Understanding Development and Learning The Brain— The Hardware of Learning

1. Understanding Development and Learning The Brain— The Hardware of Learning Fred Travis, PhD Chair, Maharishi Vedic Science Dept Dir, Center for Brain, Consciousness and Cognition.

3. Wholeness Our 100 billion brain cells (neurons) participate in larger groups (neural cell assemblies) to accomplish specific tasks—so called processing modules. These modules are functionally distinct and enable us to experience outer objects, inner thoughts, and even pure consciousness—inner, self-referral awareness.

4. Draw-a-Brain Refresher…

5. Learning Cycle: Kolb Concrete (sensory) Experience Active Experimentation Reflective Observation Abstract Hypothesis

6. Paired Reading • Read: Basic Brain Facts (pg. 53-61) • Identify brain areas associated with Kolb’s experience learning cycle.

7. Thinking and action CEO Emotions Concrete Experience

8. (p. 42) Midbrain RAS

9. Thalamus

10. Cingulate Gyrus

12. N100 Stimulus Registration

14. See the blind spot…. (p. 43)

17. How can you explain your experience by the opponent process model? (remember lateral inhibition)

18. Snakes “see” infrared. • Human eye is sensitive to a small range of the total frequency.

25. Main Point Concrete experience is the first step of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle. Sensory input is transformed into conscious experience through brain functioning.

26. Learning Cycle: Kolb Concrete (sensory) Experience Active Experimentation Reflective Observation Abstract Hypothesis

27. Where What

29. Beauty and the brain Parietal Insula Amygdala

30. Main Point • Reflective observation is the second stage in Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle. Understanding the nature of the immediate experience is necessary for transcending that experience.

31. Learning Cycle: Kolb Concrete (sensory) Experience Active Experimentation Reflective Observation Abstract Hypothesis

32. Thinking and action CEO Emotions

33. Frontal Cortex Medial Frontal- Emotions Dorsal Lateral- Working Memory, Model Building Orbital Frontal- Inhibition, Emotional Modualtion

34. Main Point • Abstract hypothesis is the third stage in Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle. Transcending is a process of going beyond concrete experience to symbolic thought.

35. Learning Cycle: Kolb Concrete (sensory) Experience Active Experimentation Reflective Observation Abstract Hypothesis

36. Motor Cortex Basal Ganglia Cerebellum

37. Specificity of the somatosensory (touch) system

39. Main Point Active experimentation completes the learning cycle by initiating another experience and so on. This is how learning occurs. In Maharishi Vedic Science Knowledge is the coming together of the knower and known through the process of knowing.

40. Emotions

41. Emotions • Class Reading: (pg. 44-48) • Human Emotion and Memory:

42. Learned Response

43. Izard Four-tier model of emotion

44. Practical tip • Preparing the brain to take a test. (pg. 49) • Effect of Multi-tasking (pg. 50-52)

45. Main Point The amygdala tags highly emotional experiences so they are more readily remembered (hippocampus). The feeling level guides decisions according Maharishi Vedic Science.

46. End-of-Session Review 1. Write a sentence that summarizes the most important idea of the session. • Relate this idea to you knowledge of the full development of consciousness. • Illustrate the two sentences with a graphic, cartoon, or diagram. • One or two, illustrate on the board and read our your summaries to the group. • Everyone, show your summaries to each other.

48. Unity Chart: The Structure and Functioning of the Brain 1.. 2. Parts of the brain work together to create conscious experiences and states. 3. Transcendental Consciousness: is the silence between each brain process, and each state of consciousness. 4. Wholeness moving within itself:

49. Unity Chart: The Structure and Functioning of the Brain 1.Different brain modules perform different functions. 2. Parts of the brain work together to create conscious experiences and states. 3. Transcendental Consciousness: is the silence between each brain process, and each state of consciousness. 4. Wholeness moving within itself: In Unity consciousness, brain functioning supports the reality that everything seen and unseen is a fluctuation of subjectivity—of one’s infinitely silent and infinitely dynamic Self.

50. Homework Illustrate: Create “cartoon characters” or “avatars” that graphically depict the function of three different brain parts and draw how they might interact.