10/24/06 Innovative course structuring
Lyle Davidson has done something really remarkable this semester in structuring his “Music, Learning and the Brain” class (informally referred to around here as “the brain class”). For the first part of our class, we’ve been studying John Ratey’s lucid book “A User’s Guide to the Brain” (2001).
We took the first five class meetings to engage with this text in an in-depth way. Our class discussions focused on outlining and clairifying our understanding of this material, everything from flow charts about brain functions to creating clay models of the brain to build fluency with its contituant parts. The text is a terrific and engaging book which communicates the new picture we’re developing about the brain and how it works in non-jargon terms and with very approachable stories and metaphors. The most profound thing that I can state simply from our study is that viewing the brain in the old way, like a machine that simply works correctly or doesn’t, is very outdated and we would be more effective to look at the brain like a colony of organisms (neurons) that is growing, evolving, and reshaping itself in response to stimulus every single day of our lives, from conception to death. Therefore, in a very physical way, education is “changing our brains” and there are much fewer limits on what we can do with our brain than we usually imagine.
However, unlike most science-based course which I’ve participated in, we’re not going to continue in this detailed text-based course of study, and the semester’s learning will not be assessed by either in-line or end-of-semester examinations on the material. Instead, both the remainder of the class and the methods by which we are assessed will be something very different. We spent yesterday’s class brainstorming how we could create a new direction or new modality for the class. In this new mode we break off as individuals and small groups to do our own research, readings, projects, documentation, and learning in “applied topics” which connect what we have been studying to areas that we are excited about. These applied topics — which range from how the brain reacts to our diet to how to use a new understanding of our brains to re-think pedagogical topics to how we can understand the brain’s role in the social aspects of music — are chosen based on the direct personal interest and connection that each classmember has with them.
In structuring the course in this way — 1) An initial burst of intensive study and more traditional academic study with a common text and fast assimilation of new material, 2) a pivot node where the established learning strands come together in a brainstorming session, 3) and explosion of new, individualized veins of application and discussion which are based on our common reference of the text we’ve studied, and 4) a final culmination of our explorations in which our research, work, and portfolios are presented — Mr. Davidson has created at way to present a science-based topic in an engaging manner through it’s direct personal application.
I am thoroughly enjoying the course and I find the topic to be of immense interest. I’m excited to see how our brainstorming session results in a multi-threaded discussion in which topics that we are passionate about related to the material are explored and discussed.
This experience begs a natural inquiry question: We are familiar with some of the most standard academic classroom study/assessment arcs from having experienced them over and over. If this is an innovative model for structuring a class, what other innovative structures are there out there?
–Fred
Fred Sienkiewicz
(fred at sienkiewicz.org)
October 26th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
Fred,
Breaking off as individuals and small groups to do self-guided research on “applied topics,” as you describe, reminds me very much of the way Harvard Project Zero researcher Steve Seidel structured a class I took at the Harvard Graduate School of Education on examining student work. Steve called this the “documentation group approach,” and instructed each group to examine specific learning strands and craft inquiry questions as they relate to class topics. The idea there was that because each group was being very focused about how it was thinking about Steve’s class, when we convened as a class towards the end of the semester to present each group’s findings, I think I got more out of that class than I had from almost any class before that.
Then, we published an anthology of those presentations, inquiry questions, reading responses, and other class notes, and used these anthologies the same way that Warren Senders uses the emergent syllabus with his classes.
It’s this type of documentation — taking a set of related, specific topics and inquiry questions — that is the basis for the Topic-Based Documentation Approach outlined in the MIE Documentation Strategies handout and other MIE Portfolio documents. As you pointed out, the advantages to this approach are numerous: you can focus your efforts on course aspects that are particularly relevant to you; you can further class understanding on said aspects by posing further questions and suggesting other readings; etc.
October 29th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Fred,
I am very interested in the idea of looking at the brain as a colony of organisms or neurons that change and adapt depending on what we are experiencing at a certain time. I am currently in the Intro to MIE course, and have been exploring mirror neurons as one of my avenues of inquiry. I watched a short film on this and one of the key concepts the film stressed was that when we as humans see something, we do, in fact, make a connection (emotional, physical or both) with what we see. For example, when we go to a basketball game and see the players running, working hard, competing, a sensation runs through us as spectators where we feel we are in the action with the players. It is also the same when we watch an event or show on T.V. These mirror neurons are what gets us excited about sports and concerts. We feel the pain in a sense when the ball falls out of the hoop after a series of great passes and attempts. We also feel what the player is going through when he falls and gets hurt. We are very much connecting with what we see.
Much of how we learn as musicians has a lot to do with immitation. In private studio lessons, we see our teacher do something, we take it in, and if mirror neurons are engaging, after a few more demonstrations, we should be able to grasp the concept and do the same action. There is a reason why private lessons are so necessary (and expensive).
I would like to talk more with you about some of the subjects you are working with in your class. I think many of them are key to understanding how music in education can be most effective and well received in schools.
November 3rd, 2006 at 11:04 am
I like Marissa’s point about imitation in private lessons – but to me, that’s only a fraction of why private lessons with a great teacher are so important. Let’s not forget what happens after one imitates a teacher: There is also a reflective process, one that often includes some form of questioning or critical analysis; and the depth of this process is dictated in one way or another by the quality of the model that’s presented.
An article you might be interested in reading is one by educator Ruth Palombo-Weiss called “Howard Gardner Talks About Technology Training & Development.” I suggest reading it from the persona of an artist — which you both are — which may mean you’ll need to think about how music learning is different from technology training, but you may also see some similarities. (This might be particularly interesting to Fred, since I know he’s an experienced computer programmer in addition to being a trumpet performance major at NEC).
I’d be interested to see your responses to the Weiss article; you could either post them back in this thread or start a new post!
November 6th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Marissa,
Last week in the brain class, Professor Davidson also stressed the need for human interaction in order to create a truly efficient learning environment. Your comment about empathizing with what we see, on television or otherwise, helped me to remember the strengths and weaknesses of television on the learning process.
Professor Davidson spent about 45 minutes discussing the horrible effects of television on children and the numerous studies that have been done to understand the effect television has on children’s brains. He believes that no learning can be done by watching television, because there are no problem-solving skills involved. Similarly, children receive no human interaction through watching television.
On the other hand, the “mirror neurons” that you discussed are most definitely being used when children watch television. So a part of their brains is receiving stimuli from the television. I am not sure if I believe that TV has no merit as a learning tool, as Professor Davidson suggests, since I feel a person learns specific emotions through watching drama, comedy, horror, etc. Also, I feel that a person’s imagination is expanded with a good balance of television and human interaction. A child may not know what to think about until seeing or hearing it somewhere else. After seeing it initially, the child can then expand upon that idea and make it his or her own. Your thoughts…
~Brynn
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:58 pm
What a great discussion!
Both Marissa’s comment about mirror neurons and Randy’s questions about the Weiss article are apropos of what evolved to be my own project for the class. I chose to try and integrate what we learned about modern neuroscience into my own ideas about trumpet pedagogy to create a more informed teaching approach. Could I, as a studio teacher, overcome the “overly mechanistic” (as Weiss puts it) teaching style of my teachers and teach in a way that honors the neurological processes (like what Marissa mentioned) in learning? It makes sense that if everyone involved in the student’s learning were active in utilizing these neuronal processes as effectively as possible that learning might be easier and more sound. To that end I created a series of handouts/lesson plan that convey some of the most important concepts for learning music effectively.
As for Weiss’ article, I find is really interesting in certain ways. It’s not a very dense article, but it’s interesting how she emphasizes the point about “the brain is not a single hugely generalized problem solving machine”. If we look at the article from the artist-teacher viewpoint, it actually articulates two important points about my project with some of Gardner’s ideas: 1) the use of new “technology” should not be a replacement for or obscure your learning objectives (Don’t let methods define goals), and 2) when any new (and therefore unfamiliar) “technology” is brought into the classroom, make sure that there is enough support such that it is effective. If you think about this with a sufficiently broad definition of “technology”, then this admonition applies to my project (neuroscience as “new technology”). I hadn’t considered either point during the course of my project and this sparks some new questions about my ideas.
Ultimately, the discussion and fascination that characterized the first half of our course didn’t ignite in the second, project half of our semester. Maybe this is a case of the new “technology” (in this case an ‘Innovative Course Structure’) not having enough support for how to use it? Perhaps the concept of having the course carry itself on our own research and interest was too foreign and we didn’t really know how to engage with that format. Or perhaps the educational goals were obscured by our struggle with understanding the process. Whatever the case was, I wonder what other important lessons there are to be learned while attempting to implement this kind of new educational “technology”?