5.3

The video I chose is Ted Talk on how to improve memory and break Miller’s Law of 7.  The law is well known and we have mentioned it in class.  The average person can hold seven pieces of information in their short-term memory at a time.  The speaker suggests that this law is not true.  He talks about how he is a memory athlete and competes in memory challenges in Australia.  One example he gave was a man who memorized the entire Sydney phone book in 23 hours.  The speaker give three principles to improved memory.

The first principle is Mindfulness.  James would call this attention.  The speaker says that most memory failures are actually failures of attention.  Our course discussions and reading on attention would support this fact.  When we fail to pay attention, we are likely to miss things.  The next principle is Visual and Imaginative Encoding.  This principle would also be supported by James and is assertion that connections are the keys to memory.  The speaker suggests that making more connections will increase the ability to remember more things.  The third principle is organization.  This is supported by Piaget’s ideas of assimilation and accommodation.  Thoughts must be organized to be retrieved more easily.

5.2

The chapter by James on Memory essentially supported many other chapters in the assertion that strong association is the key to learning.  James makes it clear that he believes that people need to make connections for learning to happen.  Remembering is no different in that connections are required to use memory to its greatest extent.

One section of James caught my attention in light of our discussion last week on learning styles.  James said, "You should interrogate them as to their imagery, it is said, or exhibit list of words to their eyes, and then sound similar lists in their ears, and see by which channel a child retains most words.  Then, in dealing with that child, make your appeals predominately through that channel" (p. 68).  James goes on to say that perhaps this would be possible in a small class, but it is not feasible in most classrooms.  He suggests instead that teachers try to use as many modalities as possible when teaching to try to reach all kinds of learners.  I think that Kirschner would agree with James that it is not feasible to run a classroom in this way; however, Jame appears to be acknowledging that there are different learning styles.  According to the article from last week, that is not the case.  What does James' alluding to different learning styles mean for his view on teaching pedagogy as a whole?  Can this view be backed up by modern research?

Both James and the Roediger article also spend a significant amount of time discussing the best ways to insure good retrieval.  James points out that just because we cannot immediately retrieve a piece of information, it does not mean that we have not learned it.  He suggests that the information has had an effect on the way we view the world, thus it is learned.  Roediger suggests that the best methods for good retrieval are those that require frequent retrieval practice.  As in, the more we retrieve a piece of information, the better we will retain it.  Overall, I am not sure that the two authors are saying inherently different things, but I am unsure of how Roediger would feel about James assertion that retrieval is not necessary for learning.

The Roediger article reminded me of some classes I had in high school that I did not enjoy much.  One in particular came to mind.  My freshman year, in U.S. History, we were memorizing states and capitols.  We had quizzes each week where we were given a blank map and required to fill in the states and capitols.  Spelling counted, which frustrated me because I was not a strong speller and I felt that it was unfair to count my correct answer wrong because of a minor spelling error.  However, after reading the article and James, I realize that my teacher was being clever.  I was making more connections with the materials by having to learn how to spell each item.  I was also having to retrieve the material frequently and produce the correct answers rather than recognize them.  In the long run, I probably retained more state and capitol names spelled correctly through this process than I would have had we not been continuously quizzed.

I was also reminded of the controversy surrounding state assessments and common core.  The education system is constantly under fire for spending too much time testing and teaching for the purpose of testing.  However, Roediger would defend the system insisting that the retrieval process will lead to better retention.  I do not believe that James would rebuke the process; however, I believe that he would say that the test should not be the only measure of learning.  Is testing necessary for learning or does it get in the way?

5.1

I believe that learning depends on memory in some ways.  We cannot prove that we have learned unless we can remember.  However, I do not think it would be possible or reasonable to expect that we would remember everything we learn.  So that begs the question of what is the point of learning if we are not going to remember.  Like we have discussed in previous weeks, we are changed by what we encounter.  The things we experience change how we will experience new things in the future.  Therefore, I do not think that forgotten learning was a waste or useless, it is simply less evident.

I also do not think that much of our learning is truly forgotten.  Many things I learned during my undergraduate studies I could not recall on an exam today, but with a subtle reminder, that memory could be triggered.  Not being able to recall something cold does not necessarily mean that it is forgotten.  It may just mean that it is deep in the long term memory storage and is going to take some connection making to bring it back up.  I think of someone digging deep underground.  There may be many things the deeper he or she goes, but it will also take more rope to reach it.  You could tie many pieces of rope together and reach what one rope could not reach alone.

I believe that we vividly remember things that affected or changed us the most.  Perhaps that is why we remember things we wish to forget.  Moments of deep pain, fear, anger may have changed us so much that it is impossible to forget.  We cannot ignore our past experiences and that is evident in our memories.  Memories associated with a significant amount of connections may also remain more vivid.  For example, a grandparent could be remembered throughout life.  So, when that grandparent passes away suddenly, that moment already has established connections.  I think connections are the key to memories.

4.5

I find that memory tasks are frustrating for me.  They create a significant amount of cognitive dissonance.  When I have to give a memory task to students during cognitive assessment I feel the pain they often seem to feel.  After doing this series of tasks, I think numbers are harder for me to remember than words or pictures.  I find that interesting because I feel like I am pretty good with numbers in practice.  My memory skills in that area just do not feel like they are very good.

4.4

I actually had read this article last fall for Dr. Danner's Cognitive Development class.  I found it really interesting at that time and was excited to read it again in a new context.  The advantage of re-reading something I have already read is that I had already highlighted many phrases that caught my attention.  I found myself highlighting new phrases this time and was able to focus on different aspects of the article.

The first myth was that learners in the 21st century are "digital natives" as a result of growing up in a world with computers and the internet available pretty much everywhere at any time.  This idea has translated into the myth that learning can happen entirely in a self-directed manner from technology.  I believe Skinner would agree with this since his proposal of teaching machines in the 1980s; however, assuming that students can learn solely from technology requires the assumption that students can manage and navigate technology in an efficient manner.  Kirschner says, "These assumptions are all grounded - at least partly - in the widespread belief that children are highly effective at managing their own interactions with the technological world and should be trusted to be in control of these interactions" (p. 170).  I do not know any parent (including myself) who would turn over control of technology including when to use it, for how long, and to view what content to a child.  It is not necessary a lack of trust, but an understanding that technology opens the door to vast amounts of information that may or may not be appropriate.  Many technology also have embedded in them the habit forming variable interval schedule of behaviorist theory, causing children to lose some self-control in the frequency of their interactions.

The other component to this first myth is the idea of multitasking.  This stems from the idea that modern students are excellent multitaskers.  The evidence can be seen in how often they engage in multitasking, right?  Not exactly.  The evidence and research in how the brain works points out the the human brain is actually incapable of multitasking.  When people appear to be multitasking, the cognitive process is more accurately described as switching quickly between tasks.  I was reminded of James' talk on attention when Kirschner said, "When task switching, first the individual shifts the goal and thus makes a 'decision' to divert attention from one task to another, and then the individual activates a rule so instructions for executing one task are switched off, and those for executing the other are switched on" (p. 172).  As we divide our active attention between tasks, we lose a level of efficiency in learning.  The example of multitasking always used is driving and talking on the phone or more recently texting.  Since it is impossible to multitask, using a phone while driving requires people to switch off the attention on driving or move it into the margins and switch on the act of using the phone.  However, Kirschner also made the distinction that multitasking may be more possible when one action is a habit.  The problem with talking on the phone and driving is that a significant amount of driving is habit.  This is why most people would argue that they are not being unsafe when they use their phone while driving.  However, the problem arises when something unexpected happens and the habit cannot save us.  We simply cannot switch back fast enough frequently to avoid an accident.  Does one task being completely habit mean that true multitasking is possible?  If we are made up entirely of habits (or even 99.99 percent) than what does that mean for multitasking?

For me, the middle section of this article on the myth of learning styles was the least interesting.  I feel like I have known that learning styles are a myth for a long time.  I also have always felt that catering to every learning style was impractical.  What was interesting was the discussion on how people's preferred learning style may not actually be their best or most efficient.  It is because I believe learning styles are a myth and that schools cannot cater to every learning style that I struggle with some people I have known who choose to homeschool their children to better cater to their children's learning styles.  Adult life does not always cater to a specific learning style.  While I feel that I learn better when I have something in writing, I am going to be given verbal instructions.  Even though I know that I have to do something myself before I have really learned it, that will not always be possible or provided for me.  As Kirschner said, "Teach them to compensate for their counterproductive style" (p. 175).  Instead of trying to cater learning to the individual, we should be helping the individual learn to access knowledge presented in many different ways.

The third myth addresses learners as self-educators.  Kirschner discussed how it is assumed that teachers are somewhat unnecessary at this point in time because everything they will teach is available on the internet.  As I reread this section of the article, I was reminded of a wonderful article in The Federalist I read recently called "The Death of Expertise."  You can read it for yourself here.  Professionals across fields are facing consumers who believe they know better.  I have seen parents literally bring Wikipedia articles to meetings at school so they can teach us about Autism.  How do we as professionals address this issue?  What do we say when our expertise is being questioned?  Kirschner says, "Western society has changed.  We have moved away from a society in which authority is accepted and even appreciated into one where it is questioned and where we feel that we are best at determining what we do and how we should do it; we are a society of knowledgeable and articulate consumers of goods and services" (p. 177).  However, as Kirschner points out, the problem arises when their is so much information available that we are left to sift through it and determine what is good and what is bad.  I can promise that there is a lot of bad information available on the internet.  How are we preparing students to navigate the vast world of information? 

This article is filled with thoughts that make me nod my head and say, "yeah."  I was so glad I was given an excuse to read it again with fresh eyes.  Since we cannot ignore prior knowledge I knew I would take away some different things this time as I read in the context of learning instead of cognitive development.

4.3

Washington Post Article

The above link is for a Washington Post article published in May of this year about the debate over Sensory Processing Disorder.  I chose this article because I am interested in how sensory processing affects children both from a practice viewpoint and from personal experience.  I grew up living with my cousin who is 8 years younger than me.  He was born very premature (around 23 weeks).  He has had significant challenges in life including ADHD, learning disabilities, and sensory processing issues.  When he was younger and I knew less than I know now, I thought that sensory processing disorder was something made up to make parents feel better.  I did not understand how someone could sense something so far from reality.  But, as our readings and lectures this week have taught us, sometimes our sensory system can be fooled.  In the case of people with Sensory Processing Disorder, they are being fooled by their brains' interpretation of the input.  For example, my cousin will leave food sit on his plate until most people would say it was cold.  His brain tells him that things are much hotter than they are.  This has caused him to be very afraid of getting burned despite our reassurances that it is not as hot as he thinks it is.  I did not realize until reading this article that Sensory Processing Disorder is still not widely accepted by major organizations.  This causes there to be difficulties securing research funding and families being able to access services.  I realized as I was reading that we also do not have a way for children with Sensory Processing Disorder alone to be served with Occupational Therapy in the school because there is not a category that SPD would fit into in special education.  This all relates to learning because of the quote I posted in my last post from James.  He discussed how some people cannot block out extraneous stimuli as well as others.  People with SPD will have difficulty learning because they are constantly battling maintaining attention on what is important.

4.2

In James' chapter on attention the main ideas are that attention is necessary to learn, can only be sustained when interest is present, and requires teachers to keep students' active attention during instruction.  One idea that stuck out to me in this chapter was the idea of needing to block out extraneous sensory input to maintain attention.  James says when discussing individual differences in being able to sustain attention, "In others we must suppose the margin to be brighter, and to be filled with something like meteoric showers of images, which strike into at random, displacing the focal ideas, and carrying association in their own direction" (p. 56-57).  I feel like this is a beautiful way of describing the experience of children with ADHD, Autism, or Sensory Processing Disorders who simply cannot block out extraneous stimuli to attend to what is important.  I was reminded of a student at the elementary school I am placed in who was having difficulty during his science lab special time.  The science teacher keeps several animals in the room, one of which eats crickets.  In the middle of a complete melt down, the student was able to articulate to a teacher that he could not attend in science because the "crickets were driving him crazy."  He was unable to block out the sound of crickets chirping and attend to the science lesson.  The constant pull on his attention in multiple directions caused him great distress.

In James' chapter on apperception the main idea is how information comes into the mind and what happens to the information once it is in the mind.  James connect the idea back to reactions when he said, "Every impression that comes in from without, be it a sentence which we hear, an object of vision, or an effluvium which assails our nose, no sooner enters our consciousness than it is drafted off in some determinate direction or other, making connection with other materials already there, and finally producing what we call our reaction" (p. 77).  This idea of instant connections being made reminds me of how my toddler makes connections from things her perceives, even when those connections are inaccurate.  For example, he attends a class at Gymboree once a week.  He has been going for several months now.  He has become familiar with the sensory input of the views along the way to Gymboree.  Now, anytime we pass near there, he asks if we are going to Gymboree.  He cannot read street signs and does not know how to navigate the city, but the sight of a certain building or set of buildings activates a connection for him.  I also find this quote interesting in looking how it could relate to students with slower processing speeds as we see in children with ADHD or intellectual disabilities.  I wonder if the time it takes from the input to the drafting in a direction is slower or if the making of a connection is what is slower resulting in slower reaction times.

4.1

Information processing at its core reminds me of computers.  That analogy is used often in information processing literature.  If humans are like computers, than we rely on certain input, receptors, translators, storage systems, and output to function correctly.  Pinker and the third lecture discussed how humans rely on sensory input to make sense of the world.  However, we have to be careful because sometimes our sensory perception does not match up with reality.  Fortunate for us, we have a strong computer for a brain that is able to help us figure out that our perception may not line up with reality and even help us shift our perception as necessary.

Pinker also spent a great deal of time talking about language.  We usually view language development as something that sets humans apart from other intelligent animals and computers.  Our ability to express thoughts is seen as unique.  Pinker indicated, though, that language is not the best measure of thought because thought is not limited by linguistic abilities.  For me, this reminds me of the issue of determining a student’s abilities when the student does not have strong language skills.  It is difficult to assess intellect without the use of language.

3.5

I, Jean Piaget, viewed video 1 regarding a common core mathematics lesson for a fourth and fifth grade class.  First, regarding the class structure of fourth and fifth grade students being combined in one instructional space, I caution teachers and educators to consider the development of the students.  It may not be fair for fourth graders to be expected to have the capacity to learn what fifth graders may learn.  However, the lesson on decimals allowed students to build upon their existing schemas.  This was evident especially in the portion where students were sharing with students that had not been part of their original dyad.  This opportunity allowed students to assimilate information from other students’ schemata into their own through collaboration.  Overall, I would have preferred to see more relation to real life situations and the students given time to individually interact with the material; however, some good happened. 

Overall, this activity was interesting, especially because the video we watched was focused on Common Core.  I have heard many arguments for or against Common Core so it was interesting to think about how various theorists might view this style of teaching.  I found it decently easy to step into the role of Piaget because I can agree with many of his ideas; however, I tend to be more of a behaviorist than a constructivist most of the time so I found it difficult to react to some of the other theorists as Piaget would likely react.  Below is the link to our Google Doc.

Google Doc