Kids can teach themselves

Yes, this video is a bit long (~20 mins) but an amazing one. It just goes to show how powerful the human learning capabilites are. Really brings into question of do we really need schools? Check it out and let me know your thoughts. As always, I have lots, but I want to hear others first!

The effect of emotions and EQ

Today I was thinking about emotions and it's affect on the learning process. I think emotions play a big role. If you are passionate about a subject or a class, you will tend to listen more. You will try harder and spend as much time as needed learning the material. If you are having trouble comprehending, chances are you might try different ways to look it (i.e. draw a picture, find a video/animation, etc). But if you find a subject to be boring or something you really dislike, it will feel like a chore. It will be painful to learn the material and you will most likely not try as hard. That's just my guess, I mean, it sounds like common sense right?

I was reading the posts on this facebook group, named The Learning Revolution (there's a surprise), and someone commented about measuring emotional intelligence, or EQ. I was not completely clear on what emotional intelligence was, so I looked it up. Turns out it is the ability to identify, assess, manage, and control your own emotions, others, or a group. Now that is realllyy crazy!

It got me thinking though, if emotions do play a big role, and someone were to have a high EQ, that would be a powerful combination. I mean, even in classes you hate, if you can find out WHY, and address it, then you have a chance at succeeding in that class and doing ALOT better. Good and bad teachers good be identified by EQ. Question is, how would you even measure emotional intelligence? Does it make sense? If it became a standard, how do we ensure that it truly measures someones EQ (unlike most standardized tests)? Should there be a standard; since like intelligence people can be smart in different ways, maybe the way best way to assess emotion for one person may not work for another?

Let's turn our attention to an interesting website: Connexions

This learning resource can be considered the facebook of learning. It is basically a portal where people can share learning material with each other. You can take some of the material, and change it in different ways and repost it as something new. The great thing about this learning resource is that they strive to present and retain material that is explained in a modular format, meaning one concept at a time. These concepts can then be used to link to other concepts, which helps us to better see the connections (Woah. I just realized that one).

I still need to do some exploring, because it is not clear to me yet how it how the linking occurs and what tools are available within Connexions for that. Some of the great stuff about this is that UC Merced is apparently using this tool for their curriculum, which is a sign that at least some major universities realize the need for change in the way we are taught and the way we learn. Let's see if anyone else finds this useful and how would they use it? I'll explore more and see how I might use it myself and post something...

Newtech Network

With all the talk we will be doing on this blog about learning styles, I wanted to try to bring some attention to a new type of school: New Technology High School:

New Tech Napa

Check out the link above, it's pretty amazing.

I had the great pleasure of attending a lecture at Cal Day in Berkeley a few months ago about how technology is changing the way we teach and learn. This new type of high school is a Project Based Learning environment where students are free to explore to their hearts content. Teachers are still present, but they are there as a guide and not really to lecture (which is probably what they were meant for in the first place, right?)

I was very intrigued because the Director of Innovation and Design at New Tech in Napa, Chris Walsh, gave an amazing lecture about how the way we teach and learn will not cut it for the future. With the world becoming so advanced technologically and at such a rapid pace, the education of the future needs to keep pace. Current education system is not able to because these days, if you want something in the technical field, you will need a Masters. Or if you manage to get a job with a BS, you will eventually need to get an MS later on down the line.

I will probably talk more about this in a another post, but one thing I must mention is Chris Walsh mentions that we as a society need to make F the new A. There is nothing wrong with failing, because that is when you learn the most.

The brain cannot multitask

When it comes to paying attention, multitasking is a myth. Many of you might argue that at some level we can and do multitask. For example, we eat and talk on our phones at the same, the brain controls our breathing, our heart beats, processes all kinds of information coming from the various senses. All at the same time. 

There is a fundamental difference between the different activities just mentioned and say talking on the phone while driving. Driving and talking on the phone both require our attention. It is difficult to pay attention to the conversation on the phone while paying attention to the roads and traffic. Each requires a certain amount of brain power and fact of the matter is, when driving needs our attention, we focus on that (a context switch) which takes away from the phone conversation. Sometimes what happens is you are on the road while in an engaging topic, and then you later realize you missed your exit. You tell the person to hold on while you get back on track. This is a context switch. You have to focus on getting back on track and ignore the conversation. It's a natural reaction. 

Breathing and heart beats do not require our attention. It just happen automatically. Eating while talking on the phone is also automatic. You don;t have to think about picking up the food and putting in your mouth then chewing it. It happens automatically. You're attention can then be spent on the phone. 

To understand this better, lets take a look at what happens when we need to do the context switch. Let's use the example of driving and talking on the phone. You are about to start driving:

1) Shift alert. When you begin driving, blood quickly rushes to the part of the brain that works like a switchboard (the anterior prefrontal cortex for you brain nerds). This simply means the brain is being alerted about a shift in attention.

2) Rule activation for driving. In this step, two things happen:

• a search query in the brain occurs to find the neurons capable of driving (keeping track of the traffic, the directions, turn signals, etc).
• once the neruons for driving are found, they are then activated

The phone rings....

3) Disengagement. Your sensory systems hears the phone ring. Since the rules for talking on the phone are different from the rules for driving, the brain must disengage from driving (scary huh?) before the phone can be picked up. The switchboard is consulted as the shift alert step happens again.

4) Rule activation for talking on the phone. Just like in step 2, two things happen:

• search for the nuerons cablable for picking up and talking on the phone
• activate neurons. 

As you can probably see, the context switch is a time consuming process. It has to happen sequentially. This is why while driving and talking on the phone is bad!! This is why you can get lost, this is why terrible accidents happen daily on our roads. As John Medina puts it, if you are good at "multitasking" that just simple means you have a good working memory (which funny enough, many women seem to have; so am I just crazy?)

Needless to say, because of all the context switching, it takes longer to finish all the tasks you need to do. Even worse, you will make more mistakes in doing those tasks because you have to keep track of all the things going on. Given such inefficiencies, it makes you wonder why schools and business take pride and demand multitasking? Why take three to 5 different classes in one term? Why try to perform several multiple different tasks at work (answer email, phone calls, write reports, etc)? The simple answer: to get more done. The problem: it actually causes you to get LESS done. go figure.  

Organizing information can greatly facilitate learning ..would you agree?.

A cluttered desk may certainly be a sign of a genius, but for most of us it leads to deep frustration when we try to find things. I have been in offices of a few genuis professors and, yes not just their desk but their entire office seemed to be in state of transition ... some where between packing for a move or unpacking after a move or may be a place recently trashed by robbers. I know someone who uses all possible horizontal surfaces in his room for stacking things ... floor, table top, shelfs, bed, chair, empty boxes, you name it. And surprisingly he is able to find things rather quickly. And if things a changed just a bit he gets disoriented ... he certainly has a system for organizing his stuff though it may appear chaos to all of us.

I often wonder why would these people not take the time to put away their stuff in places that are logically organized. May be it is the impatience or lack of time. May be they truly operate in a 4-dimension world, trading off clutter in 3D physical world in favor of a more organized 4th dimension. May be they manage their time well and see no point in wasting time in structuring the 3D space.

But then let us look at someone whose stuff looks pretty organized. Welcome to my study and library. I have seven huge book cases packed with books arranged by topic or theme as one would expect them to be in a bookstore. I rarely throw anything. I even have my handwritten notes from 30 years ago packed in nice boxes stacked in shelves in garage.

And although everything has a place and generally does not look clutters, too often I cannot find things when I need them and where I need them. Why? Unlike the genious who works and focuses on a one or too really important tasks, I am running around crazy trying to balance about seven different tasks. I tend to work in different corners of the house on different days and generally leave stuff here and there. I also take my books and notepads to work and there too I have a whole bunch of books and stuff. See given the nature of what I do, the highly structured stack of books and notes isn't much help. My seven tasks and their interdependence has a different structure amongst. In my head I can switch focus from one task to another while I am in office or driving, but at that moment the related books or notepads will be in someother location.

My highly structured stacks of books, notbeooks, scribbles are not available to me when I need them. Also given my physical mobility, I tend to think, scribble, and leave behind my notes in differnet places, and it is a challenge to keep them all together. And though I have tried, it is not possible to carry with me all the information I need in my backpack along with my laptop.

Given the nature of how I operate and work, these bookshelves and boxes do not represent an organization of information. They are simply storage. Rather than reveal information I would need or use, the storage hides it first in the form of books, and then in the form of knowledge hidden in the pages of the books. It is all nicely packaged and stacked away. It is stored, not organized. This situation is not all that different from what w eall have on our hard drives. Lots of files, lots of folders, subfolders, arranged by topic, by date, by purpose, etc etc. But it is not easy to find something we stashed away a week ago.

Here is my hypothesis: The organization of our work (when we do it, what we do, why we do, what do we do before we do a certain task, what do we do afterwards, what do we do if something unexpected happens, how do we change and rest focus, etc etc etc) is highly DYNAMIC. In the todays mobile-world, it is not only dynamic but is also conducted over multiple types of devices. This dynamic structure of work (always changing) requires that we find the right information or knowledge when we need it, where we need it, and on the device we need it. If the information is not readily forthcoming then that impedes our learning or any other task we are trying to accomplish.

The dynamic organization of work requires an equally dynamic organization of information. We need information to adapt to the shape or structure of our work, and not otherwise. And books in stacks or files on hard drive are simply too static ... they are merely storage with minimal structure to help quickly retireve if you know what you are looking for.

All around us the pace of information creation, consumption, and use has accelerated. Our work, priorities, learning, decision making has become rather rapidly changing dynamic structures. And to support this we need to look for novel ways to organize what used to "static stacks of traditional packets of knowledge (books, notebooks)", into more flexible and more dynamic organization of information which is available anywhere, anytime, on any device and adapts to the context of what we are doing.

We need to pay a lot of attention to how we organize our information such that they adapt to and support our work and learnings.

Instead of a long post, I wanted to share a video (you know, to exercise the whole vision concept of the last post) on an interview with John Medina. Enjoy!

Interview with John Medina

Down with Power Point + Vision dominance

I have been reading this really interesting book about how the brain works and learns. "brain rules" by John Medina is a fascinating book about the 12 principles by which the brain has evolved and functions. In a nut shell, he presents lots of brain science and based on these findings, gives his ideas of how we might be able to take advantage of these interesting facts of the brain. Today, I want to talk about Vision, and how it is so powerful to the learning experience in general. In fact, John Medina explains that Vision trumps all other senses and it takes about half of the brains resources. Which actually explains ALOT.

It explains why we find reading incredibly painful (especially those thick textbooks!), it explains why power point lectures are very boring and sometimes quite confusing, it also explains why we tend to remember things better when presented to us in a visual manner. 

When compared to forms of communication, such as oral presentations or text, pictures destroy the competition.

Here are some facts as quoted by John Medina:

*people remember more than 2,500 pictures with about 90% accuracy several days after exposure

*A year later, that accuracy was at 63%

*people remember 10% of what is said in an oral presentation

*picture + oral presentation = 65% recall rate

*power point is mainly text based; six hierarchical levels of chapters and subheads - all words!

This sure brings real meaning to "a picture is worth a thousand words", doesn't it? 

The question then becomes, why is reading so ineffective? Medina explains that the brain sees words as many pictures. In order to be able to read a word, the brain needs to separately identify simple features in the letters. "Instead of words, we see complex little art-museum masterpieces, with hundreds of features embedded in hundreds of letters." In short, text chokes the brain not because it not like pictures, but because it is too much like pictures. Weird, isn't it?

As a former student, one of the biggest problems I faced in school was a lack of understanding of the material. In college, I had at least one class where I found it difficult to gain a strong comprehension of the material. Textbooks would sometimes make it harder to learn because it would go over a lot more information than was needed and it was tough to relate the material back to class.

Even though I knew it was ineffective, I blindly just tried to memorize the material and learn how to apply it to the homework problems. I never had a full comprehension of how everything fit together. I never found a good solution to this problem, and to this day I still struggle to find it.

I'd love to hear from other people who have experienced this problem and maybe have a good solution. Or do you face a different set of problems?