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joycetheriot's picture

Generating Learning Opportunities

Submitted by joycetheriot on Tue, 07/15/2008 - 4:20pm.

Hard to believe but for me, a lunch discussion initiated important connections involving student learning. Tunde described an incident where he definitely perceived the traffic light to be green and passed through the intersection hearing squealing brakes around him but without calamity. He said he was thinking of other things (as we all do), therefore when he felt the car (in the right-perpendicular) lane slow down he, as on cue, looked at the traffic light and ‘saw’ green.

We can all relate to this experience because our I-function is often involved in our prioritized topics while we simultaneously perform other tasks in remote control.  Long distance driving is especially boring so our I-Function immediately launches interesting scenarios to keep us entertained. Meanwhile our cognitive unconscious is driving the car. As we heard Paul explain today the cog/unconscious will generate a prediction based on a very sophisticated set of genetic and experiential ‘traces’.  Therefore when Tunde’s cog/unconscious became aware of car slowing down; Tunde received the perception “green” that matched “slowing down”. When he heard the brakes squealing; Tunde’s I-function immediately kicked in gear and he was nervously aware of his mistake. 

Connecting to student learning, we know that students shuffle into our classrooms with only their cognitive unconscious in operation. Like Tunde they will immediately respond to a set of operational behaviors.

 

Get out notebook…copy anything on the whiteboard…raise hand…say usual responses…etc.

 

Knowing the behavior of the cognitive unconscious how can teachers both wake up students’ I-Function and initiate student learning?

 

 

See Joyce's Blog  

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