Uncommon Sense Teaching: Part 2, Building Community and Habits of Learning

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/building-community-habits-of-learning

Introduction

**Course Review: Uncommon Sense Teaching: Part 2 - Building Community and Habits of Learning** **Overview** In the second installment of the Uncommon Sense Teaching series on Coursera, "Building Community and Habits of Learning," educators and learners are given the opportunity to delve into important insights surrounding neurodiversity, memory, and teaching methodologies. This course is thoughtfully structured to enhance one's understanding of complex educational dynamics while simultaneously fostering a supportive and engaging community for learners. The focus of this segment is on harnessing the strengths of neurodiversity, understanding the psychology behind forgetting, and utilizing procedural habits to create a harmonious classroom environment. With its expertly designed curriculum, the course strives to provide educators with tools that promote effective teaching strategies while nurturing students' unique learning needs. **Course Content** The course is divided into four weeks, allowing participants to explore foundational topics that are essential for creating an inclusive and effective learning environment. 1. **Week 1: Motivation, Stress, and Character Change** This week highlights the interplay between motivation and learning, emphasizing the significance of surprise and curiosity in the educational experience. The course covers fascinating insights about the amygdala's role in learning biases and encourages educators to cultivate passion in their teaching, ultimately guiding students through stressful situations with heart. 2. **Week 2: How to Reach and Teach Both Procedural and Declarative Pathways** Week two concentrates on the brain’s processes for conscious and nonconscious learning. Understanding how procedural habits can streamline classroom management is a key takeaway, as it enables educators to effectively facilitate learning without overwhelming their students. This week’s lessons are particularly beneficial for teachers looking to optimize their teaching methods for varying learning styles. 3. **Week 3: Intellectual Humility, Critical Thinking, and Bias** This week challenges participants to rethink the advantages of different learning speeds. The discussions about intellectual humility and the nature of critical thinking illuminate why some students may struggle with self-correction while others excel. This deep dive into cognitive processing promotes a broader understanding of student behaviors in educational settings. 4. **Neurodiversity, Student Groups, and Charting Your Course to the Finish Line!** The final week encourages educators to embrace the challenges that come with teaching neurodiverse students. Instead of enforcing a one-size-fits-all approach, it advocates for personalized strategies that cater to individual learning pathways. By the end of this segment, you'll have a structured template to guide your lesson planning effectively. **Recommendations** "Uncommon Sense Teaching: Part 2" is a must-take course for educators who wish to enrich their teaching practices with grounded research and innovative strategies. Here’s why you should consider enrolling: 1. **Research-Backed Insights**: Each module of the course is rooted in the latest educational psychology research, making it an invaluable resource for educators seeking to implement credible teaching methodologies. 2. **Engaged Learning Community**: The collaborative environment encourages interaction among participants, fostering shared experiences and insights that enhance the overall learning experience. 3. **Actionable Strategies**: The course provides practical tools and templates that educators can immediately apply in their classrooms, ensuring meaningful changes in their teaching practices. 4. **Focus on Neurodiversity**: With an ever-increasing awareness of the benefits of neurodiversity in education, this course equips educators with the knowledge to support all learners, regardless of their unique challenges. If you are an educator looking to expand your understanding of teaching methodologies and improve your classroom environment, I highly recommend "Uncommon Sense Teaching: Part 2 - Building Community and Habits of Learning" on Coursera. This course not only equips you with theoretical knowledge but also empowers you with practical skills to thrive as an educator in a diverse classroom setting.

Syllabus

Week 1: Motivation, Stress, and Character Change

This week’s materials cover motivation, stress, and character change—vitally important topics for us as teachers. We’ll learn about the importance of surprise in learning—part of what can make good teaching both surprising and rewarding! We’ll also discover why we like to say that “Curiosity is Queen” —and why being taken by surprise can be a very good thing when it comes to learning. We’ll also learn about the “Drama King"—that is, the amygdala—which can underpin some of our subconscious biases. And we’ll begin setting the stage to understand why cramming is so effective. At least, for short periods of time! Neuroscience is uncovering new insights about motivation. This brings us to a seemingly different area—unreachable, unteachable students who can tell you exactly what you want to hear, without any internal motivation for change no matter what you may do to try to motivate them. Perhaps surprisingly—bullying isn’t just a problem for students—it can actually be a problem amongst teachers themselves, with some of the best teachers bearing the brunt of the bullying behavior. But guess what—sometimes our best approach to help students sail successfully through stressful situations in life is to simply do what we teachers are born to do—teach with passion and with heart. All this, and more, in this week’s videos!

This week, we’ll learn how the brain decides whether to make some mental or physical task conscious or nonconscious—it all depends on how often we do it! We’ll also be sneaking in through both the front and back doors of the brain’s different learning systems. Of course, both declarative and procedural ways of learning can have advantages and drawbacks. But as we’ll see, having information deposited in procedural sets of links can be like having a nicely wrapped package of movements or thoughts that a student's working memory can automatically grab onto, instead of having to think through each tiny movement or thought individually. This can not only speed students’ learning—it can even make classroom management easier. Using the magic of the procedural system, your classroom can run like a well-oiled machine, seemingly without you doing anything!

This week is full of surprises as we dig deeper into the advantages and disadvantages of faster and slower types of learning. Who knew that those who struggle with their learning—our hikers—can actually be more accurate with what they learn? For them, it can be easier to flexibly accept and change their minds when the data shows they are wrong. On the other hand, our race cars, who can learn faster and remember better, can also find it difficult to accept when they’re wrong. And all this relates in a very deep way, as you’ll see, with our ability to think critically. Join us as we explore all these ideas, and more, in this week’s videos! (And don’t forget, there’s plenty of optional extra info in the readings!)

Syndromes such as dyslexia or attention deficit disorder can sometimes exert subtle effects that can make learning more difficult even though no diagnosis has been made. Other times, as with famed director Steven Spielberg and his dyslexia, a student's learning challenges can simply escape detection altogether. For teachers of these students, the best approach is to nurture these students’ ways of learning, rather than forcing them to learn like the majority of other students. Surprisingly often, this involves teaching more toward the procedural system for some students, and more toward the declarative system for others. All of this means that careful planning of your lessons is in order. What do we mean by careful planning? That's the subject of our final videos--we'll give you a template and insights to help guide your activities and allow you to soar in your teaching!