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""I suspect there are features of the higher order organization of neurons that need to be included among the "underlying rules" to achieve a better understanding of depression, both conceptually and for therapeutic purposes."  ... PG, An expanded neurobiology of depression, June, 2009

Sorry it took a little while to get this posted, but with little league starting and getting ready for the new school year I was distracted by a few things.  But  I think what has stuck and will stay that way (at least until the story changes) is the idea that we need to listed to all sides of the story (remember we are all "climbing the same mountain just from different sides").

Twenty or so years ago, when my kids were in elementary school, I visited a class to talk about my profession.  I said I was a scientist, and asked the class if they knew what a scientist was.  "Its somebody who knows things," one student said.  No, I said, its somebody who knows what we don't know and asks new questions based on that.

 Week One

I’ve found that over the course of the week that we are not only a group of diverse individuals seeking to expand our knowledge and understanding of the educational and learning process, but that we are also a group of self-stimulating neurons—making up a working nervous system, a brain, if you will—that is capable of forming new paths for our learning and thoughts to travel. Individually we are all capable of producing, to some degree, small action potentials, little sparks of neuronal activity that have the potential to become something bigger.

Weekly Observations of the Brain, Science, and Inquiry-Based Education Institute from Summer 2010

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3

Week 1 Observations

Week 2 Observations

Week 3 Observations

This week’s opening discussion about accepting diversity/problems before working toward unity/a solution was an appropriate one. Many of this summer’s participants have encountered problems when dealing with school administrators who are the “authority” on classroom management and techniques, even though they have not interacted enough with individual children on a personal basis to know that not all management styles work for every student. This kind of “authority problem” is often treated as just that: a problem. However, it should be seen as just another bit of diversity in an effort to create new dialogue out of conflicting views. Acknowledging that the opinions of those in higher positions are important to the process of making a lear

The past week has brought with it much talk of the brain, including discussions of the unconscious versus the conscious and the affects of both on student behavior in the classroom. Although a few of the institute participants are science teachers, it seemed as if the material Dr.

Going into the first week of the Summer Science Institute I was looking forward to a few things:

I don't doubt that "plagiarism" is a persistent problem that is exacerbated in the "digital age" (see Plagiarism lines blur for students in digitial age).  I do think though that it is worth noticing that there are two somewhat different issues at stake in thinking about "plagiarism," and to highlight, particularly in educational contexts, the one that often gets less attention.