Emily Dickenson once said, “The brain is wider than the sky” (n.d.). As an aspiring instructional designer, what I need to know about learning comes not from research about the brain, but from studies conducted of people’s learning (Ormrod, n.d.).This past week, we looked past the frontal lobe and medulla and into the workings of this complex, living computer and how it processes and stores information.
The brain, because of its ability to process information, is often compared to a computer. A computer processes the information we encode into it and stores the information until we need it again. Depending on where we have stored the information determines also how easily we can recall it as well. The difference between the brain and a computer however does not lie in the fact that one is plugged into a wall while one is plugged into a body, but in the way information is encoded to its long-term memory. Computers are programmed by a combination of keystrokes. The human computer, however, uses sensory registers, such as smell, sound, sight, touch, and taste, in order to begin encoding information into long-term storage (Orey, 2001). These senses, along with the ability to attach emotional meaning to a stimulus as it is encoded, it was sets the human brain apart from a laptop (Ormrod, n.d.).
This topic has led me to look for resources that will help prepare the map for my journey of becoming an instructional designer.
The Brain and Learning Technology:
In this blog, Joshua Kim attempts to summarize the workings of the brain and the way it encodes information with the phrase “Neurons that fire together wire together” (Kim, 2010) as he recalls personal obstacles of becoming an instructional designer. The blog offers a list of resources that not only could be beneficial to understanding the brain as an information processing unit, but also a biological backgrounds to the basic workings of the complex organ.
The Information Processing Approach to Cognition
An article by W. Huitt that details the stage theory model of information processing and the three more widely accepted models of information processing known as the level of processing theory, the parallel-distributed processing model, and the connectionistic model. The theories presented, though called different names, are similar to those presented by Michael Orey in this past week’s readings.
Understanding How The Brain Learns
As we have read, the brain is a complex organ that, in order to gain understanding of, is constantly being examined. This site is a compilation of resources that explore the topics ranging from the basics of the brain, the effects of learning on the brain, and most importantly to the field of instructional design, the application of brain research to education.
Howard Gardner stated, “I believe that the brain has evolved over millions of years to be responsive to different kinds of content in the world. Language content, musical content, spatial content, numerical content, etc. “ (n.d.). As I travel through this path of instructional design, I must keep in mind these landmarks of the brain in order to continue the evolution of this, deceivingly simple but extraordinarily complex, organ.
References
Dickenson, E. (n.d.). Retrived from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/brain_2.html
Gardner, H. (n.d.). Retrived from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/brain_5.html
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Information processing and the brain [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Dr. Jeanne Ormrod.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Information processing and problem solving [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Dr. Jeanne Ormrod.
Orey, M. (2001). Information processing. Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology, Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt
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