Tuesday, July 7: Learning and the Brain # 1: Change through learning
How do changes in learning correspond to physical changes of the brain? What factors facilitate the process? What are the implications of this change for education and classroom practices?
Handouts for Learning and the Brain #1
Tuesday, July 14: Learning and the Brain # 2: The cycle of learning and its brain basis.
In this week's seminar on the series on learning and the brain, Jim Zull will explore the striking parallel between Kolb's learning cycle and the use of major regions of the brain. A brain-cycle will be presented, and we will discuss how this cycle can be utilized by educators to produce deeper and longer lasting learning.
Handouts for Learning and the Brain #2
Tuesday, July 21: Learning and the Brain # 3: The essential role of emotion in learning, and reasoning
In the next seminar on the series on learning and the brain, Jim Zull will explore how the brain emotion systems influence change of synapses in the brain. Both the negative and positive emotion systems will be discussed, with an emphasis on intrinsic motivation, and brain-derived ideas about how educators can influence feelings in the classroom in ways that enhance learning.
Handouts for Learning and the Brain #3
Thursday, July 23: Collaborative technology and learning outcomes
The advantages of collaboration in learning have long been recognized. What is new is the explosion of technologies that provide new opportunities for collaborative work, such as web conferencing, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds, cell phones, email, discussion boards, Twitter, and Facebook. Colleges and universities across the country are increasingly adopting these technologies for learning purposes.
The challenge is learning how to use them fruitfully to enhance learning by facilitating communication among individuals or groups in order to solve problems, conduct research, or to complete class assignments and projects.
At this session Dr. Mace Mentch of the office of Instructional Technology and Academic Computing (ITAC) will give a summary of what we know about the learning effects and learning outcomes associated with the use of collaborative technologies in educational settings. But identifying the three major conceptual categories that you want your students to remember later is also the hardest thing to do and at the next UCITE session, we will give some guidance about how to do this.
Tuesday, July 28: Learning and the Brain # 4: The role of images in learning
One of the main things we can do to improve our courses is by taking a little time well ahead to plan the course. If we wait until right before the beginning of the semester, we tend to get so involved by the pressure of logistical issues (preparing a syllabus, selecting topics, assignments, organizing supplementary materials) that we can overlook the need for looking at the big picture.
On the other hand, if we spend some time early on thinking about a few basic ideas (such as what are the few really important ideas we want our students to remember, how can those ideas be deeply ingrained, and how can we best assess understanding of them), the rest of the course planning becomes more straightforward and less rushed during the semester, and are able to spend more time in creating the right conditions for learning.
Handouts for Learning and the Brain #4
Thursday, July 30: Is academic faculty life becoming more uncivil?
Academia is not free from workplace politics. While the language used may be more genteel, the kinds of behavior found in other places are also found here and there are some in academia who assert that academia is becoming more 'uncivil', with complaints ranging from minor grating behaviors to outright rudeness, harassment, and bullying. There is even a recent book titled "Faculty Incivility: The Rise of the Academic Bully Culture and What to Do About It" that addresses this issue.
In this journal club session, we will discuss two articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education. One deals with 'academic bullying' and the other with a more extreme form of it called 'mobbing' where a group of faculty gang up on someone whom they wish to have leave.
Some questions that are worth discussing are: Is incivility a problem locally on our own campus? If one finds oneself at the receiving end of such incivilities or observe it in others, what should one do? How can the administration help create an environment where bullying is discouraged?
Tuesday, August 4: Learning and the Brain # 5: Brain research and memory
In the last seminar on the summer series on learning and the brain, Jim Zull will summarize some of the key points that have been covered as well as address some of the issues that that were not, such as the role of memory in cognition.
Handouts for Learning and the Brain #5
Tuesday, August 11: Bonus session on Learning and the Brain
Due to popular request, Jim Zull has added an extra session to deal with the many fascinating issues that came up at the last session and generated great discussions. These will including knowledge and neuronal networks; learning as change in networks; the brain cycle of learning; emotion and cognition; Images and other patterns that generate cognition; intelligence and cortex; and neurological concepts of memory.
He will also add some new information on emotion and Intelligence.
Handouts for Learning and the Brain #6
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