Reply to comment

This year’s institute has been, without a doubt, a huge success in many different ways for everyone participating in it. I am also inclined to mention that, in general, the implications for education were not made explicitly enough. In retrospect, I understand that the Brain and Behavior institute has the potential of being more than just about the human Brain and student Behavior. In a more abstract sense, this institute can have people focus on the individual, the group-the classroom, and just as importantly (and intangibly) the teachers own behavior, all which I feel could have been developed more fully throughout the two weeks.

Looking at the impact this institute can have, I have come to recognize even more the need for a change in education. There needs to be a change in the way teachers and students interact which needs to hold precedence over advancing the level of skill in a curriculum. This very much reminds me of an excerpt I read in an Education course I took last semester called Learning and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma where she the juxtaposes American and Chinese education in its the internalization of the material. The Chinese believe that in order to completely develop competence in an area like mathematics, there needs to be a deep factual understanding of the knowledge being presented by the teachers just as much as from the students. For this reason, these teachers go through the trouble of learning about basic mathematics in depth continuously throughout their professional careers, getting away from “a mile wide, an inch deep” teaching.

For this institute in particular, there’s definitely a need to locate and clear up the miscommunication found between the teachers entering and the team working in the Brain and Behavior Institute because many teachers come with preconceived notions about what a teacher development workshop will be like, will grant a teacher, and so on. This clarification along with the other minute particularities regarding the utilization of the internet, the different computer programs, or even the afternoon sessions at the very beginning of the institute will help minimize confusion, indifference, and unproductiveness from the participating teachers.

Now to piggy back on an earlier post I made during this Institute: "Although a subtle difference in mentality, this change [in teachers] can definitely create positive results in better accommodating a student’s style of/ learning.", (Please refer to the two posts prior to that for some clarification.) Teachers and workshops in general should not be limited to thinking solely about the interactions between the students and their subject material but also consider the approach teachers take in addressing their students.

On a slightly different note, throughout the two weeks I did have difficulty wrapping my brain around certain concepts such as the immediate difference between the I-function and the CU (cognitive unconscious) to then thoroughly understand the difference it has for effective and efficient learning. Granted, I am younger than the typical intern Grobstein would have for his institute which may account for my delayed comprehension of the material. But that fact, I feel this helps reach a more complete diverse (for example, nuerodiverse) team for the Institute which can better relate to the diverse set of k-12 teachers participating in the Institute who may be similar to me and have little to no background in neurobiology.

To help minimize this delayed connection to the material/conversation, I feel that the Brain and Behavior Institute would be more effective if the sub-stories (anecdotes, experiments, etc.) were a bit more explicit in it means to provide evidence for important concepts of the nervous system.