Page 31 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

Our Illusionary World
We cannot distil a complete image in our ‘mind’, despite our attempts to interrogate the ‘image’, but we do resolve a sense of that person, place, event or feeling. This multisensory ‘sense’ of our world is far more powerful than simply storing images or movies. When imagining our grandmother, we do not see her as a picture, but we have a far more profound essence of her, complete with emotions, her charm, warmth, thoughtfulness and strident adherence to routine. This ‘sense’ of her is a far richer view of our grandmother, a far better ‘image’, than any picture we could imagine.
So, what is happening in our brain? What this model proposes is an entirely new framework for how the brain learns. This emerging model helps explain a range of phenomena that were previously inexplicable. The model, however, does not explain everything. Within the scientific process, a framework is built, the outside cladding added, new elements are then discovered, so some cladding comes off, and new framework material is added and then the model is re-clad. The ongoing iteration of this model underpins the process of scientific discovery.33
Most models we use to explain how our brain functions are very mechanistic, but the door has opened a little wider. Someone may close it, remodel it, or decide to tunnel under it; only time will tell. As this emerging model of thinking unfolds, we start to see a more distributed and integrated model of learning. Some brain areas (where each capability was thought to be specifically located) act as critical, busy neural and/or astrocytic pathways or as regions of complex interaction, rather than specific places where each sense is processed within a confined region.
Our senses are extraordinarily comprehensive and losing capability in just one of them is terribly frustrating. However, everything we sense is filtered by our ever increasingly sophisticated worldview which is a version of reality. We construct our version of the world we inhabit, and this process is called learning.
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Resource 7: Our Personal Version of Reality
In a powerful video34, Isaac Lydsky talks about how and why we create our own version of reality and the implications this has for us. The video’s message has a significant impact on most people, but as educators, we need to view this through the lens of our learners. How much of what learner’s experience in their world is accurately translated into an exact understanding, and how do their fears and expectations affect that learning?
33 A 400 pp literature review “Whatever! Were we Thinking?” (2013) covers the scientific background to these four+1 learning systems can be downloaded from http://www.marktreadwell.com/products - free download
34 Isaac Lidsky. (June 2016) What Reality Are You Creating For Yourself? TED Talks. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/isaac_lidsky_what_reality_are_you_creating_for_yourself