EDUCATION TIPS

Ed Links Brain Stuff Edition (II)

Brain Mechanisms Of Social Conformity New research reveals the brain activity that underlies our tendency to "follow the crowd." The study provides intriguing insight into how human behavior can be guided by the perceived behavior of other individuals.Evolution Of New Brain Area Enables Complex Movements A new area of the cerebral cortex has evolved to enable man and higher primates to pick up small objects and deftly use tools. The brain's primary motor cortex turns out to have neighboring "old" and "new" parts. In most animals, including cats, rats and...

Ed Links Brain Stuff Edition I

Subliminal Learning Demonstrated In Human BrainAlthough the idea that instrumental learning can occur subconsciously has been around for nearly a century, it had not been unequivocally demonstrated. Now, new research uses sophisticated perceptual masking, computational modeling, and neuroimaging to show that instrumental learning can occur in the human brain without conscious processing of contextual cues.How The Brain Compensates For Vision Loss Shows Much More Versatility Than Previously Recognized New insights into how the brain compensates for loss of...

Is Consciousness a Result of Quantum Mechanics?

QUANTUM TO THE CORE?Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist and director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, argues that the highest function of life—consciousness—is likely a quantum phenomenon too. This is illustrated, he says, through anesthetics. The brain of a patient under anesthesia continues to operate actively, but without a conscious mind at work. What enables anesthetics such as xenon or isoflurane gas to switch off the conscious mind? Hameroff speculates that anesthetics “interrupt a delicate quantum process” within the neurons of the brain. Each neuron...

I've Been Lazy Ed Links Edition

I have many saved up and just have been too lazy to do the work to transfer them over.Effect Of Parental Education On Heritability Of Children's Reading Disability There is a significant interaction between parents' years of education and the heritability of reading disability. Researchers concluded that on average, poor instruction or lack of reading practice may often be the main influence on reading disabilities in families with low socioeconomic status, while genes may be the main influence on reading disability among children in families with high socioeconomic...

Bill Ayers speaks out, on Arne Duncan and democratic education

Check this out, over at Huffington Post:"...Much of what we call schooling forecloses or shuts down or walls off meaningful choice-making. Much of it is based on obedience and conformity, the hallmarks of every authoritarian regime. Much of it banishes the unpopular, squirms in the presence of the unorthodox, hides the unpleasant. There's no space for skepticism, irreverence, or even doubt. While many of us long for teaching as something transcendent and powerful, we find ourselves too-often locked in situations that reduce teaching to a kind of glorified...