BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR INSTITUTE 2006
Session 11, 12

From Bricks to Architecture:
The Input side of the Box

Review:

motor symphony, central pattern generation, distributed (no conductor), genetics/experience, multiple interconnected boxes, corollary discharge, effects on input, expectation, choice ... when you change an environment to modify student behavior, the original student behavior has modified your behavior. So...who's using behavioral modification on whom? ... Glen

Is she finding greater satisfaction in the outputs she gets back from classmates than from whatever we are doing that day? And if so, is it me and my teaching, or is it her? Or something else entirely? This is a REAL important thing for me to know ... Gayle

... if there is no way to control the system by controlling the input, then WHAT is the function of a teacher? ... if the system works as a scientist without the I-function, then what is the point? ... Tiffany

it seems to come back to whether we, as educators, are really teaching behavior, or are we modeling for the brain...talk about getting it less wrong... Julie I will now think of my classroom as a collection of central pattern generators. I, as the teacher, am the stimulus. Each student as a central pattern generator needs to have the opportunity to contribute to the class discusion because they are sharing information - input/output. The classroom is like a distributed system. My job as the teacher is not to lead but to change the stimulus when necessary to maintain or shift the discussion ... Susan

I can't believe when I relaxed and stopped worrying about getting it right I was able to start my web site. This really brings home to me the importance of this insight in education. We must find a way to take pressure off our students and encourage them to get things less wrong ... Shellie

These statements point to the notion that we are just observers in the phenomenon of life, where all actions and reactions are random and unpredictable, and, perhaps even uncontrollable by the individual and the group. If this is the case, everything tends toward "chaos," what then explains the ebb and flow of harmony and disharmony? ... Teresa

What story would explain the panda bear that allows itself to starve when its food of preference, bamboo, is not available? ... Susan

Maybe it was a social thought that people are equal. Is it better to accept that people are just different and that they have different abilites to process infomation in a unique way? ... Minh

The educational task is to enhance the range of behaviors available to each child (person?) and their ability to choose among them ... from day 5

Wrapping up output side (for now):

Neocortex as inhibitor of existing patterns and creator of novel patterns ...
I-function less good than unconscious at many tasks involving uncertainty, multiple variables; better at new tasks, and at "alerting" when things don't go "right"

Go on to input side

Key points:

What particular aspect of our discussions of the motor and sensory sides of the nervous system seem most useful for your classroom, for your teaching in general? Write some thoughts/questions in the institute forum area.


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