🪴 PAR Brain

uncommon sense teaching 2 notes

Mar 29, 202562 min read

Week 1

Video 1B-2: A Hook You Didn’t Even See Coming! Learning, Motivation, and Dopamine

Key Concepts

  • Quick review of key concepts from the previous course

o Learning means creating links between neurons in long-term memory

o The more we practice with whatever we’ve learned, the more we strengthen those sets of links.

o Nicely connected sets of links in long-term memory make it easy for the “octopus” of working memory to pull those sets of links to mind.

  • Whenever dopamine squirts out around our synapses, it helps link neurons together more easily.

  • Dopamine squirt near synapses whenever we get some kind of unexpected reward. For example, even just through the unexpected reward of having our curiosity satisfied, those links of learning get locked into place!

References

Influence of dopamine on learning and motivation

Serotonin and other neurotransmitters in motivation

The role of expected versus unexpected rewards in motivation

Reward prediction error is found in declarative as well as non-declarative learning

Curiosity, dopamine, and learning

Motivation and schemas (More on this important area to come!)

Video 1B-3: Don’t Say Boo—Stress and the Power of the Amygdala

Key Concepts

  • Review ideas:

o The brain’s two learning “superhighways” involve the declarative hippocampal pathway and the procedural basal ganglia pathway.

o The Conductor—that is, the octopus of working memory—takes what you or I as the teacher might be explaining to our students and passes that information along to the hippocampus. But Hip can’t face both the Conductor and Neo at the same time. Hip can only help Neo to reinforce her links of learning if the Conductor stops conducting, so he can turn to Neo and help her reinforce her links. This is why short breaks can be valuable.

  • The hippocampus can grow and connect neurons more easily than the neocortex can. But the hippocampus’s dendritic spines aren’t very stable—after a few days or weeks, they wither away.

  • Myg the amygdala is an almond-sized structure located at the end of the hippocampus. The hippocampus helps the amygdala’s emotional input to become attached to a memory.

  • While most of the data stored in Neo relates to flat, vanilla-flavored facts, without emotional color, the information stored in Myg the amygdala is quite different. It is emotional information. Neural connections to the amygdala may also explain some forms of bias.

  • The “I’m not biased” bias is a particularly common bias amongst intelligent people.

  • “Fear conditioning” means conditioning (connecting) something or someone with negative feelings of fear or pain. The brain can be negatively motivated through the amygdala’s “you’d better do this!” imperative system. But fear conditioning isn’t all bad—it can help ensure that students act appropriately in potentially dangerous situations.

  • Too many fearful events can cause too many spines in the amygdala, which can cause people to misinterpret and overreact to emotional cues—a characteristic of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

References

Overall explanation of the role of the amygdala in forming memories, and on what we term “flimsy” versus “sturdy” neurons in the hippocampus & amygdala, respectively.

The amygdala and fear

The “I’m not biased” bias

Video 1B-4: Digging Deeper into Motivation

Key Concepts

  • Neuroscience has shown that thinking about rewards in terms of internal and external rewards just doesn’t accord with how the brain works.

  • Interrogative motivation is the type of motivation that arises because we want to do something—it involves the brain’s reward system.

  • The imperative system provides for negative motivation through the impetus of the amygdala (and habenula).

  • Gamification is one of the best ways to bring interrogative motivation into learning.

  • Motivation often involves what are called “tonic” dopamine molecules that are scattered around the brain. When we have more tonic dopamine, we have more desire to do things. When we have less dopamine, we have less desire to do things.

  • “Phasic” dopamine molecules are the ones that concentrate around synapses and help us learn.

  • Gamification encourages inquiry, collaboration, and the exchange of ideas while avoiding unwanted stress that affects students’ abilities. Games also contribute to the enjoyment of learning and allow students to experiment and make mistakes.

  • Learning is a day-by-day thing. You might not feel like a superhero with the tiny gains that your child is making each day, but these tiny gains can add up into powerful mastery.

  • We teachers can help our students learn to reframe what they are doing to boost their dopamine levels. Here are some specific ideas:

o Make a subject easier through practice and interesting explanations.

o Share passionate excitement about a topic. Emotions are contagious!

o Give ideas for how to reframe the topic to make it seem more palatable. Remind students of long-term rewards as you set, achieve, and celebrate short-term intermediate goals.

o Elicit student curiosity—create a sense of intrigue.

o Establish a sense of shared accountability. Reward teams as well as individuals, for example, for their expertise in problem-solving.

o Use gamification wherever possible to promote mastery learning, rather than simply learning through quizzes and tests.

References

Practice can increase motivation by reducing cognitive load

Definition of a reward

Repeating a rewarded activity enough times can cause it to become a habit—no reward is needed for a person to perform a habit

Intrinsic and extrinsic rewards activate the same system

The habenula

Week 1 part 2

Video 1B-5: The Disparity Between Intellect and Character

Key Concepts

  • Sadly, there will always be a significant percentage of bullying or unethical students who are unreachable by current training methods.

  • Bullies are generally popular kids. They have the highest social status, the greatest self-esteem, and the lowest rates of depression—exactly the opposite of how bullies are typically portrayed.

  • Because nasty, bullying-type behavior hurts, it can embed in memory all the more strongly, making it seem that the percentage of people who bully is bigger than it actually is.

  • Just because “everyone” is using a program that ostensibly teaches moral behavior, or the program is developed by professors from a prestigious university with trainers who claim “solid scientific evidence” for the program’s efficacy, does not mean the program is properly vetted using sound scientific methodology, or that it is in fact helpful.

  • Teachers and administrators can themselves be bullies, both to other teachers and to students. The most competent teachers seem to experience the brunt of the bullying.

  • Bullying and nasty behavior is not just present in our classrooms. Every discipline has its percentage of nasty people, and, using current training methods, no one can ever completely eliminate that.

  • Expectations matter. Training students to put their attention on, expect, and ferret out misbehavior in others can make them see such misbehavior in every interaction, which can create a host of new problems.

References

The disparity between intellect and character

Well-meaning programs that don’t work as intended

Motivation matters in anti-bias training

Expectations and their effect in the classroom

Bullies have high self-esteem; the value of providing status to bullies

Bullying in the nursing and healthcare profession

Bullying in the teaching profession

The problems with anti-bias training

  • Bregman, P. “Diversity training doesn’t work.” Harvard Business Review 12, (2012).

  • Dobbin, F and Kalev, A. “Why doesn’t diversity training work? The challenge for industry and academia.” Anthropology Now 10, no. 2 (2018): 48-55.

  • Paluck, EL, et al. “Prejudice Reduction: Progress and Challenges.” Annual Review of Psychology 72, no. 1 (2021): 533-560. This massive review notes: “The past decade has seen rapid growth in research that evaluates methods for reducing prejudice. This essay reviews 418 experiments reported in 309 manuscripts from 2007 to 2019 to assess which approaches work best and why. Our quantitative assessment uses meta-analysis to estimate average effects. Our qualitative assessment calls attention to landmark studies that are noteworthy for sustained interventions, imaginative measurement, and transparency. However, 76% of all studies evaluate light-touch interventions, the long-term impact of which remains unclear. The modal intervention uses mentalizing as a salve for prejudice. Although these studies report optimistic conclusions, we identify troubling indications of publication bias that may exaggerate effects. Furthermore, landmark studies often find limited effects, which suggests the need for further theoretical innovation or synergies with other kinds of psychological or structural interventions. We conclude that much research effort is theoretically and empirically ill-suited to provide actionable, evidence-based recommendations for reducing prejudice.”

  • Sewell, T, et al. UK’s “Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities: The Report.” (2021), which recommended moving away from unconscious bias training (e.g. p. 18. Recommendation 8A)

Bias appears to be concentrated in smaller percentages of individuals in groups—not widespread

Video 1B-6: Good Intentions and Systemic Problems

Key Concepts

  • Any approach to solving problems, particularly when it comes to complex social issues, can produce a cascading stream of resulting difficulties that are worse—sometimes far worse—than the original problem. This concept is informally thought of as the “Law of Unintended Consequences.”

  • Conventional anti-bullying programs often have unanticipated consequences and side-effects that can make the situation worse.

  • Surveys can be poor devices for determining whether an educational or social program has achieved its goals.

  • Bullying isn’t just an act of aggression. It can also be purposeful exclusion.

  • Seemingly perfect and popular kids can also be bullied—some kids like this have even taken their lives because they couldn’t tolerate the bullying anymore.

  • Just as kids deserve to be taught how to handle the challenges of reading, writing, and arithmetic, kids deserve to be taught how to handle the social challenges of life, including bullying. It’s important to avoid handicapping students through well-intentioned efforts that have unexpected negative side effects.

References

  • (See references for Video 1B-7)

Video 1B-7: A Deeper Look at Efforts to Eradicate Bullying and Other Harmful Behavior

Key Concepts

  • Bullying that involves a crime such as theft, assault, and vandalism needs to be treated as a crime. Perpetrators of crimes need to be punished and/or properly rehabilitated.

  • Most bullying is not criminal. It involves insults, social exclusion, and non-injurious physical acts that hurt kids’ feelings. They cause subjective harm, meaning it is up to the victim whether they get hurt.

  • When we treat acts that cause subjective harm like crimes that require investigation, judgement and punishment, it can simply worsen the situation. The subjective harm can then escalate to objective harm as the vindictiveness turns to physically injurious attacks.

  • Teaching children how to not be victims teaches important skills that everyone can use throughout life.

  • Teaching bystanders to intervene in bullying has not been credibly shown to be effective. This approach also encourages a feeling of helplessness on the part of the bullied student. Bystanders can, however, be taught to help de-escalate situations.

  • Social engineering programs can have results that make the situation worse. Yet the creators of such interventions can be so convinced of the efficacy of their program that they ignore important negative indicators.

  • Teacher, instructor, and workplace professional development programs are a multi-billion-dollar industry. Like Big Pharma, professional development programs are often the ones funding the studies showing their program’s success. And their narrow definition of success can cover a multitude of worse side effects.

References

Pathological altruism (well-intentioned efforts that worsen the very situation that is meant to be resolved)

Joan McCord’s seminal thirty-year follow-up study of the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study

A biographical retelling of Joan McCord’s accomplishments:

Izzy Kalman’s work

Bullying

Participation in social media can have such a negative effect on student mental health

Video 1B-8: The Importance of Forgetting in Learning, Life, and Overcoming Stress

Key Concepts

  • There are certain neural chemicals that help dendritic spines form and fix into place, and other chemicals that cause those spines to melt away. You need just the right balance of those chemicals to be able to make memories, but also lose memories, so as not to be overwhelmed.

  • It can be harder for people with exceptional memories to see the big picture. Excellent memories can also be associated with behavioral inflexibility.

  • Sleep can be a form of “smart forgetting.” Why do we sleep so long? Because disassembling dendritic spines takes time!

  • Forgetting is important, not only for flexibility, but also for creativity. To see ideas and concepts in new and different ways, we must eliminate some neural connections, even as we make new ones.

  • It can be deeply unhealthy to remember every experience—especially bad experiences, resentments, and neurotic fears.

  • It is natural for teachers to want to do whatever they can to help ease students’ anxieties. But beware—asking students to share about negative feelings can be a form of retrieval practice that reinforces unpleasant thoughts and emotions.

  • Neurogenesis means the creation of new neurons. New neurons help not only with new learning—they also help with forgetting, as the new neurons gradually crowd out lesser-used connections.

  • One of the best things that we can do to help students overcome stress in their lives is to excite and encourage them about new learning! Learning something new actually serves as a sort of trellis—new neurons have someplace to park and grow if a student is learning something new.

References

Week 2

week 2 part 1

NOTE: All these references and readings are optional

  • Chapters 3 and 6 of Uncommon Sense Teaching are especially helpful in providing helpful information related to declarative and procedural learning.

2B-1: Learning without Knowing You Know: Revisiting the Procedural System

Key concepts

  • There are many activities the brain is involved in that we are not conscious of, including learning via the procedural system.

  • Although it’s possible to cram and hold a lot of information temporarily with declarative learning using the hippocampus, this process is not possible with procedural learning through the basal ganglia.

  • Sets of procedural links develop if declarative pathways have been repeated enough times.

  • Both procedural and declarative sets of links each gradually consolidate over time. This means it takes time to learn well.

  • Following a set of procedures actually means learning declaratively!

References

Good general overview of the procedural system from a teacher’s perspective:

Excellent, easy-to-read general introductions to the habit-based procedural system:

1 kilometer of nonconscious processing

The procedural system (in contrast with the declarative system)

Procedural links become consolidated, just like declarative links

Procedural as meaning “step by step,” declarative learning

2B-2: Compression is the Name of the Game!

Key Concepts

  • The procedural system likes to create links and take over responsibility for actions involving activities performed repeatedly through time.

  • The procedural system allows actions and thoughts to be automated. Having information deposited in procedural sets of links is like having a nice full bag of marbles your working memory can easily grab, instead of having to go pick out each marble individually.

  • There’s evidence suggesting that both reading and math rely at a foundational level on simply being able to stimulate a response when given a cue—all part of the procedural system’s repertoire.

  • Even advanced patterns of mathematical thinking can become automated and done unconsciously, if they are well-practiced.

References

Research about the procedural (basal ganglia) system in relation to mathematics

Quote from Thurston about mathematics

  • Thurston, W. P. (1990). “Mathematical education.” Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 37 (7), p. 846–847.

Thinking more broadly

Also, see this paper for an interesting alternative hypothesis to the idea that deficits in procedural learning are associated with dyslexia and dyscalculia:

2B-3: Front Doors and Back Doors—Diving Deeper into the Procedural System

Key Concepts

  • The procedural system has a front door, for goal-directed activities, and a back door, for habitual actions.

  • The basal ganglia are part of the switching system between habitual (unthinking) or goal-directed (consciously initiated) procedural activities.

  • The declarative and procedural systems “meet” at the procedural goal-directed system.

  • What comes out of the procedural system is something of a mystery as far as your declarative system is concerned.

  • The habitual entranceway links sensory inputs with motor outputs. These are called conditioned responses. For example, a trained dog is conditioned to sit in response to hearing (that is, having the sensory input of) the word “sit.” (Remember from week 1 that “fear conditioning” means conditioning (connecting) something or someone with negative feelings of fear or pain.)

  • It takes lots and lots of repetition for the procedural system to learn and take over from the declarative system, making your writing, or any other procedural action, fluid and automatic.

References

Front and back doors of the basal ganglia

Working memory works on timing-related “chunky” sequences of procedurally learned material the same way it works on chunks involving space and more abstract concepts

2B-4: Understanding the Differences Between Declarative and Procedural Learning

Key Concepts:

The most common differences between declarative and procedural learning are:
Declarative
You’re mostly conscious of it
Flexible
Involves sequential tasks
You can explain it
Develops through explicit instruction
Fast to learn, slow to use

References

A good overview of these ideas can be found in Chapter 6 of Uncommon Sense Teaching, by Barbara Oakley, Beth Rogowsky, and Terrence Sejnowski, Penguin Random House, 2021.

The procedural system (in contrast with the declarative system)

2B-5: How to Reach and Teach Both Procedural and Declarative Pathways

Key Concepts

References

  • A good overview of these ideas can be found in Chapter 6 of Uncommon Sense Teaching, by Barbara Oakley, Beth Rogowsky, and Terrence Sejnowski, Penguin Random House, 2021.

The value of dopamine and exercise in enhancing both declarative and procedural learning

Just turning students loose with materials to figure things out on their own is far less effective than intermixed explicit instruction with active practice and exploration.

Seemingly contrasting research findings

  • Freeman, S, et al. “Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 23 (2014): 8410-8415. This paper is often used to justify a “the more, the merrier” approach to using active learning in the classroom. But the paper actually only observes that classrooms using 10% or more of the period in using active learning approaches seem to do better. Also see the three comments on the article by Wieman, Hora, and Freeman et al.

Concept Attainment

See also the references to video 2B-4

Week 2 part 2

NOTE: All these references and readings are optional

  • Chapter 7 of Uncommon Sense Teaching is especially helpful in providing helpful information related to classroom management.

2B-6 Habits in the Classroom: Be Mindful of What you Want Your Students to do Mindlessly

Key Concepts

  • “The more routine a behavior comes, the less we become aware of it.”

  • You can tap into the power of the procedural system to create a smoothly running classroom.

  • It’s important to start with careful, declarative instruction to explain the behavior you want your students to eventually be doing automatically.

References

2B-7: Practical Examples of Mindfully Mindless Behaviors, Part 1

Key Concepts

  • Be sure to create seating arrangements and teams in your classroom—do not let students self-select.

  • A “bell ringer” activity done at the very start of each class can help students become engaged.

  • Creating name tags that are habitually picked up by students can be an easy way to help with names and even take attendance, if needed.

  • There are apps to randomize selection of students—but good old popsicle sticks can help, too.

References

2B-8: Practical Examples of Mindfully Mindless Behaviors, Part 2

Key Concepts

  • “My Favorite No” is an easy technique to help students retrieve and practice with key ideas.

  • An initial easy “three-minute quiz” as a bell ringer type activity at the beginning of class can help form good learning habits and help make classroom management easier.

  • Make a habit of learning student names—it can pay off in many ways in improving classroom behavior—and even helping with student retention.

References

  • See references for 2B-6.

Week 3 lesson 1

3B-1: Race Cars, Hikers, and Intellectual Humility

Key Concepts

  • The rigidity of dendritic spines that can help a person remember better can have the inadvertent side-effect of reducing their mental flexibility. Ultimately, the neural bath of chemicals that provides for an exceptionally good memory can, it seems, sometimes make it more difficult to let go of a decision in order to rethink things.

  • Race cars often have good memories. But having a good memory can lead to a disadvantage—it can make you less flexible in your thinking. Race cars can thus be fast—but less accurate in their learning and decision-making.

  • Hikers can often be more flexible in their thinking. These learners can be more accurate in the long run. They can also more easily draw back to see the big picture.

  • Both race car and hiker learners can get to the finish line and learn the material—they just do so differently

  • Groups of animals often have some faster, and some slower learners. In this way, the group can use the best strategy to be successful in a given situation—fast, inaccurate, but good enough for the circumstances, or slower and more accurate.

References

Books and videos for general audiences about some of these ideas:

Evolutionary groups mix fast (less inflexible) & slow (more flexible) learners

Birds:

Fish:

Humans:

The book and paper below describe the thoughts of Nobel Prize winners who reflect on the value of their slow way of learning, despite the fact that their slowness made learning a struggle.

3B-2: Introduction to Critical Thinking from a Neuroscientific Perspective

Key Concepts

  • Research evidence indicates that the more intelligent you are—that is, to a great extent, the faster you learn—the more inflexible you can be in your thinking.

  • We are (mostly) conscious of declarative (hippocampal) thinking, but not conscious of procedural system (basal ganglia) thinking.

  • The procedural system not only learns the things you are trying to learn, but it also develops a “value function,” which is used to store and predict optimal future choices and actions.

  • The procedural system affects our ability to think objectively, but we are completely oblivious to its influence.

References

3B-3: Why Critical Thinking Isn’t Easy

Key Concepts

  • People’s differing value functions, arising from the data they have fed into their procedural systems over the years, can make it difficult for them to understand differing perspectives, or to think objectively about a topic.

  • The amygdala and other parts of the brain can further bias a person’s value function.

  • Inflexibility of beliefs happens even (and especially) amongst top researchers, who have a vested interest in blocking approaches that might contradict their own approaches.

References

3B-4: How Difficult It Can Be to “Think Different” as a Teacher

Key concepts

  • It can be very difficult to go against what a group is trying to convince you to do. But thinking for yourself in these situations can sometimes prove invaluable.

References

week 3 part 2

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3B-5: Biases and Fixed Mindsets in Research

Key Concepts

  • There are many underlying biases:

o Confirmation bias

o Desirability bias

o “I’m not biased” bias

o Altruism bias

  • We can be biased early on to think some approach is simply and obviously true, and it can be hard for people—especially highly intelligent people—to change.

  • Once people have a little bias, they can begin looking only for solutions and approaches that support their biases, which makes their bias even stronger.

  • With the growth of a fixed mindset due to a procedural system being trained on a limited set of input data, an inflexible researcher or teacher might find ways to avoid critical examination of their work, instead of responding logically to the criticism.

References

Science is held back by inflexible thinkers:

Confirmation bias:

  • Kappes, A, et al. “Confirmation bias in the utilization of others’ opinion strength.” Nature Neuroscience 23, no. 1 (2020): 130-137. This paper suggests that confirmation bias “was not due to reduced attention or memory to disconfirming opinions. Rather, we speculate that contradictory opinions are more likely to be considered categorically wrong and thus the strengths of those opinions are considered unimportant.”

Desirability bias:

Altruism bias:

“I’m not biased” bias (as cited in Grant, A. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know: Viking, 2021.)

Flagrant misconduct at the Karolinska Institute, and other cases of fraud, bias, negligence and hype in science:

The challenge of the “successfully sinister” in institutional settings

3B-6: The Challenge of Fixed Mindsets in Expert Educators

Key Concepts

  • Understanding the world through reason can be equated to conscious, declarative, hippocampal-based learning and thinking. Understanding the world through experience appears to draw on understanding the world through the procedural learning system and its value functions.

  • People can trust their “common sense,” real-life experience—the intuition that arises from their procedural system—over other, scientific insights that have been found and conveyed through scientific data and reasoning.

  • A frequent problem in education is that teachers can begin skipping steps when working with new programs, and then blame the program when it doesn’t work, instead of realizing that steps can’t be skipped.

  • It is very difficult to convince people of something new—even highly intelligent, experienced researchers and teachers—if their mind is already made up in a different way.

  • In education in particular, it’s important to be wary of approaches that sound too good to be true—approaches that may accord with our experiences—but not, perhaps, with objective reason. Research studies are not infallible. As MIT’s Vice President for Open Learning Sanjay Sarma points out: “I question a lot of the structures and dogmas in education that are very closely held, but not necessarily based on science.”

References

For a discussion of what neuroscience has to say about math and reform approaches to teaching mathematics, see chapters 1-6 in particular of Oakley, B, et al. Uncommon Sense Teaching: Penguin Random House, 2021.

The research literature on the reading wars, as we mentioned in the videos, is vast. We recommend the two following popular articles as well as Dan Willingham’s book, which describe research findings about the “Reading Wars” while giving insightful context:

Other references related to the topics covered in the videos:

3B-7: Thinking Consciously and Critically about (and in!) Teams

Key Concepts

  • Collaborative learning in groups meshes nicely with the We do stage of direct instruction.

  • Being able to work with others in a team is highly valued! But teaching students to work well together toward a team related goal or project doesn’t mean just plopping them into groups and telling them to get started.

  • K-12 educators can tend to use the term “groups” for most types of pooled or collaborative work.

  • Post-secondary and industry tend to think of “groups” as being students who pool their efforts with little real interaction. They prefer the word “teams” for collaborative work toward a goal. From this perspective, with a group, the whole is often equal to or less than the sum of its parts; with a team, the whole is always greater.

  • Standard practice in teamwork is for the teacher to select the teams—not allowing students to self-select which team they are on.

  • Using the following three forms and checklists can be helpful in allowing students to develop a conscious, declarative understanding of smoothly functioning teams:

o Team Expectations Agreement

o Evaluation of Progress Toward Effective Team Functioning

o Peer Rating of Team Members

  • One of the most important aspects of team behavior you can teach students is how they can set firm limits when it comes to unacceptable behavior.

References

Main references

  • Oakley, B, Rogowsky, B., Sejnowski, T. Uncommon Sense Teaching: Penguin Random House, 2021. (See in particular Chapter 8: Linking Learners: The Power of Collaborative Learning.)

  • Oakley, B, et al. “Turning student groups into effective teams.” Journal of Student Centered Learning 2, no. 1 (2004): 9-34.This highly cited paper will walk you through a step-by-step understanding of how to use the forms and checklists described in this video.

Other references

3B-8: Using a Case Study to Teach Students How to Resolve Group Dysfunction

Key Concepts

  • One of the most common challenges in teamwork is when some members of the team do not pull their weight.

  • Always give your students tools to handle group and team peers who do not contribute—one of the best and easiest such tools is to allow group or team members to leave off the name of a student who doesn’t contribute substantively to an assignment.

  • A case study approach involving a dysfunctional team and the mistakes they made in working together—and how they could have avoided these mistakes—can allow your students to learn how to set expectations for the group and boundaries about what type of behavior is acceptable.

  • Trying to create “safe spaces” on teams can backfire and worsen team dynamics. This is because students can become afraid to give much-needed criticism when some students take advantage of others on the team, because non-performing students could say they are being made to feel uncomfortable.

  • Empathy is a double-edged sword. Trying to teach it can only end up reinforcing empathy in students who are already (sometimes overly) empathetic. In groups and cliques, empathy can fuel an excessive desire for acceptance that makes it difficult to say no to inappropriate behavior both inside and outside the classroom.

  • By teaching students about the value of boundaries, you can help them gain strength and wisdom and avoid falling into codependent relationships as they mature.

References

Week 4

week 4 part 1

4B-1 Dyslexia and Its Relationship with Declarative Learning

Key Concepts

  • Some students, due to their biological underpinnings can or are forced to rely exceptionally heavily on either their declarative or their procedural pathways, as opposed to effectively using both pathways.

  • For teachers of these students, the best approach is to nurture these students’ ways of learning, rather than forcing them to learn like the majority of other students.

  • Those with dyslexia seem to rely more on the declarative system for their learning. They also are more prone to having other disorders that may involve the procedural system.

  • Language and reading tests are rarely designed to show the special capabilities of those with dyslexia to perform better on novel tasks or to see matters as wholes rather than parts.

  • Where typical common-sense teachers may see only deficits, you, as the uncommon sense teacher that you are, are on the lookout for your students’ hidden gifts.

References

Dyslexia more generally

Dyslexia and the declarative/procedural system

4B-2 Attention Deficit Disorder and Other Syndromes that May Rely More Heavily on Declarative Learning

Key Concepts

  • In the US, students diagnosed with many learning-related syndromes must by law have accommodations and modifications to their instruction. But while some clearly learningchallenged students evade diagnosis, others can have what are called “subclinical” symptoms—not quite enough for a full-blown diagnosis, but clearly indicative of learning differences. In these types of situations, differentiation comes to the fore.

  • Many famous individuals have succeeded not only despite, but perhaps because of the characteristics of their syndrome. As Dutch football coach Johan Cruijiff has observed: “There is an advantage to every disadvantage.”

  • Syndromes apparently involved in a heavier reliance on declarative learning appear to include:

○ Dyslexia

○ Attention deficit disorder

○ Dyscalculia

○ Dysgraphia

○ Developmental language disorder

○ Articulation disorder and developmental stuttering

○ Obsessive-compulsive disorder

○ Dyspraxia

Serious disorders to be on the lookout for include

○ Anorexia

○ Bulimia

○ Depression

○ Post-traumatic stress disorder

References

Broader references about the various syndromes as well as biographical resources

Anorexia, bulimia, OCD, and anxiety

Video games and attentional disorders

Attentional disorders

Default mode network and creativity

Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s

4B-3 Autistic Spectrum and Other Syndromes that May Strengthen Procedural Learning

Key Concepts

  • Some students could have strengthened procedural learning abilities, perhaps, but not necessarily, related to declarative learning challenges.

  • Students who may prefer or be forced to rely more strongly on their procedural systems may include those:

○ On the autistic spectrum

○ With Tourette syndrome

○ With lesser capacity working memory

  • Other syndromes can also be associated with specific learning challenges that do not seem to be related to the declarative or procedural system in particular, including

○ Aphantasia (inability to visualize)

○ Selective mutism

  • Some students on the autistic spectrum—as with many extraordinary scientists—are extremely uncomfortable working with others, or verbalizing declarative explanations.Trying to make them fit into the box of learning the same way others do can simply ruin their desire to attend school.

References

Those on the autistic spectrum prefer to be called “autistic,” rather than “a person with autism”

The blog Autistic not wierd: “To everyone who tells me not to say autistic person,” by Chris Bonello, Feb 16, 2020.

General references related to this video

week 4 part 2

4B-4: Focusing on Your Objectives

Key Concepts

  • Lesson planning can benefit from logical pre-planning related to many of the ideas we’ve discussed in this course. In this module, we review these key lesson-planning-related topics:
1. Standard6. Hook
2. Objective7. Lesson body
3. Focus question8. Closure
4. Assessments & collaborative activities9. Reflect
5. Bell ringer10. Celebrate

  • Standards are usually set by national organizing bodies—they outline what a student is supposed to know or be able to do.

  • It’s often best to unpack the meaning of a standard into a simple, concrete sentence, called an objective.

  • At the heart of an objective are verbs such as identify, recall, apply or synthesize that communicate what students should know or be able to do at the end of the lesson.

  • We recommend turning objectives into focus questions, because good questions can help spark curiosity.

References

  • Overall information on writing lesson plans—see Chapter 10, Oakley, B, Rogowsky, B, Sejnowski, T. Uncommon Sense Teaching: Penguin Random House, 2021.

Writing Clear Learning Objectives

4B-5: Assessments

Key Concepts

  • Summative assessments generally mean final exams or other means of assessing at the end of a grading period.

  • Begin with the end in mind—that is, using “backwards mapping.” This means planning your assessments before you even begin the lesson. This helps ensure that your assessments are aligned with your standards and objectives.

  • Teaching to the test (or whatever the summative assessment is) is a good thing—if the assessment is a good one.

  • Your students can’t read your mind! Just a slight variation that you may have taught in years past but slipped your mind this go-around, can be enough to throw even hard-working students off their game.

  • Practice tests have been shown by research to be one of the best ways to help students learn. Giving students some of your old tests to practice with will help them learn your expectations and approach to testing—which is only fair.

  • Formative assessments involve approaches like retrieval practice with corrective feedback occurring DURING a lesson and throughout a unit of study. Plan where and when you will use your formative assessments.

  • Be deliberate at the start of your lesson planning about when you are going to use collaborative activities.

  • It is a good idea to prepare your students for group work by using a case study to teach them how to set boundaries and not be taken advantage of.

References

  • Overall information on writing lesson plans—see Chapter 10, Oakley, B, et al. Uncommon Sense Teaching: Penguin Random House, 2021.

  • Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (Provides information on “backwards mapping.”)

4B-6: Bell Ringers, Habits, and Hooks

Key Concepts

  • A “bell ringer” activity is an essential step in getting students to begin working immediately as soon as class begins.

  • Plan a hook that captures students’ attention. Hooks are not necessarily obvious or easy to develop, but you can use them again and again on new classes each year.

  • Immediately post-hook, you’ll want to ask and unpack the focus question, making sure your students understand it. Make sure to explain new vocabulary.

References:

  • Overall information on writing lesson plans—see Chapter 10, Oakley, B, Rogowsky, B, Sejnowski, T. Uncommon Sense Teaching: Penguin Random House, 2021.

Planned questions by master teachers:

Key Concepts

  • The main body of your lesson plan can profitably center on direct instruction: I do We do You do—or, put more simply, Learn it, Link it.

  • Sprinkle formative assessments through your lesson plans, including activities like:

o “My favorite no”

o Retrieval practice such as self-testing and quizzing with a partner

o Creating a foldable

  • Make wise use—but not overuse—of collaborative activities through the We do stage.

  • Use the “How to Manage Yourself on a Collaborative Team” case study if your are planning team projects to help ward off common pitfalls in teamwork.

  • Always give your students tools to handle group and team peers who do not contribute, such as the ability to leave off the name of a student who doesn’t contribute substantively to an assignment.

  • In our neurodiverse classrooms, one size definitely does not fit all as far as teaching is concerned. Collaborative activities, for example, may turn some students off of learning.

  • When possible try to include broad perspectives that will develop critical thinking skills.

  • Try to develop high quality materials for race cars as you might be preoccupied with hikers.

  • When you are closing a lesson, don’t forget to do a quick wrap up, perhaps by asking students questions that allow them to retrieve and review the key ideas they’ve just learned.

  • Jot down notes right after teaching the lesson plan. Note where students struggled on exams, ask yourself and colleagues, “What scaffolds or enrichment can I add?”

  • Don’t forget to celebrate both your students’ and your achievements!

References

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