How the Brain Works

As college faculty we are immersed in our discipline. Many of us have not taken courses in the educational theory, and fewer still have kept up with the research and thinking of neuroscience, how the brain works. Exciting work is being done in this area.“How the Brain Works” by Steven Pinker (1997) New York, W.W. Norton & Company,

Although it was published more than ten years ago it is a good introduction to the subject. Pinker believes that “the mind is a system of organs of computation, designed by natural selection to solve the kinds of problems our ancestors faced in their foraging way of life…” The chapters include Pinker’s thoughts on sight, family, music, and passion.
Not everybody agrees with Pinker but he does challenge us to think about what is happening in the brains of our students.

For me, one observation he makes about math and young children was interesting. “Constructivism has merit when it comes to the intuitions of small numbers and simple arithmetic that arise naturally in all children. But it ignores the differences between our factory-installed equipment and the accessories that civilization bolts on afterwards.” (p.324). I was interested in this statement because much of the theory of online learning is that learning is active and students must construct their knowledge. Of course, Pinker is discussing young children. However, what I thought was enlightening was his statement that good educational practices point out the connections across “ways of knowing.” We, as online teachers, assume that students can make the connections but often we need to encourage this. I like CATs that require students to link what they are learning to previous knowledge. In many online Course Management Systems students are able to write in journals that only the faculty can read. Teachers can require these journals, where students must do their own thinking and make their own connections.