Evolving Learners: Education as Artificial Selection
If brains learn by pruning neurons that serve no purpose, the educators are pruners/encouragers of neurons. We should look at them as artificially selecting neurons in students.
Folksonomies: education teaching cognition
Memes
09 JUN 2015
Kindergarden: Garden of Children
Kindergarten means a garden of children, and Froebel, the inventor of it, or rather, as he would prefer to express it, the discoverer of the method of Nature, meant to symbolize by the name the spirit and plan of treatment. How does the gardener treat his plants? He studies their individual natures, and puts them into such circumstances of soil and atmosphere as enable them to grow, flower, and bring forth fruit,-- also to renew their manifestation year after year. Folksonomies: education
Folksonomies: education
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19 FEB 2015
Gardener Metaphor of Teaching
...like curriculum, the garden is primarily a social construct that reflects the intent of the maker and the prevailing cultural ideologies of the time. The lived experiences of the person within both curriculum and garden are a synthesis of orchestrated and phenomenological experiences. The garden and the curriculum employ a common interpretive stance by referencing the artistry of creation within an aesthetic of experience. Within this hermeneutic relationship lies the potential for moving ...18 FEB 2015
Human Self-Domestication
...the hypothesis of human self-domestication has recently been revived as a possible explanation of changes of human physical traits since the late Pleistocene. These changes include the reduction of body size and decrease in skeletal robusticity, modifications in cranial and dental features including reduction in cranial capacity, shortening of the facial region of the skull and maleruption of teeth, and reduction in sexual dimorphism. In contrast to earlier biological writings, other domes...17 FEB 2015
Teaching as Natural Selection
Teaching is commonly associated with instruction, yet in evolution, immunology, and neuroscience, instructional theories are largely defunct.
We propose a co-immunity theory of teaching, where attempts by a teacher to alter student neuronal structure to accommodate cultural ideas and practices is sort of a reverse to the function of the immune system, which exists to preserve the physical self, while teaching episodes are designed to alter the mental self.
This is a theory of teaching that is...
1 17 FEB 2015
Instruction vs. Selection
The main difference between an instructional system and a selectional system is that the instructional system uses information from the environment to change the properties of the object in question, but a selectional system has a large and varied population of objects, and the ones that are most fit for the environment are differentially reproduced. Hopefully an example Edelman uses from immunology will help clear this up.
The theory prevailing before the present one was called the theory ...21 APR 2014
Childlike Curiosity is a Virtue
As a species, humans manifest a quality called neoteny, the retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Neoteny has physical ramifications—scarce body hair and a flat face are two examples—but it also has neurological ones. Namely, we have an extraordinary capacity to continue learning throughout life.
If neoteny helps to explain our ability to learn, researchers are now figuring out what drives us to take advantage of it. In 2008, a group of scientists set up a novel fMRI study. ...An neotenatal evolutionary adaptation that allows us lifelong learning.
02 JUL 2013
Cognitive Neoteny in Modern Humans
The boy-genius can be seen as a specific instance of psychological neoteny which is apparently adaptive in modernizing cultures, and it occurred early in science because science is one of the most ‘modern’ and advanced social systems [2]. ‘Neoteny’ refers to the biological phenomenon whereby development is delayed such that juvenile characteristics are retained into maturity. It represents a relatively fast and simple way of evolving adaptations – for instance modern humans in Western Europe ...Perpetual education and change has pushed humans into a perpetual state of youthful cognition. Our brains remain childlike in order to continue to learn and adapt to our ever-changing modern environment.
18 JUL 2011
How Brains Grow Into Bodies
Brain wiring begins with the outgrowth of axons. Once a newborn neuron has migrated, planting its cell body in a permanent position, it sends out a fine axon shoot with an enlarged tip known as a growth cone. At the end of the growth cone are about a dozen long tentacles that shoot out in all directions and act like radar, picking up all manner of navigational signals. They feel out the best-textured surfaces, sniff around for chemical cues, and even use tiny electrical fields to help the axo...Best description yet of the synaptic "pruning" human brains go through as the brain wires up to the body and best reason yet for why children should have rich, mentally-nourishing environments in which to grow so that their synapses don't get unnecessarily pruned, resulting in smaller brains.
04 MAY 2011
Neoteny in Humans
...the concept of "neoteny"—the retention of juvenile features into adult life. It is a commonplace of human evolution that the transition from Australopithecus to Homo and from Homo habilis to Homo erectus and thence to Homo sapiens all involved prolonging and slowing the development of the body so that it still looked like a baby when it was already mature. The relatively large brain case and small jaw, the slender limbs, the hairless skin, the unrotated big toe, the thin bones, even the ex...Adult humans look like baby chimpanzees
References
09 JUN 2015
Moral Culture of Infancy and Kindergarten Guide
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Peabody, Elizabeth (2008), Moral Culture of Infancy and Kindergarten Guide, Retrieved on 2015-06-09Source Material [www.googleapis.com]
Folksonomies: education kindergarden
Folksonomies: education kindergarden
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19 FEB 2015
The Garden as Metaphor for Curriculum
Periodicals>Journal Article: Baptist, Karen Wilson (2002), The Garden as Metaphor for Curriculum, Teacher Education Quarterly, Fall 2002, Retrieved on 2015-02-19
1
18 FEB 2015
On human self-domestication, psychiatry, and eugenics
Periodicals>Journal Article: Brüne, Martin (10/05/2007), On human self-domestication, psychiatry, and eugenics, Philos Ethics Humanit Med. 2007; 2: 21., Retrieved on 2015-02-18Source Material [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
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17 FEB 2015
Neural Darwinism
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article: Cofer, David (2002), Neural Darwinism, Retrieved on 2015-02-17Source Material [www.mindcreators.com]
Folksonomies: cognition cognitive development
Folksonomies: cognition cognitive development
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17 FEB 2015
Is teaching about instruction or selection?
Periodicals>Journal Article: Davis, Gary (02/17/2015), Is teaching about instruction or selection?, Journal of Brief Ideas, Retrieved on 2015-02-17Source Material [beta.briefideas.org]
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21 APR 2014
The virtues of curiosity
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article: Ransom, Cliff (03.18.2014), The virtues of curiosity, Popular Science, Retrieved on 2014-04-21Source Material [www.popsci.com]
Folksonomies: curiosity
Folksonomies: curiosity
1
02 JUL 2013
The rise of the boy-genius: psychological-neoteny, scienc...
Periodicals>Journal Article: Charlton, BG (2006), The rise of the boy-genius: psychological-neoteny, science and modern life, Medical Hypotheses, 2006; 67: 679–81., Retrieved on 2013-07-02Source Material [www.hedweb.com]
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18 JUL 2011
What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develo...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Eliot , Lise (2000-10-03), What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life, Bantam, Retrieved on 2011-07-18
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03 MAY 2011
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Ridley , Matt (2003-05-01), The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, Harper Perennial, Retrieved on 2011-05-03
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