Brain, Education, and Inquiry - Fall 2010 Home Page

I'm a senior philosophy major at Haverford College. I was born and raised in China. The Chinese education system that I was in taught me many things but prepared me very poorly for my coming to the States 9 years ago. At first, I struggled tremendously with the English alphabet and then with all its other idiosyncracies. I often go back to my experience as an ESL student to reflect on what works and what doesn't work in an education system.

My inclination, and thus my contribution to the class, would be a philosophical curiosity for the root of the problem. I'm hoping to learn from my classmates some concrete groundings to my thoughts.        

Hello to all of you, my name is Emily and I am a senior at Bryn Mawr. I am double-majoring in Biology and Anthropology; I have plans to attend medical school in the future, so I have followed the pre-med course track, as well. 

My interests for this class lie in the realm of connecting cultural and social aspects to behavior and brain response. This even includes how the brain is shaped from an early age, how one learns social norms/taboos, and how exploring these topics play into education in a formal sense. It is very important to me to examine human interaction and isn't it amazing that much of education requires this? What other systems of the body could be involved in this interplay? How much of education is conscious? Do we learn more from watching or from doing? These are just some of the areas I wish to explore.

I love the non-traditional approach to sciences, so I am thrilled to take part in this class with all of you.

 Hi everyone,

 I am a senior at Haverford College, English major at BMC. I am from Bronx, NY with a parochial Catholic all-girls high school. I have a great interest in higher education and issues related to college access. I currently do multicultural recruitment work for Haverford's Admission Office and volunteer work with the Mayor's Office of Education's PhillyGoesToCollege Office. This semester I created an Independent study course focused on two areas of college access: Academic Writing/College Admissions Writing and College Advising/Counseling. 

 I have always been interested in neuroscience and have taken English courses delving into the psyche. I am very excited about this course because I am sure it will open a new window into the brain and inquiry through the topic of education. 

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Hey!

I am senior at Haverford College. I am majoring in Psychology with a concentration in Neural and Behavioral Science.
 
I am really intrigued about learning about how neuroscience, cognition and cognitive neurosciences are interlinked with education, especially since this is the first education class I have taken. I do have some knowledge about mental disorders and illnesses which certainly affect one’s performance in school and how they learn. My experiences being a mentor and tutor in languages and sciences throughout college and part of high school, has provided me some formal knowledge in regards to what some education systems are like, the different learning styles and techniques individuals utilize and a broad idea of how culture and observations shape the idea of success, education and wisdom.
 
Some interests of mine are the reasons behind the behaviors of humans, why we do what we do, learn the way we do and think and express ourselves the way we do? Neurobiology and neurochemistry of the brain truly fascinates me and I would like to delve into how the circuitry of the brain contributes to how individuals make decisions, undergo thought processing and learn, in terms of “experience-based” education and “academic/institutional-based” education. Is there a difference in neural activity? That is, if we are able to define either in class based on consensus.  I’d also like to investigate how education can address thinking, language, culture and learning styles and the role the brain plays in such aspects, given that science, education and culture share some overlapping connections with each other.  I am excited to possibly be able to apply any theories, ideas and perspectives (my own and others) that arise in this course to further understand the topics discussed in class and in future courses in my last year of study.
 

 Hi everyone,

I'm Liz and a junior at Bryn Mawr College. I'm an independent major in Gender and Sexuality with a hopeful film minor. I came from a public high school much bigger than Bryn Mawr, and needless to say Bryn Mawr was a very different academic environment than I was used to. I've never been a very strong math or science student so I'm glad to be taking a science class that's cross listed with education. Though my mother has working in schools and education her whole life, I've never taken an education class. I'm excited for this opportunity to learn more about my own education and the education of others.

Being a Gender and Sexuality major, I would like to look at how both gender and sexuality play a part in the different ways men, women, and everyone else learn and think. There are a lot of debates about gender and sexuality and what's deemed as "biological" versus "social" and this class seems to be a great place to continue that. Coming from an all women's college, I would say I'm a strong advocate for same-sex learning, and I hope this class will allow me to formulate my thoughts about topics such as these in a more articulate manner.

My name is Evren and I'm a junior at Haverford and a Math major and Physics minor. I'm taking this course because I am considering pursuing a career in teaching. My whole life I've been surrounded by educators. My grandparents, parents, and aunts and uncles, on both sides of the family, are all teachers ranging from Turkish rural elementary school to deans at Princeton. In high school I participated in a program at the College of New Jersey called the "Urban Teacher's Academy," which focused on the adversities facing students and educators in urban schools and how to overcome these adversities. While that program focused a lot on the politics of education and how shaping policies can improve urban school systems, the Noyce science and math teacher internship that I participated in over this past spring break offered a classroom view of education. I saw different and unorthodox teaching methods regarding curriculum and how teacher-student relationships can be developed to maximize learning.

While I've participated in several programs regarding teaching, this is the first education (and biology) course I've taken, so I expect to be made less ignorant with respect to both pedagogy and biology.

About me:

            Hello, my name is Lars Margolis and I am postbac here at Bryn Mawr. I am originally from Brookline, MA (outside of Boston) . I am taking this class because I want to be a doctor, and for the rest of my life I also hope to be an educator and be educated.  This class should give me perspective on both sides of the education aisle through a multi-faceted approach. 

            For the most part, up until college, I preferred education outside of the classroom, mainly though athletics. In college, I began to value classroom learning much more and I may have even lost track of learning outside of the classroom in some ways, at some points. I hope to continue to learn to balance my education so that I can be more rounded, and more adept at relating to and understanding others.

            After graduating from Hamilton in 2009, I moved to Portland, OR and I learned a whole lot. I spent part of the year playing rugby for the Finnish National Rugby Team, I worked on my Spanish, I learned to cook (a little bit), I read many books, I biked, I coached HS rugby, and I did volunteer work in hospitals and clinics. I feel that these experiences have helped me to be prepared to return to school. 

And in a little more than a nutshell, that’s me 

 I'm a transfer student from Scripps College in Claremont, CA. I am a sophomore with an anticipated English major, Theatre minor. This past summer I was both a summer camp leader for the YMCA day camp and an SAT teacher for The Princeton Review. In both of these atmospheres I was very interested in how the students/children were being taught and which techniques were most effective in the SAT class. I hope to learn more about education and the brain as a result of taking this class.

 Yo!

I’m Simone, a Haverford sophomore and Anthropology Major. I am from San Francisco, where I have some experiences with education that have lead me to be particularly interested in this course.  I have taken biology in the past, and enjoy it! I have also taken a psychology course that covered some basic brain functioning.

At home I worked for Youth Speaks, a literary arts organization. We ran/ organized open mics in the city, and after-school spoken word workshops. Seeing kid’s relationships to education in and out of the official classroom was fascinating, as we saw people who thought of themselves as poor students flourish in a classroom that told them “there is no such thing as a wrong answer” and rewarded creativity.  I worked at my old preschool, as well as T.A.ing in a special education classroom.  When I was a kid I was told I was an “alternative learner”, and was put me in classes that had me associate my multiplication tables with different colored pieces of felt, or had me remember stories by associating each section of the narrative with a color.

Why did these methods work for me? Does it matter? How can we approach education in schools in a way that takes advantage of how many different approaches there are to understanding learning, education, and the mind?

Just some questions that I do not expect to be answered, but certainly explored in this class.