Technology, Teaching and the Brain

Jeff GoodmanAppalachian State University

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

What is technology?

Who is Jeff Goodman?

What is the brain?

What is teaching?

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Teaching is the craft of changing the brain.

The Brain

Weight: 1.35 kg (~3 pounds)

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The Brain

Neurons: 100 billion (It would take you 5000 years to count them, 1 per second, 16 hours a day.)

Synapses: Average of 10,000 per cell = 1,000,000,000,000,000 (It would take you 50 million years to count them all.)

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How does the mind work?

Historically, metaphors for the mind have been drawn from the technology of the day.

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We are born with many neural pathways in our brains hooked up. When we learn, we are strengthening connections that already exist. Multiple pathways are active together.

Our brains are the way they are for a reason: what they do naturally has been successful in evolutionary history.

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Estimating Quantities

We Are Natural Problem Solvers

Chimp uses water as tool

Unfortunately, many of the things we need to do in the modern world were not present in our evolutionary history.

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To say we have “learned” something or “know” something can mean many different things.

•Charlie David lives on George Avenue•Charlie George lives on Albert Zoe Avenue•George Ernie lives on Albert Bruno Avenue

•Charlie David works on Albert Bruno Avenue•Charlie George works on Bruno Albert Avenue•George Ernie works on Charlie Ernie Avenue

•3+4=7•3+7=10•7+5=12

•3*4=12•3*7=21•7*5=35

•Charlie David lives on George Avenue•Charlie George lives on Albert Zoe Avenue•George Ernie lives on Albert Bruno Avenue

•Charlie David works on Albert Bruno Avenue•Charlie George works on Bruno Albert Avenue•George Ernie works on Charlie Ernie Avenue

Luckily, our brains excel at generating abstractions from concrete experience.

Muboo

Kiku

MubooKiku

Our brains and our bodies are intimately connected and interdependent.

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Our success as a species required us to work in groups. Our brains are strongly wired for social interaction and emotion.

Change Blindness

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While we often act as though teaching and learning are logical, rationale processes, a great deal is going on in the brain of which we are not conscious.

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Moreover, conceptual, empathetic and creative (right brain) processes are increasingly important in the world.

Can’t be automated.

Can’t be outsourcedhttp://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200708/r172892_652450.jpg

Connects us to what it means to be human.