Biological and psychological constraints and determinants of
lifelong development and the teaching profession
Csaba PléhBudapest U Technology and Economics
[email protected] Keynote address
ATEE 2010 Conference Budapest, August 27th 2010
Two visions
• Lifelong learning depends on the opennes of human mind for novelty
• Our mind and brain are open all our life
• Especially good we are at strategic approaches to learning and in control
• The new IT is revolutionary here and changes both learning and teaching
• The human mind is full of constraints, not entirely flexible
• The mind and brain are open only at certain ages
• We are constantly slowing down and our memory degrades
• The new IT is advocating shallow processing and avoids content for superficial scanning
Outline
• Teaching and street level learning
• Teaching-learning and age
• Learning methods and the new IT
• Challenges and changes over the lifespan
• Rethinking development and decline: The role of activity
Teaching and street level learning Teaching-learning and age Learning methods and the new ITChallenges and changes over the lifespan Rethinking development and decline: The role of activity
Street epistemology (Russel Hardin) and institutional learning
• Street level learning • Pragmatic functions:
KNOWING HOW and what is it for ?
• Model following • Horizontal ? • Skill based• Man the doer
• School learning• Excellence functions
KNOWING WHAT and representation
• Abstract knowledge • Vertical • Declarative • Man the knower
External and internal model of man
• Centrifugal• Socialization • Interiorization • Relativism • Learning tools lead • Institutions are basic
innovations
• Centripetal • Innate structure • Thought expression • Universalism• Tools our slaves • Teaching/learning is a
biological universal
Three types of psychology starting from the temporal scales of Alan Newell (1989)
Structure, type of psychology
Operating time Evolutionary time
Individual development
time
Subpersonal cognition
Neuronal nets
10-2 _ 10-4 sec Milions of years years
Personal mind and cogntion Cognitive acts
10-1 _ 10 sec Historical Hours, years
Suprainvidual mind
Emulating nets
10 – 10 n sec
History Years
Three visions of the modifiability of architectures (Michael Cole)
Teaching and street level learning Teaching-learning and age Learning methods and new ITChallenges and changes overt the lifespan Rethinking development and decline: The role of activity
Acquisition methods and age
• Small child street based skills • Schooling knowledge, vertical
transmission • Lifelong skill horizontal transmission
Tomasello on the genesis of sociality and culture
Activity Elementary sociality
Cultural
Communication
Signals Intersubjective symbols
Gaze Gaze following
Joint attention
Social learning Following, ritualization
Imitation of intentional acts
Cooperation Harmonization
Role distribution
Teaching Facilitation
Instruction
Object manipulation
Tools Intentional use
Cultural learning and joint intentionality in Tomasello
Csibra and Gergely: levels of knowledge acquisition Unlike the traditional selectionists, they consider the change in
mechanisms to be crucial
First order Genetics, innate
Second order Environment, learning
Third order Culture, training, natural pedagogy
Human specific and universal
Natural pedagogy of George Gergely and Gergely Csibra
• Teaching-learning through ostensive cues
• Expected teaching• Learning generalities
about the world . ‘This is bad’ vs. She is sad
• Learning arbitrariness as a foundation of culture
Brain responses in 4 monhs nthsolds (4) to mutual gaze
Issues of timing The critical period:
• Lorenz: imprinting• Specificities: timing 12-36
hours. Effort.• Attachment (Hermann,
Harlow) perception, language (Lenneberg)
• Timing is different: 1 year, 5 years etc.
• Sensitive or critical?• What ends the period?
When do they end and why ?
• Language prepuberty Newport
• Vision 10-11 years • Ilona Kovács
210
220230
240
250
260270
280
Mothertongue
3-4 ys 8-10 ys 11-15év
Plasticity and age : developmental windows
Neural development and selective pruning: Changeux
An example for evolved flexibility: Brain and experience in rodents and humans
UC Berkeley D. Krech és Mark Rosenzweig
D. Krech (1909-1977)
Experiential effects in the rodent brain
• D. Krech and Mark Rosenzweig 1960-1990. Rich and poor environment
• Rich environment between 25-105 days leads to mopholgical changes
• Krech: the law of convergence (Stern): selective breading effects the same issues
0 5 10 15
Occipital
Cortex
Cortical thickness
Cortex/subcort
Cholynest
Glia
Neuron size
Similar human experiential effects
• Bob Jacobs, Matthew Schall, And Arnold B. Scheibel (1993) Wernicke area
• Scholing increases dendrites
• Left side longer • Longer in women• Decrease with age
correlation – 0.69 0 20000 40000 60000
Left
Right
Female
Male
Elementary
High
College
össz dendrit hossz mikrm
Bilinguals (Mechelli)
• Grey matter thicker with increase in L2 proficiency
• The earlier L2 learned the better
• Early clozing (sound, syntax) and open (word) subsystems in language
Musicians Sluming et al, 2002: thicker grey matter in Broca’s area
More resistance to age related changes
Synaptic density and age in the two basic language areas
Huttenlocher
02468
1012141618
- 6 m
ths
6 mths 2 5 15 30 50
Syna
ptic
des
ity 1
00/m
ikro
m2
WernickeBroca
Age and two basic skills
202530
35404550
556065
17 23 40 60 67 79
Verbal Performance
Phenotypic plasticity
• Gradual response to environmental gradient OR discrete switching between types
• Fixed traits (e.g. size after metamorphosis) OR labile traits (e.g. behavioral)
• Change in the phenotypic mean (reaction norm) OR change in the phenotypic variance
• Response to a directional environmental shift ORresponse to residual environmental “noise”
• Adaptive, evolved response OR side effect of basic physiology
The issue of evolution based cortical recycling: Some structures are put to new use.
Word form visual area: it was adapted for fine form processing, and recycled for reading Dehaene
Canalization following Conrad Waddington: Evolution shapes the
optimal path
Multiple canalizations
Selection levels according to Campbell
Domain Example
Science Hypot-Solution-Choice
Cultural accumulation Selection in technology
Language Language variation
Observation and imitation Social insects
Thought supported by memory Imagery based solutions
Visually supported thought Köhler: insights in apes
Habit Rearranging control systems
Instinct Organismic perceptual systems
Vicariating locomotion Echolocation
Problem solving not relying on memory
Tropisms
Genetic adaptation Genetic variation and change
Organic and cultural evolution according to Wuketsits
Traditional oposition between biology and culture and its questioning by Hull (1982)
Gary Cziko: hierarchy of selection processes and education
Universal reading area?
Neuronal recycling: Dehaene, 2008
Teaching and street level learning Teaching-learning and age Learning methods and new ITChallenges and changes overt the lifespan Rethinking development and decline: The role of activity
Great architectural changes (Donald, 1991, 2001)
Culture Age Knowledge Transmission
Episodic primates
5 m
events,
stores
none
Mimetic h. erectus,
1.5 m
social, shared semantics
bodily enactment
Mitical h. sapiens
50.0000
linguistic semantics
narrative cohesion
Teoretical modern
10. 000 years
external memory
writing-
Reading
Gutenberg printing mass cooordination
Autority
Network 10 years megosztott Electronics
Changes between traditional and modern knowledge transfer
Implications of the theory of Donald
• Continuity of change fom biology to culture
• Representation and communication change together
• New architectures emulating biology
• What is the status of present changes?
Temporal and spatial dynamics and the new IT
Classical world
• man on stable place, info moves here
• displacement for source • construct the model of
receiver
• Mobil world • man on moving location,
with stable accessibility• temporal displacement at
reception (message)• spatial displacement at
reception (mobile)• construct flexible model
of the receiver
Possible consequences of communicative accessibilty
• New conventions and temporal architectures • New issues of personal reliabilty• Classical oral reliability• Written reliability: impersonal, points of no return• New media: rescheduling is too cheap, cheating
is too easy • Needs for new etiquettes• Emotional and instrumental codes
An example for the nature-culture interface
Three visions on the impact of new IT
• Social optimists: new technologies do change the manner we think
• Social pessimists: new technologies contradict human nature
• Biological optimists: new technologies modify, but they build upon existing biological architecture
One version of biological optimists: Robin Dunbar Grooming time and
the brain
Present day networks
• Network maximum around 100
• Subgroups:
• Emotional closeness and contact frequency
External 100-400
Close, few weekly, 20-40
Daily , 7-10
A challenging „pessimist” Technology is moulding a generation of children unable to think for
themselves or empathise with others• Susan Greenfield• Why is the NET
dangerous?• Shallow processing• Ignoring content• Lack of body language,
eye contact, all what is natural to natural pedagogy
• You have to slow down with the use of the IT tools
• Computer games emphasize "process" over "content" - method over meaning - in mental activity.
• Overdose of dopamin• Under-functioning prefrontal cortex: total absorption in the here and
now, and an inability to consider past and future implications. • A euphoric, self-centred ego boost, the pleasure of which can lead
to craving and addiction.
• The first time in human history, individuality could be obliterated in favour of a passive state, reacting to a flood of incoming sensations - a 'yuck' and 'wow' mentality characterised by a premium on momentary experience as the landscape of the brain shifts into one where personalised brain connectivity is either not functional or absent altogether
classic humanistic
pragmatic engineering
Hedonistic IT bound
Pure knowledge
Knowledge is use
Paths are important
Festive Everyday Irrelevant
Recall and cultivation
Making and running
Process bound insert
re-presentation Action Present
School based Street based Cafeteria based
Vertical authority
Horisontal and vertical
Horisontal
Teaching and street level learning Teaching-learning and age Learning methods and new ITChallenges and changes overt the lifespan Rethinking development and decline: The role of activity
Closing windows and puberty Shaw et al, 2006
Cortical thickness and IQ correlations
• Late childhood: with thickness
• Later with thinness• More dramatic
changes in clever high IQ regions
• Connection density changes
The crucial importance of puberty
• Last great brain changes
• Invling the prefrontal control areas. ‘moral of life’ and way of life
• Judit Harris: chage to horizontal peer group learning
• Responsibilty of scholl in tuning teenager culture
Two frequent tasks
• Digit span
• 2 5 9 3 6
• Digit back
• 4 1 3 8 2
Corsi visual working memory
Age and experience Cornoldi et al, 2008
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
30 63 75
ArchitCorContCorArchDigContDig
Education, age and digit span Ostrovsky and Lozano 2006
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
16-30 31-74 75-90
Digit forward
0-23-78-22
0
1
2
3
4
5
16-30 31-74 75-90
Digit back
Analpha1-67-22
Mexico and other countries calibrated by age Ostrosky-Solı
´s and Lozano 2006
Operative task
• Turner and Engle 1989
• (2x 16)- 2=30 ?• (3x 18)-5= 50?
• Zeintl and Kliegl 2009
Age (26 vs. 62 ) effect Age does not always make us more
contextualizers
Age and emotional information 22 vs. 72
Mikels et al, 2005 judging emotion arousing
capacity
Interaction between age and emotional value. Older adults
become more positive
Simonton 2000Career and age in science and
disciplinary differences
Diferences within the sciences
The bad news: decline with age Research productivity and age in
psychology
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
28 33 38 43 48 53 58 63 68 73
ImportantNot important
The good news: ladies are better off Creativity, age and gender
0102030405060708090
100
0-9 10-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70-79
80-89
male jazzfemale jazzmale paintfermal paintmale writefemale write
Teaching and street level learning Teaching-learning and age Learning methods and the new ITVertical and horizontal transmission Challenges and changes over the lifespan Rethinking development and decline: The role of activity
Hertzog et al, 2009: different possible trajectories
Intellectual activity protects against dementia Benett et al., 2007 read is
the active and more aducated
Aerobic physical acivity also counts Colcome and Kramer, 2003 55-80
years
Positive aspects and challenges of lifelong learning
• Positives• Resource
management• Building on existing
patterns • Greater selection• Wisdom • Responsibility
• Challenges • Slow down in
solutions • Function fixedness• Insensitivity to novelty • Overcautiausness
What is all this bringing to the teaching profession?
• Professional primary socialization is an early task
• From middle age on existing knowledge should be centered and no hope for fast adaptation
• New places for wisdom and emotio nal maturity
• The extreme importance of never giving it up
