnitude concepts – like its application in graphing -- may re-trigger or prompt use of less accurate representations – e.g. the logarithmic model. Siegler, in another paper (a very useful paper that I will be sharing with colleagues), makes specific suggestions for mathematics education based on what was at that time current “cognitive science research” (2003) Specifically, he talks about issues of magnitude when it comes to understanding fractions. He wrote, “Much of children's difficulty in fractional arithmetic arises from their not thinking of the magnitude represented by each fraction” (Siegler, 2003, p. 222). He notes similar issues when it comes to decimal portions. He implies that students work with the numbers, perhaps effectively utilizing procedures, but often don’t recognize that they are representing magnitudes. That leads to errors. This is part of his larger argument in the paper that conceptually-oriented instruction, as opposed to heavily procedural guidance, is important for math understanding and achievement. It is also interesting to me that teachers may be working with fractions in the classroom without clarifying – making explicit – that these different-looking numbers are just different magnitudes.
For me in the classroom, these ideas about magnitude and possible “lingering, less accurate” models of magnitude will lead me to be more explicit about the concept of magnitude with students and discuss with them their individual models of it. As we prepare for state tests in a week, students are reviewing placing numbers – including fractions – on number lines. This gives me a good opportunity to talk about the extended number line – as it continues into space and numbers get larger, how do students think about those numbers? My students are at an age where they are more aware first, of the importance of making representations, and second, that the ability to represent quantities and operations in multiple ways gives them deeper understanding and more power to use and apply those ideas. What do their own models look like? I look forward to being surprised at what this conversation will teach me about their thinking.
Siegler, R. S. (2003). Implications of cognitive science research for mathematics education. In Kilpatrick, J.,Martin, W. B., & Schifter, D. E. (Eds.), A research companion to principles and standards for school
mathematics (pp. 219-233).
Siegler, R. S., & Opfer, J. E. (2003). The development of numerical estimation: evidence for multiple representations of numerical quantity. Psychological Science, 14, 237-243.
In fifth/sixth grade students create a wide variety of graphs in both math and science. The focus is using graph representations to better understand change. A key concept in line graphing, of course, is that students need to represent quantities at equal intervals. Otherwise, they are not able to observe trends in change – linear vs. non-linear, increased change vs. decreased change. In the past, I have viewed this as being an issue more about clustered data…when you have more data, you need more “room” to separate and organize it. However, after reading this week’s work and reflecting on how many of our examples have clustered data of lower magnitudes, I wonder whether this “unequal interval” problem I see a lot is related possibly to a lingering logarithmic representation – the intervals get closer as the numbers get larger – moving out along the x, or more typically the y, axis. For example, if a student were graphing a series of temperature readings of ice melting (let’s say degrees Celsius) of 0, 1, 1, 3, 4, 3, 4, 8, 10….Then the student would put a lot of effort into making room to distinguish between the more highly clustered numbers (0-4 degrees) and then put 8 and 10 shortly after them. That could be considered logarithmic – in a sense – the larger numbers have smaller differences.
There are other situations in which complexities of magnitude concepts – like its application in graphing -- may re-trigger or prompt use of less accurate representations – e.g. the logarithmic model. Siegler, in another paper (a very useful paper that I will be sharing with colleagues), makes specific suggestions for mathematics education based on what was at that time current “cognitive science research” (2003) Specifically, he talks about issues of magnitude when it comes to understanding fractions. He wrote, “Much of children's difficulty in fractional arithmetic arises from their not thinking of the magnitude represented by each fraction” (Siegler, 2003, p. 222). He notes similar issues when it comes to decimal portions. He implies that students work with the numbers, perhaps effectively utilizing procedures, but often don’t recognize that they are representing magnitudes. That leads to errors. This is part of his larger argument in the paper that conceptually-oriented instruction, as opposed to heavily procedural guidance, is important for math understanding and achievement. It is also interesting to me that teachers may be working with fractions in the classroom without clarifying – making explicit – that these different-looking numbers are just different magnitudes.
For me in the classroom, these ideas about magnitude and possible “lingering, less accurate” models of magnitude will lead me to be more explicit about the concept of magnitude with students and discuss with them their individual models of it. As we prepare for state tests in a week, students are reviewing placing numbers – including fractions – on number lines. This gives me a good opportunity to talk about the extended number line – as it continues into space and numbers get larger, how do students think about those numbers? My students are at an age where they are more aware first, of the importance of making representations, and second, that the ability to represent quantities and operations in multiple ways gives them deeper understanding and more power to use and apply those ideas. What do their own models look like? I look forward to being surprised at what this conversation will teach me about their thinking.
Siegler, R. S. (2003). Implications of cognitive science research for mathematics education. In Kilpatrick, J.,Martin, W. B., & Schifter, D. E. (Eds.), A research companion to principles and standards for school
mathematics (pp. 219-233).
Siegler, R. S., & Opfer, J. E. (2003). The development of numerical estimation: evidence for multiple representations of numerical quantity. Psychological Science, 14, 237-243.
Monday, January 17, 2011
We're All Constructivists: Mulling Behaviorist Strategies in a Constructivist Context
My perspective, informed by the readings and discussions this past week, is that constructivism has a solid place in ongoing educational practice and that it’s accepted– with a variety of interpretive shades – by all. Luke responded to one of my blogs saying that if I spot a non-constructivist I should certainly tag it for research! Thinking more about this, I am less likely than I was last week to consider behaviorism rigidly as an alternative to constructivism, but rather a concept that can be seen within a constructivist context. In fact, I believe that may be the only way to understand it—in a useful way -- at this point and behaviorism may contribute ideas that should not be thrown out, but rather embraced in a constructivist context.
Constructivism is the belief that a learner – the learner’s mind – is an active participant in creating knowledge and understanding because knowledge and understanding can only be built upon prior knowledge using existing skills and cognitive structures/processes within the learner. It is differentiated from the somewhat-straw-man alternative of objectivism, in which knowledge comes from the outside and must be absorbed by the blank slate of the learner. As Luke pointed out in one response this week, viewing constructivism in the context of such an radical alternative as pure objectivism can distort meaning somewhat: given such a black-and-white dichotomous view one might be pushed to two radical and not-supportable ends of a spectrum of pure external truth and pure perspective-based relativism. I understand this point, but think that the argument is simply further reinforcement of how ingrained constructivist thinking -- the idea that the learner / mind has an active role -- has become in the study and practice of education. My sense is there is no real, current argument for the pure objectivist end of such as radical spectrum. I’m not so sure about the other end…
Thinking further about this, my sense is that even a current practitioner who embraces aspects of behaviorism, could still do so within a constructivist context. I found myself uncomfortable with many posts this week that clumped references to behaviorism – sometimes not direct -- with necessarily passive, boring, kill and drill teaching and overall poor quality and ineffective instruction. Behaviorism, as I understand it, is the belief that external motivators (positive and negative reinforcements) are needed to help learners alter behaviors. I’m not sure that it is necessary to say that behaviors are totally, qualitatively different than cognitive understandings. If so, then I see how behaviorism could be said to be non-constructivist. But if behaviors emerge from cognitive structures and processes, reflecting them, then changing the behaviors is related to reconstructing those cognitive processes and structures (though there may be valuable things left to learn about which changes which – direction of causality.)
If we embrace the idea that support for changing behaviors is one route by which changes in cognitive structures and processes are created or observed, then there is a role for positive and negative reinforcements in effective instruction. In my own district there is a strong focus on PBS (positive behavior support) programs…largely with an emphasis on classroom behaviors, including learning behaviors. Teachers are encouraged to recognize students engaged in positive behaviors and reward them with positive reinforcements such as praise, coupons, extra recess, top student awards. School counselors who I have worked with seem to broadly embrace behaviorist models of…behavior modification: sticker programs, earned privileges. I’m not ready to say those are mis-guided. And I’m not ready to say that that learning is somehow so radically different from building other kinds of knowledge and understanding. But we don’t typically call those counselors ineffective, boring, passive, or even that loaded adjective…”traditional.” These efforts are clearly within a behaviorist model, however.
We often use other ways of talking about these efforts, though. We are “building stamina,” or “priming the pump to build internal motivation.” I think that as we recognize the foundational importance of a constructivist view of learning, we need to be open to a range of strategies that need to be engaged and used to help students build their own knowledge. Behaviorist strategies have a place. Varied practice, including memorizing certain ideas for automaticity (math facts) has a place. Collaboration has a place. Direct instruction has a place. But my thinking is that all of it is grounded in the basic belief that individual minds need to build their own understanding, and in order to do so an effective teacher needs to know what’s there already and help learners as individuals layer on new ideas (I think of a spatula spreading frosting on a cake) in effective, useful ways.
Constructivism is the belief that a learner – the learner’s mind – is an active participant in creating knowledge and understanding because knowledge and understanding can only be built upon prior knowledge using existing skills and cognitive structures/processes within the learner. It is differentiated from the somewhat-straw-man alternative of objectivism, in which knowledge comes from the outside and must be absorbed by the blank slate of the learner. As Luke pointed out in one response this week, viewing constructivism in the context of such an radical alternative as pure objectivism can distort meaning somewhat: given such a black-and-white dichotomous view one might be pushed to two radical and not-supportable ends of a spectrum of pure external truth and pure perspective-based relativism. I understand this point, but think that the argument is simply further reinforcement of how ingrained constructivist thinking -- the idea that the learner / mind has an active role -- has become in the study and practice of education. My sense is there is no real, current argument for the pure objectivist end of such as radical spectrum. I’m not so sure about the other end…
Thinking further about this, my sense is that even a current practitioner who embraces aspects of behaviorism, could still do so within a constructivist context. I found myself uncomfortable with many posts this week that clumped references to behaviorism – sometimes not direct -- with necessarily passive, boring, kill and drill teaching and overall poor quality and ineffective instruction. Behaviorism, as I understand it, is the belief that external motivators (positive and negative reinforcements) are needed to help learners alter behaviors. I’m not sure that it is necessary to say that behaviors are totally, qualitatively different than cognitive understandings. If so, then I see how behaviorism could be said to be non-constructivist. But if behaviors emerge from cognitive structures and processes, reflecting them, then changing the behaviors is related to reconstructing those cognitive processes and structures (though there may be valuable things left to learn about which changes which – direction of causality.)
If we embrace the idea that support for changing behaviors is one route by which changes in cognitive structures and processes are created or observed, then there is a role for positive and negative reinforcements in effective instruction. In my own district there is a strong focus on PBS (positive behavior support) programs…largely with an emphasis on classroom behaviors, including learning behaviors. Teachers are encouraged to recognize students engaged in positive behaviors and reward them with positive reinforcements such as praise, coupons, extra recess, top student awards. School counselors who I have worked with seem to broadly embrace behaviorist models of…behavior modification: sticker programs, earned privileges. I’m not ready to say those are mis-guided. And I’m not ready to say that that learning is somehow so radically different from building other kinds of knowledge and understanding. But we don’t typically call those counselors ineffective, boring, passive, or even that loaded adjective…”traditional.” These efforts are clearly within a behaviorist model, however.
We often use other ways of talking about these efforts, though. We are “building stamina,” or “priming the pump to build internal motivation.” I think that as we recognize the foundational importance of a constructivist view of learning, we need to be open to a range of strategies that need to be engaged and used to help students build their own knowledge. Behaviorist strategies have a place. Varied practice, including memorizing certain ideas for automaticity (math facts) has a place. Collaboration has a place. Direct instruction has a place. But my thinking is that all of it is grounded in the basic belief that individual minds need to build their own understanding, and in order to do so an effective teacher needs to know what’s there already and help learners as individuals layer on new ideas (I think of a spatula spreading frosting on a cake) in effective, useful ways.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)