Tread
carefully when applying theories that you believe about the brain to learning.
A lot of the myths that are quickly debunked in the chapter often have an
effect on learning strategies for students that may not actually benefit them.
It is important to look at the brain and focus on what we are most certain
about, as this is what will benefit our learning. First and foremost, we have
an understanding about the structure of our brain and how it is formed. Like a
sculpture artist who starts with a block and ends with Abraham Lincoln, our
brain too has over produced synapses, and essentially keeps the ones we use.
This would be supported by why it is so much easier to learn languages when we
are children. Further, the other way the brain’s connections are formed are
from nothing. As we learn, it seems to be the case that experience creates new
synapses where they were none previously, and this is incredibly fascinating
because this means that we have the power to continue to learn throughout our
lives. The chapter quickly ends on establishing the connection between these
learning experiences (which are not just exercise (the brain is more than a
muscle)) and the reorganization and development of our brain. This lead me back
to when I was first introduced to the concept of schemas a few years ago in
Psychology.
Schemas
were originally introduced in 1932 (Bartlett), who attempted to describe the
structure of our brain. They can be defined as different groups of thoughts in
our brain, which have similar ideas. In High school, I was fascinated by the
idea of the structure of our brain, and I kept going back to the concept of the
folders in my computer and how they encompassed the metaphor so beautifully.
Today, upon digging up those old files in my head, it got me to think of an
interesting study for the future. Could we analyze the file structure of our
computers and infer something about how our brain is structured? Human beings
structure things in folders because this is the most sensible manner to do so
for us, but everyone structures things a little different on their computer. It
would be interesting to see if the way we structure things has something to say
about how we have wired our brains.
Works Cited:
Bartlett, F.C.
(1932). Remembering: A Study
in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
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