Resources

Placebo (Athletics/Life)

4/2/2017

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Review: You Are the Placebo: making your mind matter, written by Dr. Joe Dispenza (2014)

Dr. Dispenza writes within depth regarding the alteration of mind to use cells within the body to heal and alter the future of you. Results and evidence is based on personal experience, external studies, and historical scientific evidence. Below are some excerpts from the book:

“By changing your internal state, you can change your external reality.”

“One of the most basic principles in neuroscience states, “Nerve cells that fire together wire together.”
“Whether it’s joyful or stressful, with every thought you think, every emotion you feel, and every event you experience, you’re acting as an epigenetic engineer of your own cells.”

“In meditation, we move not just from conscious mind to subconscious mind, but also from selfish to selfless, from being somebody and someone to being no body and no one, from being a materialist to being an immaterialist, from being some place to being no place, from being in time to being in no time, from believing that the outer world is reality and defining reality with our senses to believing that the inner world is reality and that once we’re there, we enter “non-sense”: the world of thought beyond the senses. Meditation takes us from survival to creation; from separation to connection; from imbalance to balance; from emergency mode to growth-and-repair mode; and from the limiting emotions of fear, anger, and sadness to the expansive emotions of joy, freedom, and love. Basically, we go from clinging to the known to embracing the unknown.”

You are the Placebo helped me realize mind and matter combine to create unconscious reactions to produce desired results within a life. Why wouldn’t anyone try to preprogram their body to heal or improve mental and physical state before damage is actually done? Methods of meditation recommended by Dr. Dispenza have the potential to assist performance of athletes, cure patients of illness before, during, and after incidents, and assist overall positive mindfulness. I will take this into practice with the intent of working internally to create a positive impact on my environment for the future, not waiting for the environment to impact my desired outcomes.

Dispenza, Dr. Joe (2014-04-29). You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter (pp. 148-149). Hay House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

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Educational Theories and Theorist

2/17/2017

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Dr. JAG’s Top 10 Theorists/Theories for Knowledge of Students as it Pertains to Instructional Plans

Vygotsky, Lev – stressed the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of cognition as he believed strongly that community plays a central role in the process of "making meaning." Social learning tends to precede cognitive development. –Simply Psychology

Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language (rev. ed.).
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher mental process.

Dewey, John – associated with pragmatism and progressive education, Dewey espoused that education and learning are social and interactive processes, and thus the school itself is a social institution through which social reform can and should take place. In addition, he believed that students thrive in an environment where they are allowed to experience and interact with the curriculum, and all students should have the opportunity to take part in their own learning. -Wikipedia

Dewey, J. (2007). Experience and education. Simon and Schuster.
Dewey, J. (2004). Democracy and education. Courier Dover Publications.

Bloom, Benjamin – classified learning objectives to promote higher forms of thinking. His taxonomy ranks the objectives from low cognitive load to higher levels of thinking. The taxonomy is as follows:
1. Knowledge
2. Comprehension
3. Application
4. Analysis
5. Synthesis
6. Evaluation -NWlink

Bloom, B. S. (ed.). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Vol. 1: Cognitive Domain. New York: McKay, 1956.

Bruner, Jerome – Bruner, like Vygotsky, emphasized the social nature of learning, citing that other people should help a child develop skills through the process of scaffolding. The concept of scaffolding is very similar to Vygotsky's notion of the zone of proximal development, and it is not uncommon for the terms to be used interchangeably. Scaffolding involves helpful, structured interaction between an adult and a child with the aim of helping the child achieve a specific goal. –Simply Psychology

Jerome Bruner also advocated for inquiry based teaching strategies
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
Bruner, J. S. (1996). The culture of education. Harvard University Press.

Piaget, Jean – The Piaget stages of development is a blueprint that describes the stages of normal intellectual development, from infancy through adulthood. This includes thought, judgment, and knowledge.

The four development stages are described in Piaget's theory as:
a. Sensorimotor stage
b. Preoperational stage
c. Concrete operational stage
d. Formal operational stage
"Piaget's theory" in P. Mussen (ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology, Vol. 1. 4th ed., New York: Wiley, 1983.

Erikson, Erik - Erikson's theory of personality suggests that each individual must learn how to hold both extremes of each specific life-stage challenge in tension with one another, not rejecting one end of the tension or the other. Only when both extremes in a life-stage challenge are understood and accepted as both required and useful, can the optimal virtue for that stage surface. The Erikson order of the eight stages in which they may be acquired, are:

Basic trust vs. basic mistrust
Autonomy vs. Shame
Purpose - Initiative vs. Guilt
Competence - Industry vs. Inferiority
Fidelity - Identity vs. Role Confusion
Intimacy vs. isolation
Generativity vs. stagnation
Ego integrity vs. despair -Wikipedia

Erikson, E.H. (1950). Childhood and Society. New York: Norton.
Erikson, E.H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton.

Maslow, Abraham - Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization. –Wikipedia

From low to high, the hierarchy of needs is as follows:

Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, sleep.
Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, freedom from fear.
Social Needs - belongingness, affection and love, - from work group, family, friends, romantic relationships.
Esteem needs - achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.
Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

–Simply Psychology
Maslow, A. H., Frager, R., & Fadiman, J. (1970). Motivation and personality (Vol. 2). New York: Harper & Row.

Paulo Freire – Brazilian educator and Harvard professor; considered one of the most influential educational thinkers of the late 20th century; focused on empowering the poor and oppressed; believed education must involve dialogue, understanding, and respect between teacher and student; famous for opposing the “banking approach” of schooling where teachers deposit knowledge into the students’ heads.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Cummins, Jim – Created the acronyms BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) to explain the differences between social language and the language expected for high performance in school. Students who are proficient in BICS are not necessarily in CALP.

Cummins, J. (1979). Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters. Working Papers on Bilingualism Toronto, (19), 197-202.

Skinner, B.F. – Considered the father of behaviorism, Skinner believed that immediate reinforcement determines future behavior through its relation to individual actions. He originated “shaping,” a technique of producing new behavior by immediately reinforcing small steps.

– B. F. Skinner Foundation
Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. SimonandSchuster. com.

Other theorists your instructors may have mentioned:
Siegfried Engelmann
Norris Haring
Ole Ivar Lovaas
Owen White
Watson
Pavlov
Bandura
Kohlberg
Courtney Cazden
Neil Mercer
James Paul Gee
Lisa Delpit
Heath, Shirley Brice – Authored a famous study that showed the link between home literacy traditions and success in school. “The more ‘school-like’ the tasks and communication are at home, the better students are likely to perform at school. Likewise, the ‘teacher-like’ the language of a student is, the more the student will meet [school] expectations and be considered successful” (Zwiers, 2008).
Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge university Press.

Philosophical Theories of Education

Perennialism: teach the classic works of literature; have foreign language as the only elective; use Socratic seminars and teacher lectures; truth is already in existence, it is not constructed.
1. Mortimer Adler: Paideia Proposal (1982)
Essentialism: prepare students to enter the workforce; known as the “Back to Basics” approach; uses a transmission method of teaching (teacher possesses the knowledge and transmits it to students); students demonstrate mastery of knowledge on achievement tests
1. E.D. Hirsch, Jr. : several books on “cultural literacy” from the 1980s
Progressivism: the focus of education should be students rather than content; prepare students to be lifelong learners; several principles: natural development, interest guides instruction, teacher as a guide, involve the WHOLE student, attend to physical development of students, home-school relationships; knowledge that is true in the present may not be true in the future; teachers do not lecture
1. John Dewey: advocated experiential education (learning by doing)
Existentialism: people are responsible for defining themselves; truth is determined by the individual; no single set of learning outcomes is appropriate for all students; teacher is a facilitator; students investigate chosen topics until they’ve learned all they want to know
1. Jean Paul Sartre: life’s meaning is set by the goals of each individual
Social Reconstructionism: schools should foster social change; teachers help students study social problems; all subjects are integrated into interdisciplinary thematic units; methodologies include simulation, role playing, group work, internships, and other forms of cooperation
1. Paulo Freire: founded in progressivism, he believed that students are to find their own ideas and then use them to reconstruct society; Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968/1970)

Reference:

Denton, David. Seattle Pacific University. Instructional Strategies 2015.

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Useful Reads and helpful sites

Placebo (Athletics/Life)

Educational Theories and Theorist