Inspire from Learning Science

Professor Wei,Yu

2005 July

Bio X

• Biology Engineering

Biomedical Engineering

Biology Education

Science of Learning

Cognitive NeuroscienceAffective NeuroscienceMolecular Biology, Neurogenetics

Memory

Perception

Retrieving

Behaviors

Molecular Level

Cellular Level

Circuit and Network

System

Behaviors

What is the learning? How to study it?

Emotion

• Our mind is inseparable from our body; it is related with the form of biological structure, the connections of axons, dendrites, and synapses of neurons in the brain and the functions of neurotransmitters. It is not only depending on our genes, but also our experience, especially the learning experience and our benefits from good experience.

• Genes and Environment Brain Behaviors

• Science,Volume 298, Number 5591, Issue of 4 Oct 2002, pp. 71-

• Researches have revealed that different functions of our mind, like language, mathematics, and decision-making, have their corresponding synaptic structures, circuits, systems and brain regions. They have different rules of development during our lifetime. The brain’s plasticity could last for the whole life; yet it must be noted that some experiences have powerful influence on the children at certain especially sensitive periods, while other experiences may influence the brain for much longer time.

J.S.Bruner Piaget

Before 5 enactive representation preoperational period(2-7)

6 ， 7-10 ikonic representation concrete operational period(7-11)

After 10 symbolic representation formal operational period (after 11-12)

Freud Luria

id Emotional function( limbic areas)

ego Cognition function (posterior cortex)

superego Executive control mechanism (anterior cortex)

SurvivorPerception actionTemperament,languageGene and environment

Self ControlProgress in cognitionCuriosityMotivation for difficult tasksCommunication and CooperationPractices

Modules and methodsMath and LanguageSecond LanguageScienceSocial Knowledge and SkillCuriosity to focusPractices and theoretic learning

After 3-5 years old?

After 8-10 years old?

• 摘自 Nitin Gogtay et al.

What is memory?

How we build our memory in the brain?

学习引起轴突生长的模型

• What must be paid attention to is not only the development of the children’s intelligence, but the development of their emotions. It is the Children’s emotion competency, not their IQ, that best foretells whether a child can succeed in life or not. The development of the children’s emotions at the early period is greatly affected by their experience just as that of their intelligence. Psychologists and cognition scientists have long ignored the study on emotions, and most education systems at the present time also emphasize the development of the children’s intelligence and ignore the cultivation of their emotion competency, which is quite a dangerous trend.

The Importance of Cultivation of Emotional Competency

Emotion

Violence and

Aggressive

Cognition

Hearth

Interpersonal

relation

Creativity

Motivation and Decision

Putamen, Caudate Nucleus, Medial Insula

• Self-awareness: • Observing yourself and recognizing a feeling as it happens.

Managing emotions: • Handling feelings so that they are appropriate; realizing what

is behind a feeling; finding ways to handle fears and anxieties, anger, and sadness.

• Motivating oneself: • Channeling emotions in the service of a goal; emotional self

control; delaying gratification and stifling impulses.• Empathy: • Sensitivity to others' feelings and concerns and taking their

perspective; appreciating the differences in how people feel about things.

• Handling relationships: • Managing emotions in others; social competence and social

skills.

Emotional Competence

The Importance of Cultivation of Emotional Competency

• Emotion relates to experience, especially the experience during early development. Research has shown that the emotion competency of children best presages whether they will succeed in their life.

• However, the regular education and the majority of the parents neglect it, we, as scientists and educators should do something together for changing.

• The development of education and the formulation of education policy need evidence based research as a backup. This requires cooperation between the education community and brain scientists at the academic level

• The Effect of “Learning by Doing” activity on the Development of Emotional Competence in Infants

• Xiaolin Lai,Xinxin Song,Zhengyuan Ding etc.

• （“ Learning by doing”center of Shantou University 、 Shantou 515041 ）

• The materials of the questionnaire survey were other-rating questionnaire about the development of emotional competence in infants, which was self-compiling including parents’ part and teachers’ part. Parents and teachers were asked to rate different dimensionalities of emotional competence in infants. The experimental design is: 2 (infants participating in “learning by doing” activity or not) ×3(years of participating “learning by doing” activity). Experimental groups: 20random selections of infants participating in “learning by doing” activity for 1 year, 20for 2 years and 20for 3 years; Matched groups: 20 random selections of infants not participating in “learning by doing” activity in a common infancy school for 1 year, 20for 2 years and 20for 3 years. The parents and teachers of the selected infants were interviewed and questionnaire surveyed separately.

• Statistical analysis to the result shows that: 1). infants who participate in “learning by doing” activity have developed better emotional competence than their peers who do not; 2). the longer an infant participates in “learning by doing” activity, the better his or her emotional competence has developed.

Research Center of Learning Science

Division of “Leaning By Doing”

Web “HandsBrain”

Resource Center

Lab of Children’s Emotion

Lab of Brain Imaging and Virtue Reality

Lab of Video and audio Signal Processing

Database of Emotion Development of Chinese Children

Lab of Biochips and Neurotransmitters

database

Display InquiryManagement

Physiologic-al signal

Behavior-al video

Facial expression

Speech signal

Data input

Backgrounds of research

Based on testee

Based on experiment

80P, 200G

Module of database

• We emphasize on ：• 1.     Move away from ideology toward

evidence • 2.     Move away from psychology toward

neuroscience and genetics • 3.     Move away from only studying

structure-function toward including transmitter - function

• 4.     Move away from single function, like language, logic reasoning toward integrated and interacted function, particularly integrating emotion.

• Education is not a kind of consumption, but a kind of investment, an investment by the country, the society, the family and the individual for the future. The investment in education rests upon the expectation about the fruits in the future, not for the short-term success or quick profit. Education embodies integrated responsibilities, especially that of the country instead of the mere individual responsibility of education participants. Education is mainly a social activity for public benefits instead of a commercial activity.

 Scientists should be awakened in the Knowledge Society, apart from carrying out scientific researches and technology transfer, they should also shoulder the historical mission of implementing science education, conducting dialogues with decision-makers and the media, and upgrading the educational level of the general public. Education community must realize that education undertakes the historical responsibility to conduct deep reform, and all walks of life, especially scientists must participate in the reform process.