Paul Beaufait's List: Brain Matters

"The current generation of 'search engines' seem to encourage a model of exploration that is disposed towards assimilative learning, finding sources, references and documents which can be slotted into existing frameworks, rather than providing material for deeper contemplation of the sort that could provoke accommodation and the extension, revision or even abandonment of views, opinions or even whole belief systems" (Tech drug, ¶10, retrieved 2010.08.04).

In this interview by Steve Hargedon (Tuesday, August 10th, 2010), Charles Fadel "review[s] the basic mechanisms [of learning] (physiological and cognitive) ... [and] address[es] understanding (the 5 C's: Context, Caring, Construction, Competence, Community). He ... also cover[s] issues of plasticity, timeliness, interdependence of dualities and various socio-cultural differences, as well as applications to multimodal learning, and how to evaluate interactivity" (Detail[ed] Description, ¶1, retrieved 2010.08.18).\n \n

Wheeler reports on findings that "Speaking two languages confers lifelong cognitive rewards that spread far beyond the improved ability to communicate" (¶1), and "The chief benefit of being bilingual is stronger 'executive control,' ... the chief building block of higher thought" (¶5).

Wheeler, David L. (2011). Being bilingual: beneficial workout for the brain. <i>Chronicle of Higher Education</i>, Research: February 20, 2011. Retrieved August 19, 2011. from http://chronicle.com/article/Being-Bilingual-Beneficial/126462/

"Project Zero is an educational research group at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels" (¶1, 2011.09.14).

Check out "10 Quick Creativity Hacks" and illustrations after the article itself.

"The findings support a theory of language acquisition that suggests that some parts of language are learned through procedural memory, while others are learned through declarative memory" (Turning off effort, ¶1, 2014.07.25).

In this article, Chen summed up an interview about Benedict Carey's book, <i>How We Learn: The Surprising Truth about When, Where, and Why It Happens</i>, highlighting and exemplifying take-away messages for self-directed learners as well as teachers.

"Scrutiny of the evidence-base for many claims of sex difference produces plentiful examples of methodological weakness and interpretative bias. In particular, neuroscientific studies of sex difference routinely presume a simplistic gender binary in research design and interpretation; ignore large within-sex variation in favour of emphasising small differences between the sexes; and privilege determinist biogenetic explanations for brain differences over the equally plausible explanation that plastic brains are shaped by systematically different sociocultural experience" (¶2, 2015.06.09).