His using framework

Co-­‐Requisite: A Walk Through the Underpinnings of the Mental Processes for Thinking to Learn

Presentation Main Points • Goal of Learning in Content Support • Timely and Relevant Support • Reinforcing Mental Processes in Content Course Instruction • Developing Higher Level Learning Neural Structures • Key: Reflecting to Activate “Executive Functions” • Developing Competence in Content Course

Goal of Learning in Content Support College Readiness: “Success” is defined as: (1)completing entry-­‐level courses understanding and proficiency

at

a

level

of

(2)that prepares the student for subsequent courses.

Transfer Learning: Make Learning Useful

(this means that facts and ideas alone will not prepare the learner at a level of understanding and proficiency for subsequent courses)

Mental Processes: Timely and Relevant • Immediate learning and application of mental processes being learned with content course reading assignments.

• Learning and application of mental processes have to be on the fly and recursive.

• Huge motivational implications.

Application: It is about Transfer Learning whether • advising, • learning centers, • developmental support, or • content instructors.

• Every encounter (communicating/learning) has a learning outcome.

• Every encounter involves mental processes that encourage understanding, retention, and usefulness.

• Every encounter requires asking, “Did reflection and learning occur?”

Reinforcing Mental Processes in Content Course Instruction Essential: Content course instructors and their assignments must reinforce the mental processes being learned during co-­‐ requisite support.

Goal is Transfer Learning: retrieval, application; critical and creative thinking.

Before they can do these things, they have to learn how to reflect.

Coverage is the Enemy of Understanding

• We confuse rigor with coverage, when the inverse is necessary for rigor and rigor is necessary for preparing learners for lifelong learning. • Learning is about being able to think with content, not covering content.

Critical and Creative Thinking in the Content Areas “Contrary to popular belief, learning basic facts is not a prerequisite for creative thinking and problem-­‐solving – it’s the other way around. Once the learner grasps the big concepts around a subject, good thinking will lead the learner to the important facts.” (John Bransford)

What Does the Learner Need in Order to Make Learning Useful?

They need to • understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework • organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application What is the Core Mental Process for Meeting These Learner Needs?

• reflect with elaboration on where facts and ideas fit within a conceptual framework

Look again at the mind map below of the concepts you will be learning in the Introduction to humanities course. The goal of the Support “Thinking” course that goes long with the humanities course is to help ensure that you learn the mental processes that will enable you, as a learner, to more easily learn, retrieve, and apply the concepts below for art you encounter. physical volume and density

The Media of the Arts

add white

tint

add black

shade relationship: blacks to whites to grays

value

shape of object

form

mass

hue

elements roughness or smoothness

color

texture

Two-­‐Dimensional Art

value

intensity purity go hue linear form

Media drawing painting printmaking

Composition

line

color edge

implication for continued direction

Formal & Technical Qualities

rhythm greatest visual appeal

Other Factors perspective chiaroscuro contrasts dynamics

focus Sense Stimuli

juxtaposition

focal areas

equilibrium

closed composition

unity

harmony

variation

principles

open composition trompe l’oeil

repetition

balance symmetry

asymetrical

World History Conceptual Framework (Big Picture)

Once the learner grasps the big concepts around a subject, good thinking will lead the learner to the important facts.” (John Bransford)

Human Creativity Supporting Conditions

Affects

Expressions of Creativity

Through Patterns of Note: Over learning and connecting everything you are reading in the textbook to this conceptual framework is key to building a foundation for critical and creative in the future.

• •

understand facts and ideas in the context o f a conceptual framework organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application

Rrationale for using the mental processes of reflection with elaboration.

Working Memory Conscious awareness

4 unrelated items 10-­‐15 seconds

Core Mental Processes for Reading to Develop Competence in an Area of Inquiry New information must to get into working memory (attention). Keep the information in conscious awareness (concentration).

It is reflection that routes t h i s n e w construction of meaning to t o t h e prefrontal cortex.

Prefrontal Cortex

v v v

Incoming information

Hippocampus T h e n t h i s n e w i n t e r c o n n e c t e d knowledge goes to the prefrontal cortex - the thinking part of the brain.

Working Memory

!3

The central executive was the most important part of the working memory because it was in complete control of the actions of the other components.

It is reflection that routes t h i s n e w construction of meaning to t o t h e prefrontal cortex.

Prefrontal Cortex

Incoming information

v v v

if we multi-­‐task while studying, the information goes into the striatum, a region of the brain involved in learning new skills, from where it is difficult to retrieve facts and ideas. If we are not distracted, it heads to the hippocampus, a region involved in storing and recalling information.

Hippocampus T h e n t h i s n e w i n t e r c o n n e c t e d knowledge goes to the prefrontal cortex - the thinking part of the brain.

Working Memory

!3

The central executive was the most important part of the working memory because it was in complete control of the actions of the other components.

It is reflection that routes t h i s n e w construction of meaning to t o t h e prefrontal cortex.

v

Prefrontal Cortex

v v

Incoming information

Hippocampus T h e n t h i s n e w i n t e r c o n n e c t e d knowledge goes to the prefrontal cortex - the thinking part of the brain.

Working Memory

!3

Affects

Making Working Memory Limitless

It is reflection that routes t h i s n e w construction of meaning to t o t h e prefrontal cortex.

v

Prefrontal Cortex

v

effects

patterns

Suppor ting Conditi ons

v

Expressions Creativity

Incoming information

Hippocampus T h e n t h i s n e w i n t e r c o n n e c t e d knowledge goes to the prefrontal cortex - the thinking part of the brain.

Working Memory

patterns

effects

Suppor ting Conditi ons

Expressions Creativity

!3

Learning only occurs if new knowledge is connected to prior knowledge.

Note: Over learning and connecting everything you are reading in the textbook to this conceptual framework is key to building a foundation for critical and creative thinking in the future.

It is reflection that routes t h i s n e w construction of meaning to t o t h e prefrontal cortex.

Prefrontal Cortex

v v v

Incoming information

Hippocampus T h e n t h i s n e w i n t e r c o n n e c t e d knowledge goes to the prefrontal cortex - the thinking part of the brain.

Working Memory

!3

Effective Learning requires Time for Reflection and Thinking, and is Key to providing mental time and space.

The prefrontal cortex contributes highly integrative computations to the conscious experience, which enables novel combinations of information to be recognized as such and then appropriately applied to works of art and science.

The prefrontal cortex, which comprises approximately half of the frontal lobe in humans, integrates already highly processed information to enable still higher cognitive functions such as a selfconstruct, self-reflective consciousness, complex social function, abstract thinking, cognitive flexibility, planning, willed action, source memory, and theory of mind.

Three other cognitive functions of the prefrontal cortex—working memory, temporal integration, and sustained and directed attention—provide the infrastructure to compute these complex cognitive functions by providing a buffer to hold information in mind and order it in space–time.

It is this superimposing of already highly complex mental constructs that dramatically increases cognitive flexibility.

Dendrites Myelin Sheath

Axon

Neuron Ends Cell Body

The more myelin the circuit attracts, the stronger and faster its signal strength becomes. It turns out that myelin, not the nerves, is what builds the speed, precision and timing that creates great learners.

Core ReflectionMental Processes for Reading to Develop Competence in an Area of Inquiry

• New information must to get into working memory (attention).

• New information must connect to prior knowledge to construct meaning.

• The learner must step back in their mind and reflect on the new information to route the information through the prefrontal cortex.

• Examples of reflection are internal dialogue, conversations, writing to learn.

• The prefrontal cortex is the seat of executive function such as critical thinking.

• Reflection is the common denominator of critical thinking.

• The learner must acquire a conceptual framework for the new information.

• The new information must be understood in the context of the conceptual framework.

• The learner must organize the information if it is to be easily retrieved and applied.

• Unorganized information overloads working memory.

• The learner must repeatedly re-expose themselves with elaboration (internal dialogue, communication, writing to learn, or self-testing over time) to the information or the information is easily forgotten. Practice retrieving the information is essential.

• The learner must repeatedly expose themselves with elaboration to the information for myelin (layers of fat) to accumulate on the axon of brain cells, which is necessary for dramatically increased speed of transmission and processing.

• Increased speed of processing and transmission is necessary for maximum retrieval of information to maximize the processes of manipulation of new information, such as problem solving. All the above is necessary for overriding the limitations of working memory and for developing competence in an area of inquiry.

It is reflection that routes t h i s n e w construction of meaning to t o t h e prefrontal cortex.

Prefrontal Cortex

v v v

Incoming information

T h e n t h i s n e w i n t e r c o n n e c t e d knowledge goes to the prefrontal cortex - the thinking part of the brain.

1. We get stimuli coming in

90 Second Hippocampus Rule Working Memory

2. That stimulates the amygdala (emotions) first in the brain; (the amygdala is alert for the unfamiliar, which triggers it); The amygdala is asking “Do I feel safe?” (When the world is familiar, we feel clam and feel safe). !3

3. Then we react to the stimuli when it is unfamiliar (these three steps take 90 seconds).

Again!!

Critical and Creative Thinking in the Content Areas “Contrary to popular belief, learning basic facts is not a prerequisite for creative thinking and problem-­‐solving – it’s the other way around. Once the learner grasps the big concepts around a subject, good thinking will lead the learner to the important facts.” (John Bransford)

After having helped Amy’s world history learners connect what they were reading to her assignments, I now have a conceptual framework for the textbook her learners were reading (map on right). This is now my prior knowledge from her class provides a context for understanding facts and ideas and for understanding more deeply the new conceptual framework that Amy’s new world history textbook is organized around. Amy ’s prior X-­‐ Factor learners could be able to bring that prior knowledge to reading Amy’s new textbook. See below:

A History of World Societies

We want to help the learner overlearn this conceptual framework and relate all new facts and ideas to it.

Human Creativity

Affects

Through Patterns of

Supporting Conditions

Expression s of Creativity

The Conceptual Framework of A History of World Societies

WHAT is CULTURE?

What Cultural Connections have Linked Us Across Time and Space?

A History of World Societies

What are the Regions and Cultural Connections?

Conceptually and Organizationally, What are the Big Questions?

Social and Cultural Focus: What were the social and cultural changes?

Timeline: When did they occur?

Comprehensive Regional Organization: Where did they occur?

Global Perspective: What are links among cultures, political units, and economic systems across time and space making them global.

Big Question WHAT is CULTURE?

A History of World Societies

Re-­‐create the lives of ordinary people in human terms and highlight the interplay between between men’s and women's lived experiences and the ways they reflect on these to create meaning.

Material Culture – ex. songs and stories

Developments.

• Economic • Political • Intellectual

Social -­‐ of or relating to human society and its modes of organization: social classes; social problems; a social issues.

Cultural -­‐ culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts.

Conceptual Prior Knowledge Learning only occurs when new information is connected to prior knowledge.

The weakest prior knowledge link to understanding world history is the lack of depth about the meaning of the concept of “culture”.

The learner can never get past a surface understanding of world history if they do not have some breath of understanding the concept of culture and deliberately reflect on the connection of new facts and ideas to the concept of culture.

CULTURE: The first time I read about human culture, culture was defined much like the following: “The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.”

I memorized the definition of culture without getting a good sense of its meaning or making connections with my own life. What I know now is that definitions memorized are easily forgotten -­‐ actually most likely to be forgotten. Memorizing was a common approach to learning. Now we know that without stopping and reflecting on the meaning of concepts like culture when they are introduced in a textbook is a very inadequate approach to reading to learn.

If the learner does not grasp the central idea(s) (such as “culture”) underlying the ideas of a course, then the information learned is very shallow, which means that the learner is less likely to be able to think deeply about the ideas that are related to the concept-­‐ in this case the idea of culture. All the ideas in a course that are based on human culture depend on being able to relate that being learned in the course to the meaning of culture, which is one of those concepts for which the meaning gets deeper and deeper as you go through college. For example, in a sociology course, ideas, like knowledge, language, symbols, norms, values, beliefs, etc. need to be organized in the brain in an interrelated pattern. If that happens, then new related ideas are learned easier and more likely will become useful in the future when solving problems or making decisions.

In the following pages, you will have the opportunity to take various definitions of “culture” and step back and reflect on their meanings. When the learner steps back and reflects on the meaning of concepts under consideration the information literally goes to those parts of the brain where it is more easily retrieved and is more useful in new situations. Memorizing, on the on other hand, sends information to parts of the brain where it is harder to retrieve and therefore less useful.

In college, you may encounter many courses which study “human culture” and if you get a good idea early on about what “culture” is then you will be far ahead in any of these courses and also in other contexts such as your interaction with others

A History of World Societies

Big Question What are the Regions and Cultural Connections?

The world is made up of regions and those regions are and have been linked by cultural connections as the peoples in those regions came in contact with one another.

All the world’s history is interconnected by these contacts.

Interconnections by Contacts: • Regions • Linked by cultural connections

Big Question What Cultural Connections have Linked Us Across Time and Space?

The links among cultures, political units, and economic systems are stressed. While every region has a separate histories, they have links across time and space making them global.

A History of World Societies

Chapter 1 Contents The Earliest Human Societies to 2500 b.c.e.

Evolution and Migration Understanding the Early Human Past • Hominid Evolution •Homo Sapiens, “Thinking Humans” • Migration and Differentiation Paleolithic Society, 250,000–9000 b.c.e.

Foraging for Food • Family and Kinship Relationships • Cultural Creations and Spirituality The Development of Agriculture in the Neolithic era, ca. 9000 b.c.e.

The Development of Horticulture • Animal Domestication and the Rise of Pastoralism • Plow Agriculture Neolithic Society Social Hierarchies and Slavery • Gender Hierarchies and Inheritance • Trade and Cross-­‐Cultural Connections Chapter summary 27

Chapter 1 Timeline: When did they occur?

Social and Cultural Focus: What were the social and cultural changes?

2,500 B.C.E. 9,000 B.C.E. 2,500 B.C.E. Paleolithic Neolithic Society Society -­‐Forging for food -­‐Horticulture -­‐ Family and -­‐Animal Domestication Kinship Relationships -­‐ Pastoralism -­‐Cultural Creations -­‐Plow Agriculture and Spirituality -­‐Social and Gender Hierarchies -­‐Cross-­‐cultural Trade

Comprehensive Regional Organization: Where did they occur?

Global Perspective: What are links among cultures, political units, and economic systems across time and space making them global.

* Arrows indicate relation to conceptual framework and when to reflect when learning.

Chapter 1 Summary Timeline: When did they occur?

Social and Cultural Focus: What were the social and cultural changes?

Comprehensive Regional Organization: Where did they occur?

Global Perspective: What are links among cultures, political units, and economic systems across time and space making them global.

Reading Selection How do the facts and ideas in the reading passage relate to the conceptual framework on the left?

Through studying the physical remains of the past, sometimes with very new high-­‐tech procedures such as DNA analysis, scholars have determined that human evolution involved a combination of factors, including bipedalism, larger brain size, spoken symbolic language, and longer periods of infancy. Humans invented ever more complex tools, many of which were made of stone, from which later scholars derived the name for this earliest period of human history, the Paleolithic era.

These tools allowed Paleolithic peoples to shape the world around them. During this era, humans migrated out of Africa, adapting to many different environments and developing diverse cultures. Early humans lived in small groups of related individuals, moving through the landscape as foragers in the search for food. Social and gender hierarchies were probably much less pronounced than they would become later. Beginning around 50,000 b.c.e. people in many parts of the world began to decorate their surroundings with images that suggest they had developed ideas about supernatural or spiritual forces., arranged in a hierarchy.

Chapter 1 Summary

Reading Selection How d o the facts and ideas in the reading p assage relate to the conceptual framework o n the left?

Beginning about 9000 b.c.e. people living in southwest Asia, and then elsewhere, began to plant seeds as well as gather wild crops, raise certain animals, and selectively breed both plants and animals to make them more useful to humans. This domestication of plants and animals was the most important change in human history and Social and Cultural Focus: marked the beginning of the Neolithic era. Crop raising began as What were the social and horticulture, in which people—often women—used hand tools to cultural changes? plant and harvest. Animal domestication began with sheep and goats, which were often herded from place to place, a system called pastoralism. The domestication of large animals led to plow agriculture, through which humans could raise much more food, and Comprehensive Regional the world’s population grew. Plow agriculture allowed for a greater Organization: division of labor, which strengthened social hierarchies based on Where did they occur? wealth and gender. Neolithic agricultural communities developed technologies to meet their needs and often traded with one another Global Perspective: for products that they could not obtain locally. Religious ideas came What are links among cultures, political units, and economic systems to reflect the new agricultural society, with fertility as the most across time and space making them important goal and the gods, like humans, arranged in a hierarchy.

Timeline: When did they occur?

global.

* Arrows indicate relation to conceptual framework and when to reflect.

Through studying the physical remains of the past, sometimes with very new high-­‐tech procedures such as DNA analysis, scholars have determined that human evolution involved a combination of factors, including bipedalism, larger brain size, spoken symbolic language, and longer periods of infancy. Humans invented ever more complex tools, many of which were made of stone, from which later scholars derived the name for this earliest period of human history, the Paleolithic era. These tools allowed Paleolithic peoples to shape the world around them. During this era, humans migrated out of Africa, adapting to many different environments and developing diverse cultures. Early humans lived in small groups of related individuals, moving through the landscape as foragers in the search for food. Social and gender hierarchies were probably much less pronounced than they would become later. Beginning around 50,000 b.c.e. people in many parts of the world began to decorate their surroundings with images that suggest they had developed ideas about supernatural or spiritual forces., arranged in a hierarchy.

2,500 B.C.E. 9,000 B.C.E. 2,500 B.C.E. Paleolithic Neolithic Society Society -­‐Forging for food -­‐Horticulture -­‐ Family and -­‐Animal Domestication Kinship Relationships -­‐ Pastoralism -­‐Cultural Creations -­‐Plow Agriculture and Spirituality -­‐Social and Gender Hierarchies -­‐Cross-­‐cultural Trade

• Arrows indicate relation to conceptual framework and when to reflect when learning.

Beginning about 9000 b.c.e. people living in southwest Asia, and then elsewhere, began to plant seeds as well as gather wild crops, raise certain animals, and selectively breed both plants and animals to make them more useful to humans. This domestication of plants and animals was the most important change in human history and marked the beginning of the Neolithic era. Crop raising began as horticulture, in which people—often women—used hand tools to plant and harvest. Animal domestication began with sheep and goats, which were often herded from place to place, a system called pastoralism. The domestication of large animals led to plow agriculture, through which humans could raise much more food, and the world’s population grew. Plow agriculture allowed for a greater division of labor, which strengthened social hierarchies based on wealth and gender. Neolithic agricultural communities developed technologies to meet their needs and often traded with one another for products that they could not obtain locally. Religious ideas came to reflect the new agricultural society, with fertility as the most important goal and the gods, like humans, arranged in a hierarchy.

9,000 B.C.E. 2,500 B.C.E. Neolithic Society -­‐ -­‐ -­‐ -­‐ -­‐

Horticulture Animal Domestication Pastoralism Social and Gender Hierarchies Cross-­‐cultural Trade

• Arrows indicate relation to conceptual framework and when to reflect when learning.

Timeline: When did they occur?

Social and Cultural Focus: What were the social and cultural changes?

Comprehensive Regional Organization: Where did they occur?

Global Perspective: What are links among cultures, political units, and economic systems across time and space making them global.

Physical remains were the earliest type of evidence studied to learn about the distant human past, and scholars used them to develop another system of classification, one that distinguished between periods of time rather than types of living creatures.

(Constructing models of time is called “periodization.”)

They gave labels to eras according to the primary materials out of which tools that survived were made.

Thus the earliest human era became the Stone Age, the next era the Bronze Age, and the next the Iron Age. They further divided the Stone Age into the Old Stone Age, or Paleolithic era, during which people used stone, bone, and other natural products to make tools and gained food largely by foraging—that is, by gathering plant products, trapping or catching small animals and birds, and hunting larger prey.

* Arrows indicate relation to conceptual framework and when to reflect when learning.

Timeline: When did they occur?

Social and Cultural Focus: What were the social and cultural changes?

Comprehensive Regional Organization: Where did they occur?

Global Perspective: What are links among cultures, political units, and economic systems across time and space making them global.

Physical remains were the earliest type of evidence studied to learn about the distant human past, and scholars used them to develop another system of classification, one that distinguished between periods of time rather than types of living creatures.

(Constructing models of time is called “periodization.”)

They gave labels to eras according to the primary materials out of which tools that survived were made.

Thus the earliest human era became the Stone Age, the next era the Bronze Age, and the next the Iron Age. They further divided the Stone Age into the Old Stone Age, or Paleolithic era, during which people used stone, bone, and other natural products to make tools and gained food largely by foraging—that is, by gathering plant products, trapping or catching small animals and birds, and hunting larger prey.

This was followed by the New Stone Age, or Neolithic era, which saw the beginning of agricultural and animal domestication. * Arrows indicate relation to conceptual framework and when to reflect.

Chronology ca. 4.4 million years ago Ardipithecus evolve in Africa ca. 2.5–4 million Australopithecus evolve in Africa years ago ca. 500,000–2 million Homo erectus evolve and spread out of years ago Africa ca. 250,000–9000 b.c.e. Paleolithic era ca. 250,000 years ago Homo sapiens evolve in Africa ca. 30,000–150,000 Neanderthals flourish in Europe and years ago western Asia ca. 120,000 years ago Homo sapiens migrate out of Africa to Eurasia ca. 50,000 years ago Human migration to Australia ca. 20,000–30,000 Possible human migration from Asia to the years ago Americas ca. 25,000 b.c.e. Earliest evidence of woven cloth and baskets ca. 15,000 b.c.e. Earliest evidence of bows and atlatls; humans cross the Bering Strait land bridge to the Americas ca. 15,000–Final retreat of glaciers; megafaunal 10,000 b.c.e. extinctions ca. 9000 b.c.e. Beginning of the Neolithic; horticulture; domestication of sheep and goats ca. 7000 b.c.e. Domestication of cattle; plow agriculture ca. 5500 b.c.e. Smelting of copper ca. 5000 b.c.e. Invention of pottery wheel ca. 3200 b.c.e. Earliest known invention of writing ca. 3000 b.c.e. Development of wheeled transport; beginning of bronze technology ca. 2500 b.c.e. Bronze technology becomes common in many areas; beginning of the Bronze Age

Where do the facts and ideas fit within this conceptual framework?

Human Creativity Affects

Through Patterns of

Supporting Conditions

Expressions of Creativity

Advising Prescriptive Advising -­‐ advisers make decisions for the students, Developmental academic advising is concerned not only with specific personal or vocational decision but also with • • • •

facilitating the student’s rational processes, environmental and interpersonal interactions, behavioral awareness, and problem-­‐solving, decision-­‐making, and evaluation skills.

Not only are these advising functions but...they are essentially teaching functions as well.” (Burns Crookston)

Tutoring Provide the learner with study strategies and skills that can be used to tackle difficult course materials across academic disciplines.

Don’t Substitute Strategies for Thinking

Informal Writing Assignments (Writing to Learn) Purposes of Writing-­‐to-­‐Learn Assignments • to help students understand and learn • to promote • critical thinking skills (e.g., analysis, synthesis) • reflection • integration of new information with students' prior knowledge • affective/psychic development • careful reading • class discussion • to help students discover and formulate problems • to help students develop problem-­‐solving strategies and skills • to allow and encourage students to raise questions and concerns • to sharpen student responses to their academic experiences • to help faculty monitor student progress through the course Informal Writing Assignments (Writing to Learn) http://www.uwlax.edu/catl/writing/assignments/writingtolearn.htm

Informal Writing Assignments (Writing to Learn)

•

The instructor completes the explanation, she pauses and says, "All right, let's stop and think about this for a few minutes.

•

Here's what I want you to do. Take out a piece of blank paper. Don't put your name on it. Now in the next three minutes I want you to answer this question." The instructor poses a question related to the concept she just explained.

•

Students write for a few minutes, and then the teacher interrupts, "Okay, now, even though you may not be completely done with your thought, turn to the person next to you and explain your responses to each other."

•

After several minutes of discussion by the student pairs, the teacher interrupts again and asks for volunteers to give their answers to the question. Quite a few hands go up, and the instructor selects four students to explain their ideas.

•

As they do so, the teacher emphasizes essential points and helps clarify misunderstandings.

Informal Writing Assignments (Writing to Learn) http://www.uwlax.edu/catl/writing/assignments/writingtolearn.htm

Don’t Substitute Strategies for Thinking