The Brain and its Development - Custom Essay

Do Recent Discoveries about the Brain and Its Development Have Implications for Classroom Practice?

YES: Eric P. Jensen, from “A Fresh Look at Brain-Based Education,” Phi Delta Kappan (February, 2008)

NO: Gerald Coles, from “Danger in the Classroom: ‘Brain Glitch’ Research and Learning to Read,” Phi Delta Kappan (January 2004)

ISSUE SUMMARY

YES: Eric P. Jensen, from the University of California, San Diego and co-founder of the Brain Store and the Learning Brain Expo, argues that recent findings from neuroscience research have important and immediate implications for classroom practices.

NO: Gerald Coles, an educational psychologist who writes regularly on a range of educational issues, considers current claims about the neural bases of reading problems. He concludes that the research is often ambiguous about whether learning problems arise from differences in brain structure or function or from limitations in experience or skill, which in turn affect brain development.

Research in the brain sciences has proceeded at a rapid pace since the 1970s, due in large measure to the advent of some amazing new technologies including positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional magnetic imaging (fMRI), and high-density event-related potentials (HD-ERP). These technologies provide high-resolution images of the human brain, yielding information about not only structural characteristics but also about how the brain functions “online” as an individual processes perceptual information, solves complex problems, or makes responses as simple as a button press or as complex as a spoken sentence. Some of these techniques require sedation, exposure to radiation, and injections and are thus of limited utility with young children. Other techniques, however, are noninvasive, typically requiring only that the individual whose brain is being “imaged” sit motionless in

A special apparatus while performing the cognitive task being studied, which means that many of these techniques can provide a window into the brains of even very young children.

Use the questions below to guide your typed responses 

Include the following in your typed, write up of this issue:
1. The issue (in your own words) 

2. Side (YES or NO) that you have chosen and the author(s)

3. Before reading the issue, what is YOUR position on this topic? 

4. State the arguments for the position that you chose (at least 5 arguments that the author(s) has discussed as well as their page numbers)

5. Are there any reasons to believe that the writer is biased? If so, why would they have these biases?

6. Did your position change after reading this issue? Why/why not?

7. Identify any propaganda techniques used, if any. 
• Propaganda such as: generalizations, name calling, use of emotional language, appeals to fear, appeals to hatred, appeals to pride, use of slogans, and/or pseudo solutions