The Backwards Brain Bicycle
I am sure that most of you have heard the saying, "it's just like riding a bike" implying that the task at hand is an easy one, or that once you learn something, that you will never forget it. Well this video did a great job of challenging that widely accepted saying. Once you have a rigid way of thinking in your head, sometimes you can't change it, even if you want to. At least not right away anyways. That is why learning and even teaching can be frustrating at times. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of patience. It is important to remember that knowledge does not equal understanding. You may know the steps to solving a problem, but truly understanding how to implement those steps and what it means for the context of the question is a different task entirely. Another good point the video made, is that after you have learned how to do something one way, it is very difficult, and takes a lot of time to learn how to do it a different way. I think Common Core is trying to address that. It takes the approach of student discovery and allows for multiple approaches to a problem. Showing students a variety of ways to approach and solve a problem is a great way to teach and a great way for them to learn. One thing this video demonstrated is that children have more neuroplasticity than adults, meaning that they have a more plastic brain and can learn new concepts faster than adults. I think that is why society has put more and more pressure on students to learn things while they are in school. They have a higher chance of actually learning it and retaining it, but does that mean that we should be shoving as much material down their throats as we can? My freshmen in high school are learning graph theory, a concept that I didn't dive into until I was a senior in college. SmarterEveryDay (2015, April) The Backwards Brain Bicycle [Video File] Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0&index=2&list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp
1 Comment
Rob Swift
12/4/2016 08:38:43 am
I didn't watch this video, but I agree that learning abstract concepts is not at all like riding a bike. I remember a conversation I had with my organic chemistry teacher. He said something to the effect of, "you know this stuff is difficult, and you're good at it now, but if you step away from it, you'll be amazed at how much you forget." Simple things - like riding a bike on a flat, paved road, in a straight line - really are "just like riding a bike." Learning complex things is tough, and that's a good thing to keep in mind as we're working patiently with students.
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AuthorMegan Schmidtbauer Archives
October 2017
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