scholarly journals Brain activity links performance in science reasoning with conceptual approach

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica E. Bartley ◽  
Michael C. Riedel ◽  
Taylor Salo ◽  
Emily R. Boeving ◽  
Katherine L. Bottenhorn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Science Reasoning ◽  
And Control ◽  
Insight Into

ABSTRACTUnderstanding how students learn is crucial for helping them succeed. We examined brain function in 107 undergraduate students during a task known to be challenging for many students – physics problem solving – to characterize underlying neural mechanisms and determine how these support comprehension and proficiency. Further, we applied module analysis to response distributions, defining groups of students who answered using similar physics conceptions, and probed for brain differences linked with different conceptual approaches. We found integrated executive, attentional, visual motion, and default mode brain systems cooperate to achieve sequential and sustained physics-related cognition. While accuracy alone did not predict brain function, dissociable brain patterns were observed when students solved problems using different physics conceptions, and increased success was linked to conceptual coherence. Our analyses demonstrate that episodic associations and control processes operate in tandem to support physics reasoning, offering insight into effective classroom practices to promote student success.

scholarly journals Brain activity links performance in science reasoning with conceptual approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica E. Bartley ◽  
Michael C. Riedel ◽  
Taylor Salo ◽  
Emily R. Boeving ◽  
Katherine L. Bottenhorn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Conceptual Coherence ◽  
Science Reasoning ◽  
And Control

AbstractUnderstanding how students learn is crucial for helping them succeed. We examined brain function in 107 undergraduate students during a task known to be challenging for many students—physics problem solving—to characterize the underlying neural mechanisms and determine how these support comprehension and proficiency. Further, we applied module analysis to response distributions, defining groups of students who answered by using similar physics conceptions, and probed for brain differences linked with different conceptual approaches. We found that integrated executive, attentional, visual motion, and default mode brain systems cooperate to achieve sequential and sustained physics-related cognition. While accuracy alone did not predict brain function, dissociable brain patterns were observed when students solved problems by using different physics conceptions, and increased success was linked to conceptual coherence. Our analyses demonstrate that episodic associations and control processes operate in tandem to support physics reasoning, offering potential insight to support student learning.

scholarly journals Classroom practices can be reliably classified using lecture recordings

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Kinnear ◽  
Steph Smith ◽  
Ross Anderson ◽  
Thomas Gant ◽  
Jill R D MacKay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
Teaching Method ◽  
Classroom Observation ◽  
Lecture Recordings ◽  
Asking Questions ◽  
Observation Tools ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Pedagogical Approaches ◽  
Selection Of

Lectures are a commonly used teaching method in higher education, but there is significant debate about the relative merits of different classroom practices. Various classroom observation tools have been developed to try to give insight into these practices, beyond the simple dichotomy of “traditional lecturing versus active learning”. Here we review of a selection of classroom observation protocols from an ethological perspective, and describe how this informed the development of a new protocol, FILL+. We demonstrate that FILL+ can be applied reliably by undergraduate students after minimal training. We analysed a sample of 208 lecture recordings from Mathematics, Physics, and Veterinary Medicine and found a wide variety of classroom practices, e.g. on average lecturers spent 2.1% (±2.6%) of the time asking questions, and 79.3% (±19%) of the lecture talking, but individuals varied considerably. The FILL+ protocol has the potential to be widely used, both in research on effective teaching practices, and in informing discussion of pedagogical approaches within institutions and disciplines.

scholarly journals Evidence for selective attention in the insect brain

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin L de Bivort ◽  
Bruno van Swinderen
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Insect Brain ◽  
Multiple Objects ◽  
Operational Characteristics ◽  
Freely Behaving ◽  
Relevant Context ◽  
Insight Into

The capacity for selective attention appears to be required for any animal responding to an environment containing multiple objects, although this has been difficult to study in smaller animals such as insects. Clear operational characteristics of attention however make study of this crucial brain function accessible to any animal model. Whereas earlier approaches have relied on freely behaving paradigms placed in an ecologically relevant context, recent tethered preparations have focused on brain imaging and electrophysiology in virtual reality environments. Insight into brain activity during attention-like behavior has revealed key elements of attention in the insect brain. Surprisingly, a variety of brain structures appear to be involved, suggesting that even in the smallest brains attention might involve widespread coordination of neural activity.

scholarly journals Developing the FILL+ Tool to Reliably Classify Classroom Practices Using Lecture Recordings

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Kinnear ◽  
Steph Smith ◽  
Ross Anderson ◽  
Thomas Gant ◽  
Jill R D MacKay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
Teaching Method ◽  
Classroom Observation ◽  
Lecture Recordings ◽  
Asking Questions ◽  
Observation Tools ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Pedagogical Approaches ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractLectures are a commonly used teaching method in higher education, but there is significant debate about the relative merits of different classroom practices. Various classroom observation tools have been developed to try to give insight into these practices, beyond the simple dichotomy of “traditional lecturing versus active learning”. Here we review of a selection of classroom observation protocols from an ethological perspective and describe how this informed the development of a new protocol, FILL+. We demonstrate that FILL+ can be applied reliably by undergraduate students after minimal training. We analysed a sample of 208 lecture recordings from Mathematics, Physics, and Veterinary Medicine and found a wide variety of classroom practices, e.g. on average lecturers spent 2.1% (± 2.6%) of the time asking questions, and 79.3% (± 19%) of the lecture talking, but individuals varied considerably. The FILL+ protocol has the potential to be widely used, both in research on effective teaching practices, and in informing discussion of pedagogical approaches within institutions and disciplines.

scholarly journals Short-term sleep deprivation in mice induces B cell migration to the brain compartment

SLEEP ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Korin ◽  
Shimrit Avraham ◽  
Hilla Azulay-Debby ◽  
Dorit Farfara ◽  
Fahed Hakim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
B Cells ◽  
Sleep Deprivation ◽  
Immune Cells ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Elevated Expression ◽  
Acute Sleep Deprivation ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Increasing evidence highlight the involvement of immune cells in brain activity and its dysfunction. The brain’s immune compartment is a dynamic ensemble of cells that can fluctuate even in naive animals. However, the dynamics and factors that can affect the composition of immune cells in the naive brain are largely unknown. Here, we examined whether acute sleep deprivation can affect the brain’s immune compartment (parenchyma, meninges, and choroid plexus). Using high-dimensional mass cytometry analysis, we broadly characterized the effects of short-term sleep deprivation on the immune composition in the mouse brain. We found that after 6 h of sleep deprivation, there was a significant increase in the abundance of B cells in the brain compartment. This effect can be accounted for, at least in part, by the elevated expression of the migration-related receptor, CXCR5, on B cells and its ligand, cxcl13, in the meninges following sleep deprivation. Thus, our study reveals that short-term sleep deprivation affects the brain’s immune compartment, offering a new insight into how sleep disorders can affect brain function and potentially contribute to neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation.

An insight into Case Management and Challenges in Veteran Suicide Prevention

2020 ◽  
pp. 14-25
Author(s):  
Tamara Green
Keyword(s):  
Case Management ◽  
Suicide Prevention ◽  
Suicide Risk ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Prevention Science ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Military Members ◽  
Prediction And Control ◽  
And Control ◽  
Insight Into

Much of the literature, policies, programs, and investment has been made on mental health, case management, and suicide prevention of veterans. The Australian “veteran community is facing a suicide epidemic for the reasons that are extremely complex and beyond the scope of those currently dealing with them.” (Menz, D: 2019). Only limited work has considered the digital transformation of loosely and manual-based historical records and no enablement of Artificial Intelligence (A.I) and machine learning to suicide risk prediction and control for serving military members and veterans to date. This paper presents issues and challenges in suicide prevention and management of veterans, from the standing of policymakers to stakeholders, campaigners of veteran suicide prevention, science and big data, and an opportunity for the digital transformation of case management.

Analysis of Demographics and Factors Influencing Student Choice of Major at Five Universities

HortScience ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 510b-510
Author(s):  
Tammy Kohlleppel ◽  
Jennifer C. Bradley ◽  
Jayne Zajicek
Keyword(s):  
Student Satisfaction ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Student Choice ◽  
Student Interest ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Choice Of Major ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
University History ◽  
Insight Into

In recent years horticulture programs at universities across the United States have experienced a decline in student numbers. Researchers at the Univ. of Florida and Texas A&M Univ. have developed a survey to gain insight into the influences on undergraduate students who major in horticulture. Five universities participated in the survey of undergraduate horticulture programs, these include the Univ. of Florida, Texas A&M Univ., Oklahoma State Univ., Univ. of Tennessee, and Kansas State Univ. Approximately 600 surveys were sent to the schools during the 1997 fall semester. The questionnaires were completed by horticulture majors and nonmajors taking classes in the horticulture departments. The survey consisted of two main sections. The first section examined student demographic information, high school history, university history and horticulture background and was completed by all students. Only horticulture majors completed the second section, which examined factors influencing choice of horticulture as a major. Results examine fundamental predictors in promoting student interest in horticulture, demographic variables that may influence student choice of major, and student satisfaction and attitude toward current collegiate horticulture programs. Findings from this study will provide insight into the status of post-secondary horticulture education and assist in identifying methods to increase student enrollment in horticulture programs across the country.

Galileo Unbound

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Nolte
Keyword(s):  
Free Fall ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Quantum Field ◽  
Many Worlds ◽  
Quantum Particles ◽  
Light Rays ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Insight Into

Galileo Unbound: A Path Across Life, The Universe and Everything traces the journey that brought us from Galileo’s law of free fall to today’s geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman’s dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once—setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.

Learning and control

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Herreros
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Learning Problems ◽  
Animal Learning ◽  
Feed Forward Control ◽  
Machine Learning Applications ◽  
And Control

This chapter discusses basic concepts from control theory and machine learning to facilitate a formal understanding of animal learning and motor control. It first distinguishes between feedback and feed-forward control strategies, and later introduces the classification of machine learning applications into supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning problems. Next, it links these concepts with their counterparts in the domain of the psychology of animal learning, highlighting the analogies between supervised learning and classical conditioning, reinforcement learning and operant conditioning, and between unsupervised and perceptual learning. Additionally, it interprets innate and acquired actions from the standpoint of feedback vs anticipatory and adaptive control. Finally, it argues how this framework of translating knowledge between formal and biological disciplines can serve us to not only structure and advance our understanding of brain function but also enrich engineering solutions at the level of robot learning and control with insights coming from biology.

scholarly journals Interactions between sleep disturbances and Alzheimer’s disease on brain function: a preliminary study combining the static and dynamic functional MRI

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaicheng Li ◽  
Xiao Luo ◽  
Qingze Zeng ◽  
Yerfan Jiaerken ◽  
Shuyue Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Risk Factor ◽  
Sleep Disturbance ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Sleep Disturbances ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Vascular Risk Factor ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Amyloid Pet

AbstractThough sleep disturbance constitutes the risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the underlying mechanism is still unclear. This study aims to explore the interaction between sleep disturbances and AD on brain function. We included 192 normal controls, 111 mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 30 AD patients, with either poor or normal sleep (PS, NS, respectively). To explore the strength and stability of brain activity, we used static amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (sALFF) and dynamic ALFF (dALFF) variance. Further, we examined white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and amyloid PET deposition, representing the vascular risk factor and AD-related hallmark, respectively. We observed that sleep disturbance significantly interacted with disease severity, exposing distinct effects on sALFF and dALFF variance. Interestingly, PS groups showed the dALFF variance trajectory of initially increased, then decreased and finally increased along the AD spectrum, while showing the opposite trajectory of sALFF. Further correlation analysis showed that the WMH burden correlates with dALFF variance in PS groups. Conclusively, our study suggested that sleep disturbance interacts with AD severity, expressing as effects of compensatory in MCI and de-compensatory in AD, respectively. Further, vascular impairment might act as important pathogenesis underlying the interaction effect between sleep and AD.

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