Click below to explore OpenColleges’s interactive Brain Map. Filled with facts about the brain as well as strategies for leveraging those brain features to take ownership over learning. Enjoy.
An interactive infographic by Open Colleges
Category Archives: Metacognition
(Re)Defining Dyslexia
In a recent New York Times op-ed, Defining My Dyslexia, physician and author Blake Charlton explores some of the emerging research and trends related to dyslexia while also sharing his own story about his struggles growing up a dyslexic. At the heart of his piece is the growing understanding that along with the challenges associated with dyslexia, are a collection of cognitive strengths that are too often under appreciated. He writes,
Last month, at the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation Conference on Dyslexia and Talent, I watched several neurobiologists present evidence that the dyslexic brain, which processes information in a unique way, may impart particular strengths. Studies using cognitive testing and functional M.R.I.’s have demonstrated exceptional three-dimensional and spatial reasoning among dyslexic individuals, which may account for the many successful dyslexic engineers. Similar studies have shown increased creativity and big-picture thinking (or “gist-detection”) in dyslexics, which correlates with the surprising number of dyslexic entrepreneurs, novelists and filmmakers.
The conference’s organizers made a strong case that the successes of the attending dyslexic luminaries — who ranged from a Pulitzer-winning poet to a MacArthur grant-winning paleontologist to an entrepreneur who pays a dozen times my student loans in taxes every year — had been achieved “not despite, but because of dyslexia.”
It is a powerful message for everyone, especially students struggling to understand their dyslexia within the context of a world that sees their differences as deficits. He goes on to illuminate this point,
Today’s educational environment exacerbates dyslexic weaknesses. Schools misidentify poor spelling and slow reading as a lack of intelligence; typically diagnose the condition only after students have fallen behind; and too often fail to provide dyslexic students with the audio and video materials that would help them learn. Until these disadvantages are removed, “disability” most accurately describes what young dyslexics confront.
This heartbreaking reality further demonstrates what many of us already know: we must design educational spaces and experiences not to just accomodate, ahem, all kinds of minds but to intentionally leverage the mosaic of strengths that such diversity brings to the table. There’s a considerable difference between tolerating diversity and embracing it. Perhaps a good place to start is in how we define and diagnose such “disabilities” as dyslexia. To this point, Charlton concludes,
A more precise definition of dyslexia would clearly identify the disabilities that go along with it, while recognizing the associated abilities as well. If the dyslexic community could popularize such a definition, then newly diagnosed dyslexics would realize that they, like everyone else, will face their futures with a range of strengths and weaknesses.
We could not agree more.
Photo Credit: The Nikon Guru via Compfight cc
Topography of Diversity
Below is a pretty cool topographical map of a brain from UNIT SEVEN. While it is not to be taken as scientifically accurate, it does serve as a fantastic metaphor for thinking about students’ minds.
We know that while the major structures of the brain are largely the same from one cranium to the next, the specific architecture of individual minds varies person to person based on experience. The splendor of minds and their (sometimes confounding) behavioral manifestations, as with ecosystems such as forests, deserts, and wetlands, lies in their variation, not their standardization.
The diverse topography of strengths, affinities and challenges evident in each student must be celebrated, embraced, and leveraged to strengthen and enrich our schools, communities, and, most importantly, their learning experiences. In honoring and demystifying their differences, we empower them to discover new vistas, hidden glades, and cascading rivers. Such metacognition helps them “draw” a map of their brain that will serve them as they navigate far beyond the walls of the classroom.
Your Brain By the Numbers
Scientific America recently published the engaging and amusing image below. It is the result of a collaboration between Wake Forest School of Medicine neuroscientist, Dwayne Godwin and the writer/illustrator of the Piled Higher and Deeper comic strip, Jorge Cham. Not only will some of these fact amaze you, you’ll have fun reading them, perhaps due to the associative memory the images activate and the dopamine secreted while reading them.
(click on the image to pull up a larger version)
Origami and Temporal-Sequential Ordering … An All Kinds of Minds Lesson Plan
It’s the time of year when lesson planning is, once again, on every teacher’s mind. And we at All Kinds of Minds are thinking about lesson plans, too – that is, “Learning about Learning” lesson plans!
We believe that it is critical to empower students to find success. Educators can promote and support this goal in many ways. One way is to help students understand the different components of learning, gain insight into their strengths and weaknesses, and employ targeted strategies to achieve success.
With this in mind, we wanted to share a sample “Learning about Learning” lesson for you to try in your classroom. The objective of this lesson is for students to develop an awareness of temporal-sequential ordering and the importance of following directions in the right order.
“Temporal-sequential ordering” refers to the process of organizing information by putting things in order and understanding time. It includes:
- Understanding order of steps, events, or other sequences
- Generating products arranged in a meaningful order
- Organizing time and schedules
LESSON PLAN: Ordering with Origami*
*Adapted from a lesson plan submitted by several teachers at Nolan Catholic High School in Fort Worth, TX.
Grade Levels: This lesson can be taught in an elementary, middle, or high school setting, with the complexity of the origami figure based on the grade level.
Objective: Students will develop an awareness of temporal-sequential ordering and the importance of following directions in the right order.
Estimated time: 20-30 minutes, depending on complexity of origami figure and depth of debrief
Preparation:
- Find instructions online for creating an origami figure (e.g., www.origami-instructions.com or www.origami-fun.com).
- Optional: Make a copy of the steps for each student (see Lesson Procedure, Step 3).
Materials: Paper square for each student
Lesson Procedure:
- Tell students that they will be creating an origami figure. Do not reveal what the final product will be.
- Tell students that this activity is designed to help them explore an aspect of how they learn.
- Convey the steps in one of the following ways: (1) Distribute handouts with the steps listed (either through pictures/diagrams or words), (2) Write the steps on a white board as you proceed through the figure, or (3) Demonstrate the steps while reading them.
Debrief (use all prompts or just a few):
- Discuss the mode in which directions were given. Ask students whether they think another mode would have been more effective for them, which mode, and why.
- Ask students whether they would have preferred to know what the final product was going to be before they began. If so, how would that have helped them achieve the result?
- Briefly explain temporal-sequential ordering. Points you may want to cover include how sequences and memory or sequences and language work together, how time is a sequence, how getting organized with time often involves organizing sequences, etc. Discuss the importance of sequencing and what can occur if the correct order is not followed.
- Ask students to brainstorm areas in which sequencing is important (e.g., understanding how time works, order of events in history or in a story, cause-effect relationships in science, problem-solving in math, etc.).
- As a class (or in pairs or small groups), ask students to come up with a few strategies they can try if they have difficulty with sequencing. See below for some suggested strategies to get your students started!
Feel free to adapt this lesson – play with it!
Sequencing strategies:
For students:
- Break sequences into small chunks.
- Repeat a sequence quietly to oneself (subvocalization).
For teachers:
- Regularly repeat, review, and summarize key points of the sequence. Students will benefit from paraphrasing directions in their own words. Have students discuss whether they agree or disagree with each other’s summaries of the directions.
- Provide checklists for sequential procedures, temporal order, and scheduling. Encourage students to refer to them often. Students may benefit from recording how well they use each step in the process.
- Provide concrete visual representations of sequential information that is delivered verbally. Represent multistep or complex sequences by drawing diagrams and flowcharts, and writing timelines on the board. Give handouts to refer to during class instruction and discussion.
What activities have you used to help your students understand sequencing? How might you adapt this leson? Do you have any great strategies for helping students improve their abilities in sequencing? Share your ideas with us by leaving a comment below!
For more information about temporal-sequential ordering, see:
All Kinds of Minds 