Brain Behavior Institute - Session 11

BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR INSTITUTE 2008

Output Architecture, Continued

Reflecting on our own activities, our own laboratory in education

"Although I was intially uncomfortable with the fact that Paul makes up his own words to call things (!), cables, boxes, stories, I function, central pattern generator) , I have come to see that it is a really useful way to explain concepts to us/students. However, if I am having a conversation with someone who does not use this vocabulary, it would be really handy if I knew what word he/she was using to refer to the same process/structure ... I'd like to hear, as we go along, how "normal" people refer to some of these things!"

"I also sometimes feel the impatience of wanting to move faster. During these times I find myself riffing off what Paul is saying either by searching for stuff that is related on the interent or by jotting down my thoughts. It reinforces for me the idea that any group of people is made of so many different types of learners, with so many different types of agendas, level of previous background and interest in the material. I love the online form for this purpose. It allows us to make our points, explore what interests us and engage other people in meaningful diversions that don't slow down the pace of the overalll class. It also allows us to ask our own sets of questions."

"I realized that sometimes I need the discussion to clarify and deepen my undestanding of the concepts being presented. The difficulty, then, is to determine which principles need more time and which can we move through faster. Further, is there a way to determine if all those in the class feel the same way about the same principles."

I didn't particularly think about developing lesson plans or learning additional computer tools, and wouldn't necessarily have thought I wanted that. As it turns out, it has been useful and interesting for me to spend time developing these skills/lessons ... I ultimately came to view the afternoons ... as good opportunities to do some work that I wanted to do anyway, on developing new ideas for teaching about the brain, so the afternoons ... turned into good focused study/work sessions for me"

"I am seeing people in my family a little differently from what I saw before."

"Brain & Behavoir has given me a different perspective on how I look at these students."

"I would like to hear more about how to apply this information we are learning to the classroom… teaching strategies, methods, application…"

Student and teacher priorities

"I think in terms of helping people be comfortable with the computer, perhaps the 'teaching fellows' could be introduced as, and function more as, teachers/helpers in that regard."

• Central pattern generation, corollary discharge
• Gene/environment interaction
• Motor influences on perception
  
• Distributed control - multiple interacting boxes, lots of loops (motor to sensory as well as sensory to motor)

Finishing up a look from the output side

Where is "drive", "choice", "will"? The I-function?

• Randomness and exploration (see also Inverting the Relationship Between Randomness and Meaning)
  
• Multiple negative feedback loops (choices being made all the time without our being aware of it)
• Purposive, adaptive exploration and action can occur without the "I-function"
• The cognitive unconscious as a distributed system
• I-function as suppressor of existing possibilities, creator of new ones?
• The brain(=nervous system as a distributed system, no one in charge?

What particular aspect of our discussions of the motor side of the nervous system seem most useful for your classroom, for your teaching in general? Write some thoughts/questions in the forum area.