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
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"
Ambiguity as fundamental
Funny how after all these years...one realizes that what we see is not really reality. In order to make sense of light...the brain makes up a story in order to make things clear fo us to understand. How is this ambiguity related to how we see things in Science? ... Cleat
Are our words and actions being perceived in similar ways by all students? Grade VII girls are ery sensitive to the facial expression of their teacher ... I know that I have to be careful of my facial expressions when dealing with middle school aged students. Teachers are actors!! ... Susan
So, most of all the morning lecture and demonstrated activities, explains how different each of us interprets "reality". And, that accounts for the hundreds of books written about communication skills, in our attempt to understand each others stories. How can we as educators expect each student to get our story the first time, and yet we measure intelligence on percieving the same thing the same way ... Linda
brings up all kinds of questions about what we are doing in teaching in terms of group think, herding, modelling, and so on. Where is the point at which consensus outlasts its value and becomes simply an imprisoner of human potential? Are we educating people to be liberated thinkers, creative doers, and conscious choice makers with a joy of living? Or are we using conformity as the yardstick of success but at the price of inhibited, suppressed, and automated lives? ... Teresa
Testing and retesting, negotiating and renegotiating - all unconscious, doesn't worry about "Truth" or "Reality", just comes up with something that works
From I-function to "story teller", and story creator (making what hasn't been seen)
Key points:
Input is always incomplete (and affected by output)
Input is always interpreted based on prior information (including genetic information)
Input is always ambiguous
Interpretation is improved (but not completed) by combining multiple perspectives, resolving conflicts
Both input and interpretation are different for different people
What we see is a "story" reflecting unconscious processes
"Reality" is a collective story, reflecting (desirably) the different perspecties of different people
Stories can in turn generate new questions/observations/stories, and new stories (that in turn ...)
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.
