How Does Your Brain Work?

How Does Your Brain Work? An Information Resource for Students

What is the purpose of this presentation? • Much of the buzz in education has been about constructivism and metacognition (these are explained later in the presentation). • I truly believe in constructivism and it is how I teach. • I feel it’s important for students to understand where their teacher is coming from and why she teaches the way she does. (This slide show briefly explains it.) • More and more of the research in education shows that students who are aware of how they learn and who can think about their thought processes do better in school and learn more. This slide show should give you some insight into your own learning styles and some insight into how your brain works.

Stimulus-Response Model • Up until the 1950’s many psychologists thought that people learned by stimulus and response, otherwise known as behaviorism. • The stimulus was the reward that a person received for performing a task. • The response was the task that a person performed. • Rewards can be intrinsic (coming from within—I’m proud of that project; I worked hard on it.) • Rewards can extrinsic (coming from the outside—I get $20 for every A grade I earn.) • You might have heard this approach called “conditioning.” Rats and mazes are used in some experiments. Learn about Pavlov’s Dogs and conditioning at: http://riri.essortment.com/pavlovdogs_oif.htm

INFORMATION INFORMATION Information Processing Model • Because many educators and psychologists thought that the behavioralist approach didn’t answer all the questions about learning, in the 1950’s, they began to think about learning as information processing. • The model focused on the computer as an example of how we learn. • Information goes in, is stored and then is spit back out when needed. • The only problem with this theory was that people don’t always spit out the same information; they affect it and change it in some way.

Constructivism • This view of learning came about in the 1960s. It said that human beings CONSTRUCT their own knowledge based on their perceptions and previous life experiences. • It contains some elements of behaviorism and information processing, but gives a clearer picture of how humans mentally manipulate information and make it their own. • To the cognitive psychologist, memory consists of three distinct parts: sensory memory, working memory (or short-term memory) and long term memory. • Each part plays an important role in the storing and retrieving of information. • The next series of slides will examine each part of memory and how it fits with the other parts.

How your brain stores information Short-term Memory or work bench This is where we actually do our thinking! Rehearsal increases duration This is where we register information. Chunking 7 + 2 pieces of information Sensory input Lasts for 18-20 seconds or is dropped Long Term Memory (LTM) Declarative knowledge facts, concepts Transfer Transfer Retrieval Procedural knowledge automatic processes Sensory input Dropped after .15 seconds Perception filters TMI or wasn’t important enough Sensory Memory (SM)

Sensory Memory • This is like a sorting area for your brain. • All types of stimulus enter here (sight, smell, taste, sound, touch). • Most stimuli are dropped after .15 seconds because we don’t attach any specific meaning to them.

Sensory input Sensory Memory (SM) This is where we register information. Sensory input Dropped after .15 seconds Sensory Memory Imagine you’re driving down a road. All sorts of images and smells and sounds come to you, but when you get home, do you remember all of them? No, because your sensory memory has dropped them as they were not important. Now, imagine if you were driving down the road, and all of a sudden, you see a deer coming up out of the ditch… Do you think this is important enough for your sensory memory to pay attention to?

Sensory input Sensory Memory (SM) This is where we register inform-ation. Transfer Sensory input Dropped after .15 seconds Perception filters Sensory Memory The sensory memory says, “Whoa, a deer, that’s important. I better send it over to the work bench.” Notice that because you saw the deer as important, you made your ideas cross the perception filters.

Transfer TMI or wasn’t important enough Short Term Memory or Work Bench Short-term Memory or work bench • This is the area of your brain where you do most of your work. • Once the sensory memory has passed over information, the work bench has between 18 and 20 seconds to either pick up and work with the new information or the new information will be dropped out of STM (short term memory). • Rehearsal (practice) increases the time the work bench has to work with the information. This is where we actually do our thinking! Chunking 7 + 2 pieces of information Lasts for 18-20 seconds or is dropped

Short-term Memory or work bench This is where we actually do our thinking! Chunking 7 + 2 pieces of information Lasts for 18-20 seconds or is dropped Transfer TMI or wasn’t important enough Short Term Memory or Work Bench • The work bench can only process between 5 and 9 pieces of information at one time. Information includes sights, sounds, smells, touch and even tastes. • That means that if you are watching TV, talking to your friends, eating popcorn and studying, you’re less likely to process your homework because your work bench is full of other things.

Short Term Memory or Work Bench, continued • The 5-9 bits of information are called chunks! • Experts like scientists and doctors can also only hold 5-9 chunks at a time, but the size of their chunks are huge compared to ours. Expert’s chunks (boulder) Our chunks (small rock)

Short-term Memory or work bench This is where we actually do our thinking! Chunking 7 + 2 pieces of information Lasts for 18-20 seconds or is dropped Transfer Transfer TMI or wasn’t important enough Short Term Memory orWork Bench, continued • Let’s go back to our driver and the deer. The work bench realizes that you must pay attention to this new bit of information—it’s important! • The work bench sends a message to the Long Term Memory “Help, I need some stuff to work with. We’ve got this deer thing happening and my person needs to know what to do!”

Long Term Memory (LTM) Declarative knowledge facts, concepts Transfer Procedural knowledge automatic processes The Long Term Memory • LTM gets the message from the work bench and starts to poke around on its shelves for stored information about “deer”.

Long Term Memory (LTM) Declarative knowledge facts, concepts Transfer Procedural knowledge automatic processes The Long Term Memory, continued • In one part of the LTM is declarative knowledge about the deer: • What is a deer? Is it a buck? • Boy, it’s a big deer. • How much did it cost to fix the car last time? • Could there be more than one deer because they usually live in herds.

Long Term Memory (LTM) Declarative knowledge facts, concepts Transfer Procedural knowledge automatic processes The Long Term Memory, continued • In another part of the LTM is procedural knowledge: • How do I stop the car? • I wonder if I remember how to file an insurance claim? • What do I do if I go in the ditch?

Long Term Memory (LTM) Declarative knowledge facts, concepts Transfer Retrieval Procedural knowledge automatic processes The Long Term Memory, continued The LTM takes all that information and sends it back to the work bench so it can solve the problem of the deer.

And then… In less than thirty seconds, you’ve identified the deer, braked the car, driven by the deer and sighed because you missed the deer. What if you had never seen a deer before, would you know that it was possibly dangerous? What if you didn’t know how to brake and steer the car? Could you have avoided it?

Rehearsal increases duration Sensory input Short-term Memory or work bench Long Term Memory (LTM) Sensory Memory (SM) Declarative knowledge This is where we actually do our thinking! facts, concepts This is where we register information. Transfer Transfer Chunking 7 + 2 pieces of information Lasts for 18-20 seconds or is dropped Retrieval Procedural knowledge automatic processes Sensory input Dropped after .15 seconds Perception filters TMI or wasn’t important enough This is slide number 17 if you want to print it for your own uses. It is a completed diagram of how your brain stores your information!

Our knowledge is built upon what we have learned and stored before. • Every person has a different way to store knowledge. Have you and a friend ever remembered something differently? • That happens because each person has a different SCHEMA (pronounced skee-ma) or pattern for organizing and storing their own knowledge.

Red fruit Granny smith APPLE crunchy Wicked witch Snow White The Seven Dwarves Try this… • Draw a circle in the middle of a paper. • In the circle, write the word apple. • Take 3 or 4 minutes to write down anything you can think of that is connected to an apple. • Have a friend or family member do this with you. • When you are done, compare what the both of you have written down.

Well…what did you find out? • Was your diagram the same as your friend or parent’s diagram? • Did it have a lot of the same words on it? • Were they in different orders? • It was pretty different, wasn’t it? You might have had many of the same words, but they weren’t all in the same order. • This is an example of how each person stores his or her knowledge in LTM differently. It also shows how differently the same information can be connected. • Constructivist Theory of Education tells us that each one of us builds our own knowledge framework depending upon our experiences and our past knowledge.

“So what, Mrs. Tomlinson, why’s this important?” • There are many different ways that you can “get” stuff to stick in your LTM. • If you can connect something new that you are learning to something that you already know, it’s MUCH easier to learn. • Learning is a combination of what you already know, what you are currently studying and how you stick it in to your SCHEMA.

Some tricks to get new information to “stick” • Rehearsal (repeat practice, works best for simple information) • Imagery-attaching a picture to a new concept. • Mnemonics- • 1st Letter-use the first letter of a list to form a word(s). (ROY G. BIV-the colors of the rainbow red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) • Loci-pronounce low-sigh. Imagine you’re in a room. Place all the things you want to remember around that room. Put the steps to setting up the microscope on the table. Next to it are the instruments you need for the experiment and so on. It takes time to set up, but is extremely helpful!

Some tricks to get new information to “stick” continued • Complex Information is more difficult to get to stick, but if you have the simple stuff well learned, you can attach the complex to it. • Think about what you already know about a subject before beginning study. • Ask questions about the new information before, during and after learning it.

Moving on… • For other ways to enhance your “stickability”, check out this website: http://braindance.com/frambdi1.htm • We’ll be studying more ways to get new knowledge to stick as we go through the year. __________________________ • Next, we’re going to take a look at personal beliefs and how they affect learning. Click on this link to take a survey to find out about your approaches to learning. • Click on this link and take the survey on what you believe about learning. No, it won’t tell you how smart you are; it will give you some idea about how you feel about learning. Go on, try it!

Beliefs about Learning • Click on this link to score your approaches to learning survey. • Click on this link to score your beliefs about learning inventory. • Please see me so we can discuss what your scores mean for you…

Beliefs about Knowledge • When psychologists talk about knowledge, they mean the nature of knowledge. At one point, is it possible to know everything about a given subject? Or, is there always one more piece of knowledge out there to learn? • What do you think?

Beliefs about Knowledge • Schommer (a psychologist) says that some people believe that knowledge is: • Simple, it is absolute and certain. • Certain, once it is known, it will always be true. • Fixed, the ability to learn is inborn and unchangeable. • “Quick learned”, learning must happen quickly or it won’t happen at all. Do you believe that any of these are correct? Take a few minutes and write in your journal why you do or why you don’t agree with Schommer.

Beliefs about Knowledge • Psychologists also believe that there are different types of knowledge: • Factual – the basic elements you need to know. (vocabulary, music symbols) • Conceptual – the interrelationships among the facts that let them function together. (categories, principles, models and theories) • Procedural – the steps of how to do something. (how to set up a microscope, how to conduct an interview, when to use a particular math method or punctuation mark) • Metacognitive – knowledge about thinking and about a person’s own thinking in particular. (I learn best from doing hands on experiments, or I write better essays if I make notes beforehand.) For more information on metacognition, check out this website: http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/metacogn.html Take a couple minutes here to write in your journal some examples of these types of knowledge that you have.

Beliefs about Knowledge • In summary, most psychologists take the view that knowledge changes as we grow and experience new things. We even restructure our knowledge to incorporate the new things with which we come into contact.

Beliefs about Intelligence • How do you see “intelligence”? • Are we born with a certain amount of smarts and that’s all we ever have? • Or can we increase our brain power throughout our lives?

Beliefs about Intelligence, continued • Most psychologists believe that intelligence is changeable. • There’s a new theory called Multiple Intelligences. It basically says that people are smart in different ways. To find out more about MI, visit this website: http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm • It includes a test to find out about your multiple intelligences. The test does take a little bit of time, so make sure you have enough time to complete it.

Beliefs about Self • These fall into three categories: • Self-Efficacy (pronounced ef-ick-a-sea) • Beliefs about future outcomes • Attribution Theory • Beliefs about past outcomes • Self-Determinism • Beliefs about the amount of control one has over events

Self-Efficacy • This is the belief in one’s own ability and capability to influence future situations. • It comes from what you believe about yourself, a type of self-fulfilling prophecy. • “I’ve always done well in math, therefore this test shouldn’t be a problem.” • “I never do well in math, therefore I’m going to bomb this test.” For more information, check out this website: http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/efficacy.html

Attribution Theory • When you think attribution, think explanation. This theory says that we explain our successes and our failures according to: • Ability- I’m good at math! • Effort- I worked really hard on this project! • Luck- I lucked out; the test was easy! • Control- I’m doing this because I like to do it!

Attribution Theory, continued • The most important component of the theory, EFFORT, is the one that every person can control. • EFFORT is the key to success, research has proven. It might take longer, and you might have to work harder, but EFFORT is the most effective way to improve your learning! • For more information on Attribution Theory, check out this website: http://www.as.wvu.edu/~sbb/comm221/chapters/attrib.htm

Self-Determinism • This deals with how much control and autonomy you feel you have in a given situation. • This also deals with the choices you make. • “I have to write this research paper on metacognition because Mrs. Tomlinson is making me do it.” • “I chose to do my research paper on metacognition because it really interests me.”

In Conclusion • This presentation is intended to get you thinking about: • Your attitudes and beliefs about learning. • How you learn. • What is your style of learning? • Just think, METACOGNITION! • It’s also intended to help you in your studies. Look for future presentations on study skills and critical thinking skills.

Journal Reflections(These won’t be shared in class, and I won’t read them if that is your request.) • In which way do you think you learn the best? Why? • Which belief about self most strongly describes you? Why? • What was the most interesting thing you learned in this presentation and how will it affect your future learning? • Do you think metacognition is useful to you? Why or why not? • Describe what a schema is. How does experience affect it?

For further investigation: • If you want to take some personality quizzes or other quizzes (just for fun), check out http://emode.com . Make sure you do NOT order any of the reports as they will cost money. • For more information about different learning styles and theories of learning, check out this website: http://www.funderstanding.com/about_learning.cfm

How Does Your Brain Work?