Teaching on Many Channels

Questions for Consideration:

Which channels do you use most predominantly in teaching? Audio? Text? Physical Activity?

Which modalities do you prefer when learning? Video? Guest speaker? Hands-on Workshop?

Did you know that learning is more effective if you engage more of the senses?




Related Websites:
Rich Performance Tasks
Brain Rules
Universal Design for Learning
Mr. Robbo's Blog
The Back of the Napkin

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Photo Credit: From a Second Story

The Boy With the Incredible Brain

In the middle of A Whole New Mind, and having recently read Brain Rules to discover synesthesia, I'm intrigued by the story of Daniel Tammet who is featured in "The Boy with the Incredible Brain".



While I don't have the brain to retain this story in its entirety, I'm wondering if all media will one day be archived for on-demand playback?

Design and the Plastic Mind

I wish I'd been able to see Design and the Plastic Mind at the Museum of Modern Art. At least now I can now have my brain stretched thanks to TED.

Brain Rules

Have you the time for an engaging self-paced presentation?

The slides put together by Garr Reynolds model many of the brain rules identified in John Medina's book: Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. This is the type of unpredictable, thoughtful presentation anyone can make, and you can do it by twinning Flickr's Creative Commons images with some uncommon creativity!

For an extended explanation of three rules (exercise; stess; and multi-tasking) strap yourself down for a fast-paced 50 minute presentation by John Medina, or check out all 12 rules in the book".

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Wired for Inattention

At one time, I used to worry about students who couldn't focus on one vertical speaking human at the front of the classroom. Now I'm afraid I've turned into one of those beings that is 'wired for inattention'.

Rather than having deficits in attention, learners today seem to have surpluses of attention, in that we are constantly in search of compelling input. With our minds becoming accustomed to multi-sensory content, our brains seem unwilling to accept input on just one channel.

Not that I'm the only one multitasking. More and more, my 'always on' brain has shared it's impatience with the computer. Rendering while downloading; installing while editing; burning while browsing... maybe more efficient computers are contributing to my rewiring? Remember when we had to have patience when installing from tape drives, or floppy disks?

Replay is only a click away in the random access world wide web; in my ipod's synchronous memory; in the auto-recording live feed of my personal video recorder. In relying on these technologies, I've even found myself pausing to rewind my own 'linear life' to the interesting bits.

A sad consequence of this multi-attentional state, is that I always feel like I'm missing out on something; when in fact, I'm missing out on everything! Trawling for captivating input through multiple 'channels', and relying upon 'rewind' as a form of memory, has limited my ability to be fully present to any singular experience.

Only the most engaging conversation or the most intellectually stimulating task, seem able to capture my full attention. Knowing that it is in attending to the nuances, that one truly captures the richness of life, I'm coming to realize that I'll have to make a more conscious effort to give my fullest attention to each individual person/event/task in order to appreciate its majesty!

Photo Credit: Gregory Marton

Which changed first? My Brain or the Book?

Has anyone else noticed that books are changing?

Chapters have become strings of bullet points rather than paragraphs. Paragraphs have been condensed to simple-to-read sound-bites on paper. Many books of today provide multiple headings supported by short paragraphs and are page-turners more for their white space and graphic nature than for their engaging content.

Is it because readers don't have the time? Do we fear missing out on something being written or said elsewhere? Amidst the sea of information, I find my eyes continually scanning for keywords and ideas rather than taking time to allow the full of an idea to wash over my brain. Things are changing both in the content and in the way I process the information.

I now scan e-news summaries clicking only the occasional full article; and when reading the full article, settle for the topic sentences rather than giving myself over to the full story. The advertisers think it's a limited attention span, serving up micro-commercials in comparison to the 60 or 90 second ads of my youth. But amidst a world giving itself over to text messages and Twitter, I think something different is going on here. Human beings are processing information differently!

Dare we teach this type of reading? Maybe Father Guido Sarducci's University is closer than we think?