Session 5 Homework
Sebastian Seung: I Am My Connectome
Seung focuses his work on the brain and connections of your neurons. The following book title is what fueled his research and study; “Guys’ Brains Are Like Waffles-they keep their lives compartmentalized in boxes. Girls’ Brains Are Like Spaghetti-everything in their life is connected to everything else.” Seung believes that it doesn’t matter if you are a male or female, everyone’s brain is connected (one neuron connected to many other neurons due to synapses). As for connectomes or memories are concerned, the mere act of thinking can change your connectome; neural activity/consciousness can change the connectome. By more studies and research, Seung also believes connectomes will help us see miss-wiring of the brain and other mental disorders.
John Seeley Brown: A New Culture of Learning
Seeley Brown stated the 21st century infrastructure is driven by the continual exponential advances of computation, storage, and bandwidth, with no stability in sight. Seeley Brown also gave us as teachers and as we prepare our students a 21st century challenge; “for this world of constant change, perhaps we need to rethink how we actually learn – especially the tacit, what we need to learn, and how new media has changed the game in fundamental ways.” Us as teachers and a society should afford students and kids curiosity via mobile devices, such as iPods, iPads, iPhones, because these devices are curiosity amplifiers. Seeley Brown was very passionate about allowing kids to play video games which are tools to allow kids to become knowledgeable by blending the tacit learner with cognitive learning. Seeley Brown used the expression “We participate, therefore we are!” He also believes as educators we should instill the quest to always become a lifelong learner in our students because knowledge is constantly changing.
Howard Gardner: Five Minds of the Future
Gardner talks about the five minds of the future. I especially connected with the third mind which is the creative mind; this is the mind that does something new and thinks outside the box. It is imperative to go beyond the known in this computer age. Getting kids to think outside the box pushes them to deal with things that do not always work out and to try them again; this is how kids become creative.
Sir Ken Robinson: Challenges the way we’re educated out children (All Three Videos)
Robinson states that all kids have tremendous talents but we (educators) squander them. Creativity is as important in education as is literacy. Kids will take chances and are not frightened at being wrong. “If you aren’t prepared to be wrong, you aren’t original.” Many highly creative people think they aren’t brilliant because everything they were good at in school wasn’t valued. In school, students are steered away from things they won’t do later on in life like music to musician. The current education system was designed and conceived for a different age; the intellectual culture of the enlightenment. Reform of the education system is not enough, there needs to be a revolution in education. We are getting our children through education by anaesthetizing them when we should be waking them up to what’s inside of them. We need to begin teaching divergent thinking: an essential capacity for creativity. The arts address aesthetic experiences.
Daniel Pink: The Surprising Science of Motivation
Pink stated we should believe in the power of incentives. If you want people to perform better, you have to reward them. Having autonomy, mastery, purpose, and engagement, self direction and creativity should increase motivation.
Analysis
As an educator, I believe with collaboration and engagement will come creativity, which are very crucial in the classroom and when engaging in Project Based Learning. Whether students collaborate face-to-face or collaborate using such programs as Prezi or Google Docs/Google Presentation, students will be engaged and free to express their creativeness. For instance, this past week I showed my classes the way I was taught by a friend how to save and upload a Wordle onto their blog page (yes, I have my students creating their own Weebly page dedicated to different genres of music) and while I was walking around the classroom helping a student, another student asked to show me another and much easier way to complete the same task I just showed them. In another class period a different student showed me yet another easier and effective way to complete the very same task. I firmly believe we should let our students amplify their curiosity and collaborate not only with their peers but us teachers every chance they get.
Teaching in the arts and having been trained in the arts and quite creative myself, I feel I have a slight advantage when it comes to allowing my students to be creative, express themselves, and to teach and motivate those few students who may need a little more encouragement to just simply let go! I can and will enhance teaching to the students’ creativity once I implement Louis R. Mobley’s six insights to help your students think creatively, particularly insights four, five, and six; (4) hang around creative people (controlled chaos and unstructured environment where most benefits accrued through peer to peer interaction), (5) creativity is highly correlated with self-knowledge, and (6) give students permission to be wrong-make a fool out of themselves. I feel that that some of these insights can be observed in my classroom weekly. After I have introduced a new note, rhythm, and song, to the class as a whole, I give student practice time to work either independently, or with peer(s). Several students and staff ask how I can concentrate with all the noise and chaos. I simply tell them it’s not noise, the students are practicing with peers, receiving help and corrections by peers and myself and for the shy ones, they are playing while no one is judging them if they do make a mistake. Allowing students to let loose for a while is needed as well as equitable.
Sebastian Seung: I Am My Connectome
Seung focuses his work on the brain and connections of your neurons. The following book title is what fueled his research and study; “Guys’ Brains Are Like Waffles-they keep their lives compartmentalized in boxes. Girls’ Brains Are Like Spaghetti-everything in their life is connected to everything else.” Seung believes that it doesn’t matter if you are a male or female, everyone’s brain is connected (one neuron connected to many other neurons due to synapses). As for connectomes or memories are concerned, the mere act of thinking can change your connectome; neural activity/consciousness can change the connectome. By more studies and research, Seung also believes connectomes will help us see miss-wiring of the brain and other mental disorders.
John Seeley Brown: A New Culture of Learning
Seeley Brown stated the 21st century infrastructure is driven by the continual exponential advances of computation, storage, and bandwidth, with no stability in sight. Seeley Brown also gave us as teachers and as we prepare our students a 21st century challenge; “for this world of constant change, perhaps we need to rethink how we actually learn – especially the tacit, what we need to learn, and how new media has changed the game in fundamental ways.” Us as teachers and a society should afford students and kids curiosity via mobile devices, such as iPods, iPads, iPhones, because these devices are curiosity amplifiers. Seeley Brown was very passionate about allowing kids to play video games which are tools to allow kids to become knowledgeable by blending the tacit learner with cognitive learning. Seeley Brown used the expression “We participate, therefore we are!” He also believes as educators we should instill the quest to always become a lifelong learner in our students because knowledge is constantly changing.
Howard Gardner: Five Minds of the Future
Gardner talks about the five minds of the future. I especially connected with the third mind which is the creative mind; this is the mind that does something new and thinks outside the box. It is imperative to go beyond the known in this computer age. Getting kids to think outside the box pushes them to deal with things that do not always work out and to try them again; this is how kids become creative.
Sir Ken Robinson: Challenges the way we’re educated out children (All Three Videos)
Robinson states that all kids have tremendous talents but we (educators) squander them. Creativity is as important in education as is literacy. Kids will take chances and are not frightened at being wrong. “If you aren’t prepared to be wrong, you aren’t original.” Many highly creative people think they aren’t brilliant because everything they were good at in school wasn’t valued. In school, students are steered away from things they won’t do later on in life like music to musician. The current education system was designed and conceived for a different age; the intellectual culture of the enlightenment. Reform of the education system is not enough, there needs to be a revolution in education. We are getting our children through education by anaesthetizing them when we should be waking them up to what’s inside of them. We need to begin teaching divergent thinking: an essential capacity for creativity. The arts address aesthetic experiences.
Daniel Pink: The Surprising Science of Motivation
Pink stated we should believe in the power of incentives. If you want people to perform better, you have to reward them. Having autonomy, mastery, purpose, and engagement, self direction and creativity should increase motivation.
Analysis
As an educator, I believe with collaboration and engagement will come creativity, which are very crucial in the classroom and when engaging in Project Based Learning. Whether students collaborate face-to-face or collaborate using such programs as Prezi or Google Docs/Google Presentation, students will be engaged and free to express their creativeness. For instance, this past week I showed my classes the way I was taught by a friend how to save and upload a Wordle onto their blog page (yes, I have my students creating their own Weebly page dedicated to different genres of music) and while I was walking around the classroom helping a student, another student asked to show me another and much easier way to complete the same task I just showed them. In another class period a different student showed me yet another easier and effective way to complete the very same task. I firmly believe we should let our students amplify their curiosity and collaborate not only with their peers but us teachers every chance they get.
Teaching in the arts and having been trained in the arts and quite creative myself, I feel I have a slight advantage when it comes to allowing my students to be creative, express themselves, and to teach and motivate those few students who may need a little more encouragement to just simply let go! I can and will enhance teaching to the students’ creativity once I implement Louis R. Mobley’s six insights to help your students think creatively, particularly insights four, five, and six; (4) hang around creative people (controlled chaos and unstructured environment where most benefits accrued through peer to peer interaction), (5) creativity is highly correlated with self-knowledge, and (6) give students permission to be wrong-make a fool out of themselves. I feel that that some of these insights can be observed in my classroom weekly. After I have introduced a new note, rhythm, and song, to the class as a whole, I give student practice time to work either independently, or with peer(s). Several students and staff ask how I can concentrate with all the noise and chaos. I simply tell them it’s not noise, the students are practicing with peers, receiving help and corrections by peers and myself and for the shy ones, they are playing while no one is judging them if they do make a mistake. Allowing students to let loose for a while is needed as well as equitable.
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