Moving Along With Our Session....

I thank all of you who have posted a comment, or a new thread, in our discussion so far. Now that we're a few weeks into the experience I have the customary reminder (in two forms)...

Your Right Brain might say, "I'm realizing that it's not just the reading of this book, but our dialog and exchange of ideas for improved professional practice that will supply the time needed for Act 48 and Flex credit. I can't wait to explore Pink's ideas and then connect with everyone else on the blog! I see connections here that influence my classroom, home, and hobbies. The blog site is nice, but I should probably get a picture of myself for my account so other people know what I look like when we comment to each other."

Your Left Brain might say, "I better keep up with my comments on the blog site or Dave won't be able to give me the hours I need to stay home on the next Flex Day."

Of course "both sides" make some valid points....

Please read through the end of Part One (ends on page 61) so we can discuss Pink's opening section - and begin to move on to the heart of the book. I've seen some comments around Design, and I know each of his "six senses" will spur some good dialog.

Add a comment to an existing post, or start your own. Tell us about your hemispheric dominance; argue about automation, abundance, and Asia; debate high concept high touch; or just make something up to get your feet wet! We need to see more conversation on the site....

Design Chapter hit home

Hi All!
I joined the group late and am new to this blogging stuff, so please bear with me. I'm really enjoying Pink's book. I just read the chapter on Design and identified with quite a bit of his observations. As a child my parents took my sister and I "sample housing" on any given Saturday. We were never moving - it was just a free afternoon of voyeurism and pretend. I remember going home and sketching the interior layout of the house and rearranging the rooms and colors of paint and carpet to suit my taste. These days I find myself gawking at the incredible glass sculptures at the Borgata , over analyzing color choices for carpeting and wall paint and fretting over the aesthetic balance of my bulletin boards. I don't know if that makes me a design guru or a complete nut! Regardless, it sort of makes me a "Design Detective" according to Pink. I am learning that I am definitely more right brained than left brained, especially as it applies to design. I choose decorative objects for their visual appeal, but also because they trigger an emotion.
I enjoyed trying some of the activities at the end of the Design chapter, particularly the one that suggests focusing on an object (p. 98) Interesting. . .
It also dawned on me that the media success of the design industry, from TV shows like HGTV to Martha Stewart, really depend on the fact that folks enjoy employing their right brains!
Sue Mandia
5th grade Lower Salford

Hemispheric Dominance Inventory

   My preference seems to be fairly even as I responded to 10 questions as a right brained person and 9 as a left.   I do feel this balance definitely helps me reach all of my students in a way that fosters their own preference to learning.  As we all have probably discovered, teaching something one way obviously doesn't work for all students.  For example, the task of decoding words for some of my students needs to be processed through a multi-sensory approach; skywriting sounds, tracing sandpaper letters with their fingers and all that jazz, whereas some of my other students just need the words in a sentence and "Tada!"

  I would love to explore left brain and right brain dominance with my high functioning autistic children.  I would find this information fascinating and probably incredibly useful for me to help them develop a balance between their left and right brain.  I would gather that most are left brain dominant. 

   On a lighter note, I'm left handed but swing a bat right handed, kick with my right foot and play the guitar right handed. I wonder how telling ambidextrous is to left and right brain balance?     

   ~Nora 

K-2nd Communications Class~Franconia Elementary

Clockwise or Anticlockwise?

Here's a web site that displays a simple animated figure. Depending on your hemispheric dominance you view the dancer in one of two ways. Special thanks to Wendy Christensen for passing it along to me and the group! http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22556281-661,00.html

Here's the rub (for me that is...). Although I routinely score higher in right brain dominance - I can usually tread pretty well in both worlds. With this test however, I cannot view the dance in an anticlockwise direction. I've only tried for a few moments, but that's usually all it takes for examples like this. I can always see the "two pictures" in an optical illusion, or the stereo image in those "noise pictures", maybe I'm more right-brained than I thought?

I'll have to get my left brain thinking about that....

(Enjoy the long weekend, and remember to post a comment on the site by tomorrow, or as soon as you can.)

Hemispheric Dominance Inventory

So, I use the left side of my brain more according to this quick inventory (13 vs. 6). Is that why I feel so comfortable teaching mathematics? I have taken courses that made me realize the need to teach the student, not the subject matter. It is so important for educators to realize their students may not be processing the information presented in the same manner. This is especially true for people in my position (SST) since many of the students I work with have not been successful in the classroom. My job is to find strategies that will help the student find success. Maybe I should find a child's version of this hemispheric dominance inventory to use before implementing goal interventions.

Something that grabbed my attention was how reading from left to right has promoted a left-brain dominant society. I question then the cultures who read the opposite way- does that mean that their societies are more right-brain friendly or not? What about Asian languages that are pictoral, and until recently, that also read from right to left? (I haven't gotten into the second chapter yet, but I know there's something about Asia in there.) Since pictoral symbols can't be "decoded" the way phonetic words can, does that mean that Asian brains tend to be wired differently?

Seeing how American schools (and probably many others) have been largely directed towards left-brain thinkers, it makes me wonder how many awesome right-brain dominant people had their learning spirit crushed in the past. My husband is clearly right-brain dominant, and he is so resentful of his educational experience because he now knows that he wasn't stupid, as he was often told, but that he was wired differently. . .

The online test reveals that I use the left side of my brain more often. But I could have answered "It depends. . . " to most of those questions! Even so, I guess the results are generally accurate. I try to be more logical/ linear/ sequential than emotional/ random when making decisions or approaching tasks. Working with words/ spelling comes relatively easily, although I enjoy artistic endeavors and struggled with math from middle school through high school. When it comes to giving directions though, I'm more right-brained, needing visual cues.

That Stroop test was interesting. I think I more than doubled my time in the end for the real test!

Bertina Hsu-Miller, Oak Ridge/ Lower Salford Gifted Support for this year (but usually Vernfield, 3rd grade)

Learning Online: Now What?

Thanks to all who have commented already! I wanted to give you a chance to read through the first chapter before I put much on the site. Several people have joined our group since that first session at IV (you went back to your schools and talked about it!!).

Although this is not intended to be an online course - we need to be active at the site to create artifacts that support our "six hours" of learning together. With that spirit in mind I have two quick items for you to engage in:

1. Do a fun little online test to get an idea of your hemispheric dominance. Check out this link. Please print out (and keep) the page that shows your results so you can talk about the way you're wired during later discussions. How do you think this hemispheric dominance relates to the students in your classroom? How will it influence the way you design a learning environment?

2. Share the results of your hemispheric dominance with the group by adding a comment to this post. This should not be a long essay - just a paragraph or two that shares the way you're wired for learning. Please include your name, school, and grade/subject. This is especially important for those who could not attend the IV meeting. We need to get a sense of our blogging community!

I would appreciate it if you could get your comment added here before the Flex Day on Friday (2/15/08).<br>

If you really love this left/right brain stuff.... totally optional - a test you've probably seen called the "Stroop Task". You are asked to identify words and colors in several formats - and one of them is much trickier than the others! Learn more at this site set up at the University of Michigan.