In 1992, Rizzolatti and a team of researchers at the University of Parma attached sensors to Macaque monkey motor neurons to map muscle-motor interactions. Then, as the story goes (Taylor, 2016), during a break, one of the researchers started eating lunch in the same room. The monitors started showing an odd pattern. Whenever the researcher grasped his lunch and lifted it for a bite, the neurons in the monkeys’ brains for the same grasping and lifting actions fired as well, as if they were doing the eating. In that way, mirror neurons were discovered.
Author: Brain Admin
A Concept Every Language Teacher Should Know
Have you ever thought about how our brain does language? How does the sound of a word stimulate a mental image of its meaning? Does our brain have some kind of built-in dictionary for each word, as was once commonly believed? In that case, what defines the words? Other words?
Call for Contributions: Ideas & Articles
Become a Think Tank star! Here are some of the future issue topics we are thinking about. Would you, or anyone you know, like to write about any of these?
The Brilliance of Mr. Pemberton
Our classmates always end up indulging in a long heartfelt discussion of “Mr. P” at reunions. Although we are diverse (internationally and academically), we’ve concluded that Mr. P was “the best teacher” we will ever have. What made him so brilliant?
The Girl Who Wouldn’t Speak in Class
In class, we may sometimes feel stuck in front of students who are reluctant to speak. If the class is an elective oral English class, we tend to look at them as lacking motivation to communicate. But what if it is not motivation, but something else?
My Geometry Class Insight
We’ve all had them, those kids that seem way ahead on the line of brain development–the smart ones–and then, those, well, kids way behind–the ones who just don’t get it. Teachers of young learners are particularly aware of that difference: That kid just doesn’t get it.
Embracing the Introverted Brain
Introverts are quiet. All they need is to be encouraged to come out of their shells. All you need to do is to tell them to “Speak up.” Right? No. It’s not that simple.
Self-Efficacy in Learning
If you had to pick from options below for what is entailed in learning, which would you choose?
a. Development of skills
b. Appropriation of knowledge
c. Attitudes & values
d. All of the above
Using Self-efficacy to Build Student Confidence: Some Takeaways for Teachers
What’s your favourite scene from the Harry Potter books or movies? For me, it is in Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince when Harry tricks Ron into believing that he (Ron) has drunk felix felicis (a lucky potion).
Helping Students Touch Snakes
There’s a common reptilian thread winding through the articles in this month’s issue, and it has everything to do with Albert Bandura’s famous research on curing ophiophobes of their fear of snakes.