Visualizing the Cerebral Cortex

 Link to full-size image

I selected the ThingLink as the digital platform for my visualization because it would allow me to annotate an image of the cortex in a way that would explain and apply the content I want students to learn. More than just wanting students to be able to identify the four lobes of the cortex , I want them to learn the processes that each region is responsible for. I created a mirror image that allowed me to add “tags” identifying and explaining each lobe of the cortex on one side, and add links to relevant articles or resources on the other. I selected the base image of the digitally rendered brain with colour-differentiated lobes because I wanted to show the boundaries between them, but I also added images within the tags that highlight that particular region within the whole of the brain. This visualization helps students see the lobes of the cortex both as discrete regions and part of a whole of the cortex. Originally I had hoped to use an actual image of a brain, but it proved difficult to find an appropriately positioned and detailed image on which I could delineate the lobes myself. Instead, I added an extra “tag” to a video in which a neuroscientist handles a brain from a recently deceased person who donated their body to science. I decided it was important to show students an actual human brain, not only for the “wow” factor, but to give a sense of scale, shape, and texture. Students might have inaccurate mental images of what an actual brain looks like, and providing an accurate image might help them create more accurate mental images as we continue to explore this unit.

preserved brains just don't "pop"

In creating this project I struggled to find an image of the human cortex that was appropriate for what I wanted students to visualize. Initially I wanted to use an image of an actual human brain, but I ended up needing to reevaluate after realizing that (a) they are not common, (b) finding a medial (sideways) view was even less common, (c) brains don’t hold their “conventional” shape very well, and (d) I would have had to delineate the individual lobes myself. Plus, I thought it might “gross out” some students. Instead, I added an extra “tag” to a video in which a neuroscientist handles a brain from a recently deceased person who donated their body to science. It’s important to show students an actual human brain, not only for the “wow” factor, but to give a sense of scale, shape, and texture. I chose the base image based on the clear delineation of the lobes of the cortex, and the fact that it shows the brain in the context of the skull, face, and spinal column. This gives students a more holistic representation of the cortex as opposed to a disembodied, round-ish structure. Students might have inaccurate mental images of what an actual brain looks like, and providing an accurate image might help them create more accurate mental images as we continue to explore this unit. These are definitely not things that could have been gleaned from reading alone, or frankly from just looking at the base image without supplementation.

   

real brains don't hold their shape well

This process illuminated for me that, if it’s difficult for me (as someone who has a pretty good mental image of a human brain) to locate appropriate images and resources for students to illustrate this concept, it’s even more difficult for students to create accurate mental images. Perhaps they could get lucky and find them on their own, but that would require a significant amount of innate curiosity and motivation. In the EAA social studies program at UWM we have always been encouraged to provide visualizations to help struggling readers and/or students with gaps in knowledge. This process has made me consider the possibility that learning might sometimes have to start with the visualization and branch outward to deepen understanding, not start with other resources and use visualization as a supplement. It reminds me of a mental exercise of considering how you’d explain water to a fish: how can I explain what the cerebral cortex, the thing that arguably makes us human, to a human who has not seen one? It requires both a combination of abstract and concrete images, to give students the right conceptual image as well as an appreciation for the reality of the structure.

Blog Post #3: Text Set

In designing this text set, I am considering my current group of Psychology 101 students. The class is primarily high school juniors, with some sophomores, all of whom are formally encountering psychology for the first time. The class is majority Latinx/Hispanic, split almost evenly along gender lines (14/16), and several students identify as LGBT. Student interests are diverse, the most often cited being: sports, video games, anime, and music.

These texts would be used to introduce students to the anatomy of the brain, and how people have studied and influenced it. My hope was to find a variety of texts that provide similar information in different mediums, different contexts, and with different voices. I also wanted to connect something that can be dry and somewhat intimidating to their everyday lives. 

Although I don't discuss it here, one thought that has occurred to me was how these texts could be "gamified." In gamifying a text, students approach it like a puzzle, with a non-informational objective in mind. Breakout EDU is a company that sells kits that are essentially miniaturized versions of the "escape room" phenomenon. Many educators have started producing DBQs or gallery walks that contain hidden clues, which students can use to open the locks. Inside they might find candies, extra credit, or clues for yet another breakout box.

When I was first introduced to this concept I was skeptical that it would lead to learning: in the first demonstration I witnessed, students paid no attention to the content of the texts and scoured them only for superficial clues like hidden numbers or messages. However, it became clear that even if students did not actively engage with the texts at first, they were (1) being introduced to high-level texts in a non-threatening manner, and (2) their cursory glances provided them with knowledge that they could activate when revisiting the documents to complete the accompanying DBQ or gallery walk worksheet. They recognized advanced vocabulary on at least a basic level, knew where to find key information, and had gotten over any hesitation to ask questions by begging the instructor for clues to the puzzles.

In the future, I would like to design such an activity using texts like these. It allows for students to engage in a larger number of selected texts more quickly, and primes them to revisit the content on a more thorough level later. Plus, it's fun.

Print: 

1. King, L. A. (2011). The Science of Psychology: An Appreciative View (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

This is an AP Psychology textbook. It describes the functioning of the human brain, nervous system, development, and cognitive processes. It includes transparent pages that add layers to graphics. It is unique because where most textbooks focus on abnormal psychology or what happens when systems fail, this book's stated purpose is to emphasize what happens when things to "right."

StoryToolz estimates the average grade level for this text at grade 13.3. This makes sense, considering it's an Advanced Placement text. The complex biological vocabulary and verbiage also lends itself to a higher grade level rating. Challenging vocabulary includes: differentiate, neuron, hindbrain, midbrain, forebrain, ascent, substantia nigra, dopamine, striatum, basal ganglia, reticular formation, thalamus. 

Using the criterion rubric from "Achieve the CORE," I score this text as "Very Complex.” Because it is a an advanced high school-level textbook, there are some assumptions made about how students will read a textbook, especially that they will understand how headings and subheadings divide a chapter, or that key information is often emphasized in the margins. The language used to describe the location of brain structures is concrete, but relies on students having some spatial understanding of where objects exist in relationship to one another (“The thalamus is a forebrain structure that sits at the top of the brain stem). The vocabulary is expected to be unfamiliar, but the definitions also contain some overly academic language.

“The hippocampus has a special role in memory (Bethus, Tse, & Morries, 2010). Individuals who suffer from extensive hippocampal damage cannot retain any new conscious memories after the damage"

In these two sentences alone, students are assumed to understand:

• in-text citations

• that hippocampal is the adjective form of hippocampus

• the word “retain” / “retention,” which has a very different connotation in school settings

• that memories can be conscious or unconscious

The subject matter knowledge demands are very complex in that include ideas that can be recognized easily with some discipline-specific knowledge (there’s a structure in your brain called the hippocampus) with challenging abstract concepts (it plays a role in your memories, somehow).

The most redeeming aspect of this text is its use of images. Multi-layer transparencies allow students to see structures in layers, eventually adding key information and functions below the names. Short of having a physical model of the brain, this is the best representation of brain anatomy the I have found. It allows students to see structures, add additional layers to make sense of their spatial organization, and add an additional layer of information that includes key concepts & functions. 

Tasks that use this text will need to be more accessible in order to compensate for some of the inaccessibility of the written text itself. It provides a lot of factual and required information that, at this time, I don’t think could be introduced in any other way: providing more detailed visual models or hands-on experience with brain structures before students have the background knowledge would be putting the cart before the horse. I think that this complexity of the text could be mitigated by utilizing many of the diagrams and transparencies that the text provides, and perhaps designing a task using a more basic Bloom's skill (identify, define, match, locate). Subsequent lessons would build upon that base layer of knowledge using texts with more accessibility, but tasks that are more challenging. The text itself, unfortunately, scores very poorly for cultural relevance. I believe that it would connect with the interests and concerns of students who are taking psychology because they are genuinely interested, or who have strong science backgrounds, but not those who take psychology because they need an elective, or other reasons. To use this text, I would draw on the experiences and interests of my students that are not contained within the text and demonstrate the connections. What is their earliest memory? Do they like haunted houses or scary movies/shows? Do they play sports or an instrument? All of these things are possible because of the structures of the brain introduced in this chapter.

2. Carter, R., Aldridge, S., Page, M., Parker, S., Frith, C. D., Frith, U., & Shulman, M. B. (2014). The Human Brain Book: An Illustrated Guide to its Structure, Function, and Disorders. NY, NY: DK Publishing.

 Multimedia: 

1. CrashCourse. (2014, February 24. Meet Your Master: Getting to Know Your Brain - Crash Course Psychology #4 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHrmiy4W9C0

This video from CrashCourse contains a lot of the same information as the King textbook described above. The narrator provides a detailed overview of localization in the brain, a primer on the case study of Phineas Gage, and explores structures in brain anatomy. Covering so much content in a 12-minute video means that it goes at a fast pace, however, the tone and language used is much more informal and therefore accessible. Students have expressed before that CrashCourse videos are helpful because it gets them “to the point,” and I suspect that the more playful, casual tone is appealing.

In order to get a qualitative analysis I typed one minute of the video’s content into StoryToolz. The average grade level is 9.4, meaning that this text - despite the new vocabulary and some academic language - should be much more accessible for students. It includes many of the complex biological terminology from the King textbook.

When I first listened to the video I suspected that his rate of speech and the academic vernacular would classify this as more of a grade 11 text. However, students listen to professors who speak quickly (myself included) all day, and the benefit of YouTube videos is that they can be stopped frequently to gauge understanding. From a qualitative perspective, the addition of an audio/visual component that helps students visualize and hear correct pronunciations is very valuable. Connections are more explicit, language functions are more conventional and familiar, and the examples seem more intuitive and engaging than those seen in textbooks. It assumes little knowledge on the part of the viewer. The areas where I think the content would score squarely in the “moderately” to “very“ complex on the Achieve the CORE Rubric are vocabulary and sentence structure. The reader has a very quick, sometimes stream-of-consciousness structure to his sentences, and some vocabulary remains at a higher level by nature of the discipline.

My students really enjoy YouTube as a resource; for our semester projects, many of them included YouTube videos to demonstrate connections even though it was not required. Although educational, I think the format of the text draws implicitly upon their own interests and experience. And, at a very subtle level, I think that YouTube is valuable as an educational resource because it shows students that academic material doesn’t just come from textbooks and teachers. They spend their free time on YouTube and similar platforms, so when they see that reflected in the curriculum, I think it reinforces the message that learning is for them.

2. Sheep brain dissection.

I spent a significant amount of time looking for software or models that can help students visualize and understand the anatomy of the brain. However, I can’t find anything to substitute for a specimen dissection.

I was vehemently opposed to dissection as a high school student, and would provide alternative exercises for students who did not want to view or participate in a dissection. But, giving students the opportunity to witness an instructor-led dissection and see structures “IRL” would not only bring a tactile, kinesthetic dimension in to the lesson, but it would illustrate that these are concrete, physical objects and not just concepts from readings. Students could volunteer to make incisions, identify structures as they come into view, and even hold them in their hands.

Culturally Relevant: 

1. Nuwer, R. (2013, December 20). 1,000 Years Ago, Patients Survived Brain Surgery, But They Had To Live With Huge Holes in Their Heads. Retrieved October 20, 2018, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1000-years-ago-patients-survived-brain-surgery-but-they-had-live-with-huge-holes-in-their-heads-180948185/

StoryToolz rates this Smithsonian article as a grade level 12.9. I feel that this is on the high side, skewed by vocabulary like trepanation, neurological, and psychosomatic. The article is short, and while it does describe ancient practices and some research dynamics that students would be unfamiliar with, they lend themselves easily to simpler explanations.

The organization, use of graphics (primarily the main image of a trepanned skull), and sentence structure are all slightly complex. The article is meant to be informational about a topic that most readers would be unfamiliar with, and by virtue of this needs to state concepts explicitly and clearly. In this way, the purpose is also slightly complex, although perhaps bordering on moderate because of the level of detail provided. This is a text that students who have no knowledge of psychology, anatomy, or ancient Peruvian culture could learn something from, provided supports for the most complex part: vocabulary.

Many of my students are very connected to their Latinx and/or indigenous heritage. Although the article linked above by no means predates Aristotle, it does demonstrate that ancient people in the Americas also made the connection between the brain, health, and behaviour. This article would serve as a good “beginner” to a lesson to emphasize the importance of the brain in many cultures, past and present.

2. Cherry, K. (2018, May 24). A Closer Look at Phrenology's History and Influence. Retrieved October 24, 2018, from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-phrenology-2795251

A unit on the history and approaches to modern psychology would likely emphasize the musings of Aristotle and other Europeans who contemplated the nature of the mind and its relationship to the soul, the body, and illness. Non-European examples are often neglected.

In thinking about how to make sure my students see themselves and their interests reflected in the curriculum, I lamented how few non-exploitative representations there are of women and people of color in psychology. I wanted to avoid topics like eugenics and phrenology altogether, although they share a "biological basis" of sorts; students without a strong science background might not catch on to the differences between empirical science and pseudoscience without instructional time explicitly devoted to it. Instead, I've decided that introducing these ideas that perpetrated scientific racism as a "foil" to the biological bases of behaviour could be a way to engage my students' sense of social justice and dispel misconceptions.

3. Brain Differences in Athletes Playing Contact vs. Noncontact Sports. (2018, April 05). Retrieved October 23, 2018 from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180405120319.htm

4. Columbus, C. (2017, August 09). Video Games May Affect The Brain Differently, Depending On What You Play. Retrieved October 25, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/09/542215646/video-games-may-affect-the-brain-differently-depending-on-what-you-play

These articles could also be used as beginners, since they connect brain anatomy to interests shared by many students. My hope is that they would pique their interest and generate discussion. 

Where I Am & Where I Want to Go: The Brain

My topic for this blog is going to be "biological bases for behaviour"

Generally speaking, this is going to be the brain.
I intend to look at the anatomical structures of the brain, their functions, and if I have an opportunity to go into detail, maybe some concepts like neuroplasticity and/or development.

This can be really dry, academic, and seemingly artificial content for introductory psychology students. However, it's integral to many later lessons; if I can find multimodal resources, make real-world connections, and/or make texts with high-caliber vocabulary accessible to a variety of learners, I think they would be set up for success when we reach other aspects of psychology. 

Where I Am

My knowledge on the topic is relatively basic. My knowledge is probably just beyond what I would expect a high school sophomore or junior to know at the end of a unit on the topic: I can identify the four lobes of the cerebrum and their functions/associations. I can identify several major structures in the midbrain and their functions. I can identify the cerebellum and its functions, as well as the components of the brainstem. I can describe basic functions of each hemisphere of the brain, and the location and purpose of the corpus callosum. I can provide basic details about neuroplasticity, and lateralization. I can recite details from a couple of interesting case studies on the topic.  

Where I Want to Go

I would like to be more knowledgeable about the minor structures of the brain and how they relate to one another. I'd be interested to see if there is any information from evolutionary psychologists on why certain structures developed in these specific locations in the brain. I'd also like to learn more about their day-to-day operation and influence on behaviour.

For the purposes of an elective, high-school level course, I'd like to find more ways to connect these biological, abstract constructs to the social, concrete realities of students' lives. I'd like to know more about the processes that go on inside of our brains when we have experiences that students live every day. What does your brain do when you're anxious about a test? When you see your crush in the hallway? When you're bored because you're learning something you're not interested in? I'd also like to demonstrate connections between biological bases for behaviour and growth mindset. 

Potential resources: 

King, L. A. (2011). The Science of Psychology: An Appreciative View. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Bailey, Regina. “Anatomy of the Brain.” ThoughtCo., 8 Mar. 2017, www.thoughtco.com/anatomy-of-the-brain-373479.

Human Brain: Information, Facts, and News. (2017, September 15). Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-body/brain/

Myers, D. G. (2011). Psychology (10th ed.). New York, NY: Worth. 

Introduction

... half kidding.

My name is Elizabeth: I am a former MPS student, current MPS intern & student teacher, and aspiring future MPS teacher. In the short-term, my professional goals are to (1) build relationships with my students and colleagues at Audubon Technology & Communication Center High School, where I'm teaching an introductory psychology course, (2) pass the edTPA & graduate from the UW-Milwaukee School of Education, and (3) maintain some semblance of composure.

In the long term, I want to work as a social studies teacher in Milwaukee. My primary focuses in my philosophy of education are culturally responsive pedagogy and standards-based practice. I think that integrating local history, culture, and geography can be compelling ways to connect academic content to students' prior knowledge and real lives.

Here are some resources that I have used, or plan to use:

OldMapsOnline:  an online index of over 400,000 maps from archives and libraries from around the world.

Google Arts and Culture: a great resource for art, artifacts, archival photos, and other images for instruction, but also a tool that I'd love to set students loose on for research projects (they can curate their own galleries!)

Google Expeditions: I'd love to have enough Google Cardboards for students to use the VR features (and use their phones for good), but even without, an awesome resource for students to experience faraway destinations (and medical models!).


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