Saturday, February 11, 2012

2/11/12 cate session on brain design & lesson design


CATE session on brain design & lesson design

First of all, thanks so much for coming to this session and for putting up with the projector/computer glitches that we experienced at the beginning of the session.  If you have any comments to make or questions to ask, feel free to use the comment/response segment of this blog to do so.  Your comments will not appear as part of this blog entry, but they will be revealed if a reader activates the “comments” segment of this blog following this entry.

The Constructionist Manifesto in its full form (initial article plus quite an interesting group of responses from authors representing a wide range of different fields, can be found by activating the following link:


or simply by googling “The neural basis of cognitive development: A constructivist manifesto.”

The authors of this article wrote a subsequent book entitled Liars, lovers, and heroes:  what the new brain science reveals about how we become who we are (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2002) that I personally find a good deal easier to read.

The other main author that Miles was referring to is Michael S. Gazzaniga.  His ideas are presented in their most accessible form in his six Gifford Lectures at The University of Edinburgh.  You can locate these six lectures by activating the link below:


Gazzaniga has also written a slew of books, with the most recent being Who’s in charge:  free will and the science of the brain (New York, NY:  HarperCollins, 2011).

For my segment of the session on mirror neurons and guided imagery:

The YouTube segment on using “mirror therapy” to treat chronic pain in phantom limbs can be located by activating the following link:


The second YouTube I showed briefly, on using mirror therapy to hasten the repair of injured limbs can be found here:


And Miles and I are both very eager for you to watch the YouTube segment on Broca’s Aphasia, which provides an excellent quick overview on the notion of the brain’s plasticity.  See that one here:


And finally, the May 2009 New Yorker profile of V.S. Ramachandran can be found at:


The Charlie Rose interview of Ramachandran can be found at:


And finally for those who might be interested, there is an essay on Shelley’s Ozymandias that you will find on this very blog if you travel two blogs back, to Nov 1, 2011.

Thanks again for coming to our session.  We look forward to reading and responding to your comments!

Jonathan & Miles