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| Page | Bachelors Degree | null | null | 2025-04-22T14:55:41.035Z | 2025-04-22 23:55 | 2025-06-23 04:08 | null |
THEN A BACHELORS DEGREE WE WILL GIVE THEM. Or at least so says Jehovah.
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Email from them
Hi Spencer
Thank you for reaching out to us, it is great to hear about your interest in our degree program and your goal to teach overseas.
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Credits: The training you have received in public speaking can be credited. When you enroll, we have a simple form that a representative of the organization that trainED you can fill out to attest your attendance. If you’ve been attending this training most weeks for a period of 4-5 years, you will qualify for the full 21 credits awarded for the electives module.
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The online TESOL course and 120-hour upgrade courses are, as you said, requirements for the program. They are not included in the $2800 fee. The initial online TESOL course is $396 and the 120-hour upgrade course is $196, so the total fee for all the programs is $3,392.
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Both ASL and Chinese can be counted towards the second language component. It sounds like you and Austin already have enough skills/experience learning a second language to qualify for the full 18 credits.
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Teaching: we cannot count translating experience towards the teaching component. However, your volunteer Bible education work can all be counted. From what you said, you both have enough experience to be awarded the full 40 credits for this module. We understand that not all of your hours were spent directly teaching - but you were involved in the educational work, which meets the requirements.
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I would suggest that you don’t need to wait. You may already have enough experience to qualify for the full 21 credits needed for electives (see point 1). You can submit proof of this at any time during your studies, you don’t need to do so when you enroll.
Let me know if I can help with anything else.
Kind regards
Miguel
CIE
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Bachelors Degree Program
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Forms
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ENG 102: Introduction to English Grammar
English Grammar Boot Camp Course Book
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2: Prescriptivism: Grammar Shoulds and Shouldn'ts
Prescriptive grammar is the set of grammar rules that determine acceptable usage in formal standard English.
An infinitive is "to + verb", and a split infinite, is sticking an adverb inbetween the to and the verb.
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to fervently disagree
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to better understand
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to disgracefully cheat
Splitting infinitives is technichally wrong, but common. Instead, we shouldn't put a bunch of things inbetween. A single adverb is probably fine, but "to slowly and carefully but not necessarily effectively work", not so much.
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3: Descriptivism: How Grammar Really Works
A clause can end in a contrcation if the contraction is don't.
Wilhelm von Humboldt said "Language makes infite use of finite means."
Recursion is the ability to embed an infinite number of elements into a grammatical structure. "He said that | she said that | my cousin said that | they said that | etc."
A determiner is a word that comes before a noun or a noun phrase to provide context and specify the noun. It clarifies which noun is being referred to, or provides information about its quantity or possession.
if a sentence has two aux verbs, the negation goes in the middle.
An Adjective goes inbetween the determiner, and a noun. My sharp knife.
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4: Re Phrasing
open class lexical categories are categories where words are frequently added in. These would include Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs. They can take on new members
Closed class lexical categories are words that can't take new members, or at least very rarely do so. Pronouns, Determiners, Aux verbs, conjuctions, and prepositions.
There are also some words that defy categorization, like Discourse markers, and interjections.
English actually makes it easy to flex words, with our limited number of inflectional endings (-ed, -ly, -s), and lack of gendered nouns, so we can just take a word, and turn it into about anything. Google -> googled. I'm clean -> I am cleaning, etc.
A words morphology is another word for its inflectional endings.
Phrases are logical chunks, that make up clauses.
Clauses are a subject, plus a predicate (a verb and all its attached stuff)
Clauses, make up sentences.
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5: Fewer Octopuses or Less Octopi?
Less means quantity, fewer means number. Use fewer when a specific number is mentioned (Three fewer people), and less when an unknown amount is there (less rain).
Words from latin are a pain and most special endings that were left over are slowly being forgotten about and ignored.
The US tends to use groups (the jury, the gorup, the gang) as a singular entity, as in "the jury is trying", whereas the UK tends to use them in plural "The jury are trying".
When faced with an existential subject (There, in this case), let the notional subject (an unspoken agreement) determine to use the singular or plural verb. This is fuzzy when it comes to contractions.
- There is | an unspoken agreement | in place.
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6: Between You and Your Pronouns
A pronoun is a word that is used instead of a noun, or a noun phrase.
First person: I, me, mine, we, us, ours
Second Person: You, yours
Third person: He/him/his, she/her/hers, they/them/theirs, it/its
They is weird, and can kind of just be filled in for anything, especially if its ambiguously gendered, or simply doesn't matter.
Interogative pronouns are pronouns that ask questions. What, which, who, whom, and whose. Whom is becoming more formal, and falling out of style. But, it has also been dying for several hundred years.
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7: Which Hunting
A relative clause modifies a noun or noun phrase. It is introduced by a relative pronoun (that, which, who, whom, whoever, whomever, whose) that stands in for the noun being modified.
In restrictive clauses, the clause narrows the set to specify who/what you're referring to. Often introduced with "that"
In nonrestrictive clauses, the clause adds information about the noun, but does not restrict the set. Also usually occurs after a comma. Often introduced with "which"
In zero relative clauses, the relative pronoun doesn't appear at all. This can be identified when if you remove the relative pronoun, two nouns are back to back, and another clause/pause is implied.
Pied-Piping sometimes happens when the relative pronoun is the object of a preposition in the relative clause. "To whom will he turn" instead of "whom will he turn to?"
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8: A(n) Historical Issue
a before consonant sounds, an before vowel sounds
A determiner is a word that comes before a noun or a noun phrase to provide context and specify the noun. It clarifies which noun is being referred to, or provides information about its quantity or possession.
They can be categorized in several ways. None of them matter. Check the book for exact details.
There is also quite a lot of rules for captilization. In short, capitalize the start of the sentence, proper names, and titles when they occur with a person name.
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9: Funnest Lecture Ever
Fun, and other words originally were nows, but now we use them as adjectives, and stick the compartive (-er) and superlative (-est) endings on them, and its becoming more and more common.
Adjectives that end with -y are more likely to use -er/-est endings for the comparative & superlative forms.
Happy becomes happier/happiest, easy becomes easier/easiest
However, adjectives ending in -ful tend to take more/most
More hopeful, most hopeful, more cheerful, most cheerful
Double forms (more fitter/most wealthiest) historically are sound, but now a days, don't do it.
Adjectives in the attributive position come before the noun
Most Gloomy Day
Adjectives in the predicative position come after the noun, in the predicate
The vehicle used by the assailant was stolen
Some adjectives are only ever in the attributive position (former/later), and some are only ever in the predicative position (awake/asleep)
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10: Going, Going, Went
Old english had two types of verbs. Strong, and weak. Over time, many verbs are moving from strong to weak.
Strong verbs had a vowel change when they changed tense
sing/sang, drink/drank, etc.
Weak verbs just took -ed when they changed tense
talked,played,walked,etc.
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11: Object Lessons
An intransitive verb is a verb that does not require a direct object to complete its meaning. In other words, the action of the verb does not "transfer" to a receiver. The verb can stand alone or be followed by adverbs, adverbial phrases, or prepositional phrases that provide more information about the action (how, when, where, why), but not a direct object.
A monotransitive verb is a type of transitive verb that takes only one direct object to complete its meaning.
A ditransitive verb is a type of transitive verb that takes two objects to complete its meaning: a direct object and an indirect object.
A phrasal verb is a verb that is made up of a main verb together with an adverb or a preposition, or both. The combination usually creates a new meaning that is different from the original verb and the adverb/preposition used alone.
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12: Shall We?
An auxiliary verb, also known as a helping verb, is a verb that is used together with a main verb to show the verb's tense, mood, or voice. It "helps" the main verb by adding grammatical information. Auxiliary verbs cannot usually stand alone as the main verb in a sentence (except for 'be', 'have', and 'do' which can be both).
A modal auxiliary verb (often just called a modal verb or modal) is a type of auxiliary verb that is used with a main verb to express a range of meanings related to possibility, necessity, permission, ability, obligation, and more. They add nuance to the main verb's meaning, indicating the speaker's attitude or judgment about the action.
They always precede the main verb.
They are always followed by the base form (infinitive without "to") of the main verb.
They do not change their form to agree with the subject. They have the same form for all persons (I, you, he, she, it, we, they).
They do not have infinitive or participle forms. You can't say "to can" or "canning." If you need to express a similar meaning in a different tense or form, you often use a semi-modal or a related expression (e.g., "to be able to" instead of "to can").
They are used to form questions by inverting the subject and the modal verb.
They are negated by adding "not" after the modal verb (often contracted).
Epistemic modal auxiliary verbs express the speaker's degree of certainty, possibility, or belief about a proposition. They indicate how likely the speaker thinks something is to be true or to happen based on the available evidence or their understanding of the world.
Deontic modal auxiliary verbs express obligation, permission, necessity, prohibition, or advice. They relate to rules, duties, moral codes, social norms, or what is considered right or wrong.
Primary auxiliary verbs are the three core auxiliary verbs in English: be, have, and do. They have several grammatical functions and can also act as main verbs.
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ENG 214: English Language Studies
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1: Passive Voice Was Corrected
In the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action expressed by the verb. The active voice is generally more direct, clear, and concise. It emphasizes the doer of the action.
Subject (actor) + Verb + Object (receiver of the action)
In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence receives the action expressed by the verb. The structure typically involves a form of the verb "to be" + the past participle of the main verb. The actor may or may not be mentioned, often in a "by" phrase. The structure is typically:
Subject (receiver of the action) + Be (am, is, are, was, were, being, been) + Past Participle + (by + Actor)
Use passive voice when:
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When the agent is unknown.
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When we want to sound more objective.
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When maintaining continuity between sentences.
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2: Only Adverbs
Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, and clauses/sentences.
Intensifiers, a subset of adverbs, can only appear before adjectives and adverbs.
Flat Adverbs are adverbs that have the same form as their adjective counterparts.
Fast, up, down, soon.
I am a fast eater vs I eat fast.
Can usually add -ly to an adjective, and it becomes an adverb.
After spending large amounts of time in this lecture, I now know less about adverbs then I did when I started, and quite frankly have no idea what an adverb is.
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3: No Ifs, Ands, or Buts
Coordinators and subordinators are words that connect words, phrases, or clauses in a sentence. They play different roles in establishing the relationship between the elements they connect.
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Coordinators: These words connect elements of equal grammatical rank. In simpler terms, they join things that are grammatically similar.
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The most common coordinators are: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so (FANBOYS).
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"and" is used to connect items in a list (e.g., "Front Side 360s and Backside 180s") or to join clauses (e.g., "we will promote every video that is submitted and Videos will be submitted by posting a reel").
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Subordinators: These words introduce a subordinate clause, which is a clause that depends on the main clause for its meaning. Subordinators create a relationship of dependence between clauses.
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Examples of subordinators include: because, although, since, while, if, when, etc.
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subordinators like "after" (e.g., "after 5th place, everyone receives 5 points") are used to show the relationship between events or conditions.
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4: However to Use However
Turns out, Howevers a pain to use. Replace it with words like
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for example, to illustrate
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nevertheless, to show contrast
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Indeed! to show emphasis
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Thus, to show sequence in logic
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In short, to summarize
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Moreover, to add to previous information
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5: Squirrels and Prepositions
Prepositions are apperently very hard to define, and just kind of popup.
The more I take this course, the less sense its all making, and I'm very, very grateful I didn't choose the English major. English is a pain and the rules governing it not only don't agree, but most of the rule writers have a stick up their butt
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6: Stranded Prepositions
Don't end a sentence with a preposition... unless you do.
The preposition is often seperated from the relative which it governs, and joined to the Verb at the end of the sentence, or of some member of it: as 'Horace is an ahutor, whom I am much delighted with".
Nevertheless, placing the preposition before the relative is a more graceful, as well as more perspicuous, and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated writing Style.
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7: The Dangers of Danglers
A gerund is a verb, ending in -ing, that is acting as a noun
A gerund phrase, is a phrase starting with a gerund, along with all its little bits to describe it attached.
A misplaced modifier is when a phrase, gramatically, appears to be modifying a word, but instead the word it is actually modifying is somwhere else in the sentence.
Radiating a warm, golden glow, she soaked in the glorious sight of the setting sun.
A Dangling modifier, is a modifying phrase that has no noun to modify in the sentence
Rummaging through this ancient treasure trove, countless hours flew by.
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8: Navigating the Choppy Paragraph
Weight in a sentence ties to where you put the emphasis, or where you introduce new information.
Writing is choppy when we're reading it, expecting one thing, and then hit something else, your mind freaks out.
The known-new contract means that information that is known, comes before information that isn't. This means known information appears in the Subject, or opening phrase, and new information appears in the predicate.
Three basic patterns
Constant Template - Repating the same subject, either literally, or by calling it by a different name
Franklin D. Roosevelt was a central figure in world politics during the first half of the 20th century. America's 32nd president initiated the development of the world's first atomic bomb, and worked with Allied leaders to lay the groundwork for the United Nations.
Derived Template - When you have a subject of the first sentence, and then the next sentence is a subset derived from the initial subject.
Studying English grammar can be both fascinating and frustrating. For example, most enjoy learning the etymology of English words, yet find the constraints of standard construction tediously pedantic.
Chained Template - When you introduce a subject, and then talk about it in the predicate, and then grab the subject for the next sentence from the previous predicate, and just keep chaining information
The Romans started expanding beyond the Italian Peninsula during the First Punic War. This drawn-out conflict was fought against the Carthaginians to establish control over the strategic islands of Sicily and Corsica. Sicily had been founded by the Greeks and now took center stage in this showdown between the two super-powers of the Mediterranean.
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9: What Part of Speech is Um?
Writing and conversations are different forms of speech.
Purpose of involved discourse is to build relationships. It involves lots of first and second pronouns, and discourse markers are frequent. More or less informal
Informational discourse is used to deliver information. Lots of information into nouns
High Type/Token Ratio refers to the much higher variation in word choice in formal writing, as we are trained to avoid repetition. In spoken word, we just use the same words over and over agian though.
So shows effects or logical consequences. It can also introduce summaries or rephrasings
Now can signal a topic shift (like a paragraph marker): “Now, let’s talk about how determiners differ from adjectives"
Well, according to work by Andreas Jucker at the University of Zurich, can also introduce a new topic, but one of its most interesting functions is prefacing a dispreferred response
Um functions in much the same way as well.
Oh does a surprising amount of work. One function is indicating surprise; for example, consider: “Thank you” versus “Oh, thank you.” Oh can also preface a suddenly remembered question: “Oh, did you ask about when the road will reopen?” It can also help if we need to repair: “Oh, it is on Liberty Street, not Washington.”
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10: Duck, Duck, Comma, and Duck
Commas can be used for a lot, but in order to combine clauses, they need a coordinator (and, but, etc.)
Semicolons connect sentences that aren't close enough for a comma, but still share a common thought. Or they can be used to seperate lists with very long items.
Colons introduce lists, examples, definitions, or other explanatory material
Dashes often suggest an interuption, or a new thought/afterthought
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11: Its/It's Confusing
It's is a contraction of it is, and its is the possessive version of it
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12: Trending Language
"Let’s think of ourselves as caretakers of the language, tending it to allow it to do its work in powerful, effective ways. To be effective, language (both written and spoken) must respond to its audience and context, which requires some flexibility in what kind of grammar is preferred. And as we’ve talked about, there are many English grammars; the formal written standard is just one of them. To be effective, formal written language also benefits from consistency (so as not to distract readers) and from minimizing ambiguity"
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PAR 208: Stage Presence
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1: Playing Status Relationships
We will be looking at status in terms of physical tactics.
Status also applies in the animal kingdom. Animals recognize each other, establish hierarchies, and work together in some way. Social animals often resolve conflict by establishing a pecking order. This in turn means less fighting, unless someone comes along to challenge that status quo.
When it wants to raise its status, and animal physically gets big, and takes up space to show its power. They extend their energy into the space and into those around them. The inverse also applies. When it feels powerless, an animal closes up, shrinks from the world, and draws inward. It'll sometimes expose its vital parts to the dominant animal to show submission.
Status is instinctive. We're always giving and taking power. Humans constantly relate with our bodies, our gestures, without voices, and our choice of words. Often in similar ways to the animal kingdom.
High Status
If we're playing a character with high status, we "loom large." We take up space, spread out our feet. Face people with an open body, showing we have nothing to hide and nothing we need to protect. This is called "navel intelligence". We face our belly button toward the people we like, respect, and believe. An aligned head and torso communicates honestly and strength.
It's also about how we move, and how much we move. We have to keep our heads high when we talk, when playing the role of high status. Move with purpose, sit openly, with heads up and chest exposed, and make consistent eye contact.
If the intent is to threaten, stare at the person until they look away. if the intent is to reject, turn your body away or limit eye contact. If the intent is to gesture, gesture big and large, taking up space, but also use symmetry, so we look balanced and confident. But beware, to much coordinated movement and we look like a robot, and it looks rehearsed.
Strong sudden gestures are also effective, but make sure they aren't eratic, otherwise you'll appear dangerous. Unless thats the role you've been given to play, then try to appear dangerous.
High status also includes touching other people. Pat them on the back, place a hand between shoulder blades and guide them. High status movement includes touchign with an open hand, closed hand implies uncertainly On what grounds? I don't know its just what the book says.
Give em a good ol Handshake
Low Status
Close off our body by turning away, or putting distance between ourselves and the other person. Create barriers, using furniture, electronic devices, or even hair or arms. Collapse your shoulders, hang your head, and include self-soothing gestures like touching your face, neck rubbing, or hand wringing.
Playing low status isn't just about fear, some want to appear to be low status, as this is interpreted as approachable, receptive, and trustworthy. We play low status when we want to draw another person out, or broker a compromise.
Another reason for playing low status is to express submission, or out of respect and consideration. It can be used to build people up, to amuse, to placate. They agree, emphasize, follow, and sometimes lead.
In terms of touch, instead of powerful touch, its in the form of comforting, nonthreatening gestures like gently squeezing someones hand, or touching someones forearm. They may show interest by leaning in a bit, but not close enough to cause discomfort. Smile, genuinely, and encourage other people to talk.
Humans swap status frequently, but do tend to gravitate toward one or the other.
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2: The Glorious Human Voice
Actors practice vocal technique to increase sound, clarity, and staying power. They study to be heard, and understood at all times.
Our first step in breathing is to find a grounded stance.
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Hips and knees soft
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Spine extended
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Shoulders dropped and spread
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Neck lengthened
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Head Floating
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Feel Balanced, feel suspension, and freedom
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Do a quick body inventory: Are you holding anywhere that you could let go? If so, gently tell those extra helping muscles that you don’t need them right now.
Breathing
Diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that sits below your lungs. By filling lungs with air, we're indrectly lowering the diaphragm. This creates more space for breath. This is the deepest source in our body for sound.
If we only breathe shallowly into our upper chest, we're burning a lot of effort, for not a lot of air. This leads to breathy, unsupported sound. To truly access our voice, we reach down to our centers and take belly breaths. More air, less effort. We work deeper, not harder
Phonation
Larynx is right where your head meets your neck, where your vocal folds are. These are two thin bands of muscle tissue, found in the larynx . This is how we get sound, they vibrate and various frequencies, to spit out various sounds.
You can lose your voice both by screaming, or whispering, both tax the vocal cords. If we ever lose our voice, just rest the voice, dont' try to whisper.
Resonation
Resonation is the amplificiation of vocalized sound. This happens in four different parts of our body: The Pharynx, The Chest, The Mouth, and The nose & Sinus Cavities. The chest is proably the largest of these
Articulation
Speech shapes sounds into words. We break up our sounds, into words, with articulation. This is how we position the parts of our mouth to create specific sounds. We do this through our facial muscles, lower jaw, lips, teeth, tongue, hard palate, soft palate, and gum ridge.
Its not enough to just know our purpose. We have to clearly represent our purpose in being seen, heard, and understood. The lips, teeth, tongue, hard and soft palates, and gum ridge are the best tools that shape and stop the sound
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3: Accessing the Breath
The best way we can access free, productive breath is by floor work. This includes stretches, and... other floor work. What the heck is floor work?
Breathing Warm Up
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Start with an aligned body. Allow your body to spread and stretch, but don't force anything. Let our ball fall into balance, letting go of any holding patterns we may have.
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The goal is to find a sense of physical freedom so that we can fully access our breath
See the book for reference, but there's two breathing exercises to do before a performance if needed. Make these a habit if needed.
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4: Your Vocal Energy
As per usual, to warm up, we have to get ourselves centered, balanced, and loose.
Playing (defined here as an activity without any true purpose, apart from joy) is a creative exploration of new possibilities from which an actor derives joy.
A common way to train people to speak was on the "edge of a yawn", which free's the throat, and allows us to access full, open sound.
It's very important to play with our speech, and in-character. This allows us to make vocal discoveries to improve our speech, allows us to explore the character, and go beyond just the intellectual understanding of the character, and allows you to experiment with physical proximity.
To practice, throw a ball back and forth, or onto a wall and back, and split up your focus, and find a pattern.
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5: Vocal Dynamics–Your Best Voice
Resonance is the placement of sound in your resonators. You can shift the sound across the various resonators in our body to product different volumes, and types of sound.
Pitch is the frequency of sound, or how high/low it is. The human voice has a wide range, but most of us tend to gravitate toward a habitual pitch. When pitch varies, our actual vocal cords are tightening or relaxing. You can explore your range, by trying to imitate a siren. Inflection is when we change pitch in our speech. It can reflect both meaning, and add variety.
Volume is sounds intensity. Its affected by our physical distance from the listener, but also our culture, and familiarity with our listeners. You want variety with volume. If you say everything at equal intensity, you lose meaning and clarity. We can also use volume to create emphasis, both in lowering and loudening our voice.
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6: Clear, Energized Speech
Speech is the process of carving sound into meaningful communication. Being able to communicate with skill is important. Speech Clarity is balance of enunciation. If we over enunciate, then people will focus to much on that, and not on what we're saying. Speech is about delivering our intention, and communicating with purpose.
Technically, clear speech is the efffective use of yoru facial muscles to place and balance your vowels and consonants. The greater awareness of the muscular energy contained in different words and sounds, the greater chance we have at using length, stress, and weight to carry our intentions.
Vowels are always voiced and open. We have to vibrate our vocal folds and open our mouths to let them out. Vowels carry our sound, and carry the feeling behind words. 20 Vowels in English, separated into 12 pure sounds and 8 diphthongs (vowel sounds mashed together).
Consonants carry the meaning of the speech, making sense of sound, and acting as the logic of the speech. It is a sound where your breath or tone is halted, or partially halted by your articulators.
A plosive is a consonant that completely stops the sound and then releases it, like a small sort of exPLOSIVE (get it, plosive, explosive). puh, buh, t, duh, ch, juh, k, guh, etc. HItting the plosives gives your speech more energy
Consonants with partial stops are called continuants. m,n,l,f,v,r,s,y,w,z,ng,etc. You can make these sounds for as long as you have breath.
In addition to being a plosive or continuous, a consonant may also be voiced, or unvoiced. A voiced consonant shapes your sound while your vocal folds are still vibrating. Ex: b, d, v, etc. A voiceless consonant, shape the sound with only the breath. Ex: p,t,f, etc. Think of voiced as sounds that you cant whisper, and voiceless as sounds that you can.
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7: The Muscles of Speech
Legit actually very useful.
You may be wondering why I didn't just copy and paste. I think that's a fair thought.
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8: Vocal Color–Pacing and Phrasing
Speech Rhythm plays a massive role in acting and public speaking, and in most communication. We use rhythm to assess a persons dynamism or competence. We also use rhythm in jokes and banter, meetings and presentations, and plays & speeches. We create it through Pace, Phrasing, and Cadence.
Pace is how slowly or quickly you speak.
Phrasing is how you group words and pauses. Also how you puncuate speech with breath and sound.
Cadence is pitch variation
Our speech rhythm can be defined by geopgrahy and culture. It also may change depending on the social context we're in (family vs workplace). Semantics can also affect our rhythm. Familiarity (or lack thereof) with the subject or texts introduce inherent linguistic difficulties.
Pace
Optimal English Pace is around 140 to 170 word per minute. When we speak at a faster pace, we demand more of the audience, and they have to work to keep up with you. If you feel nervous, which results in increased pace, breathe deeply and remind ourselves to slow down. One of the best way to keep a quick passage clear, is to really focus on using the consonants.
To work on this, record ourselves in both conversational and public speaking situations, and then assess what we hear. It will very likely be not what we think we sound like, but that in itself is telling. An exercize called "walking the text" may help. As we breathe and speak, walk in one direction. Every time we see a comma, change direction. Every time we see a period, throw our fist into the air. Physicalizing these punctuational pauses can help break up repetitive speech patterns, and focus on the pauses.
If you have it written down, get out a pencil and underline, or circle, or really highlight the punctuation pauses, to make sure you hit them, gather your breathe, and then start again.
Phrasing
To much space between our words, and we obscure the meaning by breaking up the thought. To little space, and we lose the meaning by railroading through the language. Punctuation serves as a guide for phrasing. Punctuation focuses our meaning. Real speech is full of pauses, so we need to emulate that when acting/speaking, but use them for emphasis, not to much.
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9: Accents and Dialects
An accent is how someone pronounces a nonnative language. In performance, the word "accent" is reserved for a nonnative speaker of English.
A dialect is a variation of a native language, maybe from a particular culture, or region. It has differences in grammar, vocabulary, syllabic stress, inflection, and rhythm.
Placement
In order to create, maintain, or smooth out a dialect you already have, the first thing to do is hear the standard of speech your going for, and really examine what you hear. Look for speech factors including resonance, rhythm, inflection, phrasing, vowels, consonants, and the muscles used to produce the sound.
Substitution
When creating a new speech pattern, start with muscularity and resonance. Look at how the mouth needs to move, and where you need to place the sound to get the vocal quality you want. Substitution of certain vowels and consonants for others (or dropping them entirely) is the next step.
For accents, the speaker isn't trying to have an accent, they are doing their best to speak the language, using the sounds that they grew up with in their own language. If we are trying to imitate someone with an accent, we have to identify what sounds they have in their language, and try to apply them to English speaking.
Intonation
Intonation is how you arrange and stress the pitches. Look at the music, the stresses, the rise and fall, etc.
Rhythm
This is combination of pace, and phrasing.
Once we have an eye out for all these things, and have a good solid basis of information, drill the crap out of them so it comes naturally, and we can extrapolate what we know from the drills, into the rest of our speech. Finding a children's primary book is a good way to practice.
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10: Acing the Audition
An Audition often involves portraying either the best version of ourselves, or the best version of the character we're supposed to be.
Some thing are under your control, and some things aren't. Don't worry about the things that aren't, because you can't do anything about them anyways. These would include age, physical type, whether the people in the room think you're talented, whether you "match" the other actors, whether your skills are to much like another person who is hired, or wither an insider applied for the same role/job.
What's in your control, however, is your audition persona, which is the most confident, well-prepared, relaxed version of yourself you can present, aka, your best self
What is this, some sort of therapy or hype speech?
Self Awareness
Take stock of your strengths and weaknesses. Assess who you are, what your comfortable playing, and what responsibilities your comfortable taking on. You improve where you can, but also be realistic about what you have to offer. Then, choose material that showcases you at your best.
Most actors have four monologues they can at the drop of a hat. Most auditions require two contrasting pieces, about a minute long each. Choose monologue where your character seeks something from another character. Act like your pursing a clear objective.
Connect with Your Purpose
Find out the project you're auditioning for. Get familiar with it. Read it/Listen to it/listen to the music. You'll probably be asked to monologue, or read a scene from that project. Assess your objective - Know your obstacles and tactics. Know what your character is dealing with, what their objectives are, and everything else you can find out about the character.
Rehearse Your Role
Your role begins with the first contact you make with the company trying to hire you. So rehearse your best self from the very beginning.
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Entrance
Take the stage and stand yoru ground. Exude confidence and warmth, make eye contact, move to center stage, and plant yourself in balance.
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Introduction
Say your name and the pieces you'll be doing.
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Transition
Shift your focus from the auditors, to whatever it is that your performing. Breathe, connect, then begin
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Monologue or Scene
Follow the rules learned thus far. Focus on your part, move a bit, bring energy, remember to breathe, focus on who you want to be at that particular moment
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Moments after
After your done, wait a beat, and then say "Thank you", and then give the auditors a few seconds to figure out what they want to say.
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Exit
When they dismiss you, smile, thanks them, and walk purposefully out of the room.
Leading Up to the Auditon
Take care of yourself physically, practice all steps of the audition. The panel wants to like you, they are there to cast and hire successfully and creatively. Eat about an hour before, with protein and complex carbs. Warm up, dress appropriately, look like you know what you're doing. The hour of your audition, get up and stretch, go over the script, loosen up, do some speech exercises. When your there, do a quick body alignment check, and knock em dead.
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11: Preparing for the Performance
When rehearsing, the first step is always reading the text out loud. Don't think about anything else, but just focus on reading the text out loud and seeing where it takes you.
Rehearsing on your Feet
After you've read through it, as soon as you can get on your feet and start rehearsing it there. That'll lead to more organic results, and be closer to what your actually doing.
Stumble through the script, even if you don't know what your doing, and keep doing it, and keep doing it, and keep doing it. Repetition will allows you to digest all your research and discovery so that you can truly inhabit your performance.
The Run-Through
As you move from stumble throughs to smoothly running it from start to finish, this is called the "run-through".
After this, comes the last-minute preparations and technical concerns.
Dress Rehearsal
If in a play, this happens a few times for full practice, with everything going just like a final performance, but without an audience.
For a speech, try to get in a few hours before the audience arrives. Get there early, look at the space you will need to fill with your voice, look at the construction. Wood conducts sound, and amps your voice, but sound bounces off cement, glass, or tiles. Fabric, seats, and humans absorb sound, so you may need to adjust for that as well. Lastly, explore the audiences perspective, see what you look like from their point of view, what you sound like. Also, check the tech to make sure you know how it works and how to make yourself sound good.
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12: Using Stage Fright Energy
Harnessing nervous energy is done through preparation.
Put your Performance in Perspective
Public speaking is not going to kill you. You've performed many a times before, and will do so many times again. Your performance is also a persona, its not everything you are. So don't be a hero, and end up failing, but just do what was rehearsed, and it'll go well.
Banish the Critic on your Shoulder
Its impossible to deliver a perfect performance. We are our own biggest critics, and that critic is an expert on undermining confidence and hitting where it hurts. Sometimes it complements, but only to dig it up again. We need to accept our own imperfection, and constantly forgive ourselves. Move forward no matter what, make peace with where you are now, and be present. Focus on your Goal
Dang, thats some solid life advice from a public speaking course, yea?
In the end, its not about being brilliant, or about being perfect, its about serving your purpose.
Imagine Yourself Succeeding
Trying to meet a rigid standard of performance is the counter to joy and ease in a performance. Success comes in many forms. Imagine yourself doing exactly what you think is a good performance, and do your best to imitate that.
Focus on your Partner
This could be your scene partner, your colleagues, or an audience. Once you step on stage, its your job to take your focus off yourself, and put your focus on them.
This allows you to spend your energy on what you can control - The clear pursuit of your objective, instead of what you can't control.
Listen to your audience, their voices, sighs, laughter, and physicality, and then respond to it.
In the end, your just a performer, a conduit, and the performance is not about you. The performance is about reaching the other person, or people as effectivley as you can. If you can focus on that goal, and reach out toward your partner, you can use it to serve your purpose.
Tips for the Terrified
Pinpoint what terrifies you, and eliminate it.
Do whatever you've got to do to finish the speech/performance
Eye contact is great, but if you can't do it, don't
Human beings are generous creatures, nobody wants you to fail, they want you to succeed.
Breathe Deeply. Your breath supports everything else, and it all starts with steady, deep breathing.
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13: Working the Crowd with Confidence
Claim your Power
Your there, as a performer, to achieve your purpose, and to do your work. Give yourself permission to take charge, and drive your story forward with confidence.
You want what is best for the audience, but to do that, you have to show them what the best experience is. You have to set the scene, and act the part
Technique - consists of various things, including alignement, breath support, connection to your voice and all its variety, speech, phrasing, shape and pace of movement, how often you smile, how often you make contact with people, etc.
Structure - How formal will you be? How will you structure your ideas? How long will you talk? it helps to think in these terms and how you'll apply them from the beginning
Start with a hook, an arresting image, an opening question, a story, or a joke. Then, move immediatley to the reason the audience is there. Then outline your structure, how long you'll be talking and the key points you'll hit. Your first moment on stage is the best chance of hooking your audience.
This also includes acting the part. The audience has a certain expectation of you, and even if you don't feel like your there, that's the point of acting, no? This will require you to be more energized then you are in regular life.
Keep Your Performance Simple
Keep your structure, language, and movement simple. State your purpose, and outline your main ideas.
Public speaking is the art of choosing what not to say. Decide whats most important, and eliminate that which isn't. This also applies in living a simple life, oddly enough. Keep them all simple, by choosing carefully.
Simpler speech means easier to be understood. Try to deliver even the most complex of information, in simple language. A speech is a conversation with your audience (just a bit one sided), you have to pay attention to your partner. They may not talk back, but their body language, movement, and rustling & rumbling can speak for them.
Stand still while delivering the main point/punchline of a thought.
Do not multi-task. Focus on your speech, on your audience, and craft your performance logically and straight forwardly.
Actively Engage Your Viewers
If your not captivating the audiences attention, what to do? A presentation needs variety. This can be done by changing rhythm and delivery. Use visual aids, ask questions, think of simple, creative ways to make your points
Show of hands questions are good for this.
Always try to get feedback for your performace, if possible. You'll learn what worked, and what didn't, and what people took away from your performance.
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PSY 322: Psychology of Learning
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1: Myths about Learning
Myth 1: Learning is aware and purposeful
We often learn without even trying, and without purpose.
Myth 2: People, especially intelligent people, basically already know how to maximize learning
Tying to the first point, learning isn't always on purpose, and as such, its not something we seek to optimize. We often choose less-then-ideal strategies
Myth 3: When learning is going well - when we're really learning - we feel confident, successful, and clear
Moments of confusion, frustration, uncertainty, and lack of confidence are part of the process.
Myth 4: Emotion is a problem for rationality, and therefore, getting emotional messes up learning
Has a grain of truth, but its more about emotion dictating why we learn, and the scope and focus we can apply to it.
Myth 5: If somone doesn't find something interesting, they can not learn it.
Being interested helps, but sometimes its the actual learning, that generates interest. Interest is not required.
Myth 6: People learn from getting rewarded and punished
If this were true, infants wouldn't learn to walk, as its often painful with lots of falling. Animals, including humans, explore their world for the sake of learning, and learning seems to be an innately motivated action.
Myth 7: Intellegent people learn more easily and better then less intellegent people do
"Intelligent people" just means they learned more, not that it was easier to learn.
Myth 8: Learning is liek opening up your brain and dumping things in it
Learning depends on prior knowledge, and making connections to that knowledge.
Myth 9: People of all agest learn the same way
Depends on prior knowledge, which varies by age. Thinking critically also helps, which isn't present in younger children.
Myth 10: You can't teach an old dog new tricks
It much depends on if the old dog wants to learn new tricks, and if they take the time to do so.
What is learning?
"A Change in a person understanding, knowledge, or abilities that arise from that persons experience"
Learning vs Development & Memory
Development can be defined in ways that actually include learning as one of the ways development happens, and in ways that exclude it.
Development is referring primarily to brain-based maturation. As we age, we both learn, and develop.
Memory is our ability to store and recall past experiences in various ways. Memory helps us recall what we learn, and acts as an assistant to the learning process.
Learning is acquisition of new knowledge, that is recalled by memory.
The main point of this course is that learning is a complicated process that depends in part on what is being learned, how and why, and by whom.
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2: Why No Single Learning Theory Works
Classic Conditioning
Based on the idea that learning in everyday life involves associating two things with one another. Specifically, it looks at learning of the association between two stimuli by capitalizing on instinctive or reflexive responses. These are behaviors that aren't voluntary, and they seem to be built into an organism.
In Pavlovs dogs, he gave them meat, they salivated. Then he started ringing a bell before the meat was given. Then when he rang the bell, they started salivating. The meat was an unconditioned stimulus, something that just naturally happened. The bell was the conditioned stimulus, something that happened purposefully. The salivating to the bell was the conditioned response.
This kind of learning takes 3 different things. Repitition, Temporal Contiguity, and Differential Contingency.
Repitition - being exposed on multiple occasions to the pairing of the two stimuli.
Temporal Contiguity - The two stimuli must happen close enough together in time to draw a connection between the two
Differential Contingency - When the conditioned stimulus occurs, the unconditioned stimulus will come, again reinforcing the connection.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is a type of associative learning process through which the strength of a behavior is modified by reinforcement or punishment. It is also sometimes called instrumental conditioning or Skinnerian conditioning, named after B.F. Skinner, who extensively studied this type of learning.
Here's a breakdown of the key concepts:
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Voluntary Behaviors: Operant conditioning primarily deals with voluntary behaviors, meaning actions that are under conscious control. This distinguishes it from classical conditioning, which involves involuntary, reflexive responses.
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Consequences: The core principle of operant conditioning is that the consequences of a behavior determine the likelihood of that behavior being repeated in the future.
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Reinforcement: Any consequence that increases the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcement can be:
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Positive Reinforcement: Adding something desirable after a behavior occurs (e.g., giving a treat to a dog for sitting).
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Negative Reinforcement: Removing something undesirable after a behavior occurs (e.g., turning off an annoying alarm by pressing a button).
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Punishment: Any consequence that decreases the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Punishment can be:
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Positive Punishment: Adding something undesirable after a behavior occurs (e.g., scolding a child for misbehaving).
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Negative Punishment: Removing something desirable after a behavior occurs (e.g., taking away a child's toys for misbehaving).
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In simpler terms:
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Behaviors followed by pleasant outcomes (reinforcement) are more likely to be repeated.
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Behaviors followed by unpleasant outcomes (punishment) are less likely to be repeated.
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Rewards
a fixed ratio schedule is if you press a button 10 times, and a food pellet drops out. Its on a fixed schedule, every 10 times.
Variable Ratio schedule is every ~10times its pressed, it drops a pellet. It introduced a degree of uncertainty, and actually increases the rate of attempts
Punishment works best when it is maximal, immediate, and not in mild form
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3: Learning as Information Processing
We use computers to illustrate how we process information. This is called Information Theory, and its the idea that information we take in is encoded in a way we can store it in our heads, decoded when we try to remember it, and then recoded, maybe in a different way to share it with somebody else, like language.
Working Memory is a type of short term storage, where we take information in, whatever form it comes in (words, words written down, anything), and encode it into storable information in our head. Storage refers to keeping information we have learned over time. When this is done, resulting in lasting changes to our neuron connections, this is called long-term potentiation. Retrieval is the making use of information previously learned, or stored. This is the only way to really check if learning occurred. Interestingly enough, retrieval is also a re-encoding, which helps in the learning process. So, retrieval is a fantastic way to further cement storage.
Information theory also stipulates that information can be its own reward, so there doesn't have to be a specific reason to learn, sometimes we learn, just to learn. We as human-likes want to make sense of the world around us.
Repetion, and intention to learn something really had very little effect on the retention of something. However, thinking deeply about whatever it is that we're learning, significantly helps.
Key point: In order to learn something effectivley, take in the initial information, then mediate on it. Think deeply about it, and its connections to what you already know.
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4: Creating Representations
We never learn passively. We may not be aware of it, but we're still engaged in purposeful goals, and learning is a side product. We can never do nothing, and learn from it. We also learn in addition to everything else we know.
The current leading theory states that animals have a chronic desire for learning. We like to learn new things. Even if we already have everything we need, if something new pops up, we want to go check it out, to see what it is.
There is no such thing as a "Blank Slate" mind in learning. Everything we know, we are connecting with what we already know, and that builds and builds and builds.
Humans tend to remember things in groups, specifically categorical groups. If given a list of words to remember, they will group these items by things they pertain to, like groups of animals, things you find in a kitchen, etc. NOW, the interesting part, is if given a list of words that had to do with "bedtime things" (night light, pillow, dream, etc.), and asked the user to recall the words, they very often would recall "sleep" as part of that list, even though it was never on it. This seems... exploitable. This is called a "False Memory"
A schemata is an abstract knowledge structure. Things like plans, event sequences (scripts)
A script is the order in which things take place, and a type of schemata. Also its just kind of a set of data thats relevant to whatever it is that we're talking about. Prior knowledge and all that, no such thing as a tabula rasa
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5: Categories, Rules, and Scripts
Perceptual Learning - By encountering something many times, we tend to notice more and more about its differences, and thus categorize it better.
When forming a category, we first learn what the "typical" unit of that category is, the the average looks like, then we slowly expand from there, and at the very end, filter through the weird and wacky outliners in the category.
Rule Based Approach
This is a way of forming categories. In short, we act like scientists, guessing at rules that define a category, and then test those rules on examples of that category, and get feedback on it. As we get feedback, we continuously refine the rules, and get better and seeing what fits in that category or not.
Guessing
Similar to the above, but far less logical. Something we've just figured out via observation, but we couldn't tell you how. Learned by just acquiring a lot of experience.
How do we acquire scripts? Just like we acquire categories, using the above methods. By looking for patterns. We don't often remember early childhood, because we are using the data then to build these scripts, and don't have the information available to encode into our minds.
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6: What Babies Know
Babies come prepackaged with various things, like starting to walk, suck, etc. They also have built in basic understanding in 3D objects, that they have gravity, and take up space. They also are born with qualities of imitation.
Habituation is the decreased responding after repeated presentation of stimuli, and is an excellent way to study how babies learn.
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7: Learning Your Native Tongue
Babies are generally able to communicate at ~2 years old
Learning a language means we can segment a stream sounds & pauses into meaningful units. We also have to know the vocabulary, and the rules for combining the words (grammar).
The concept of universal grammar suggests we are born with a basic understanding of language, and then tune it to whatever language we are around. This as mostly been disproven.
Bootstrapping means using what we already know, to figure out what we do know
Mutual exclusivity means that everything can only have one label, and not multiple names. This helps children know that things are usually only called one thing, and if they are called something else, its likely a part of the big thing.
When we learn a language, this also entails some losses, where we focus on things that are only on relevant in our own language, and lose out on things that aren't.
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8: Learning a Second Language
Symbol language is often taught to primates, but has results nowhere near as good as a human infant learning language. They were only able to learn ~500 words, as compared to the 60k words from a human adult.
The best ways to learn a second language
In order to learn a second language it is important to be immersed in the language.
Research suggests that learning a second language in the country where it is spoken can improve your grasp of lexicon and vocabulary.
Studies suggest that the greater the difference between your native language and a second language, the slower you will learn the second language.
Initially when your first learning a language, you need to inhibity your native language responses, so you can focus on the new languages respones. Like when you see a dog, you might thing "dog", but you need to inhibit that, and instead thing "gǒu" or "inu".
Unfortuantley, if you didn't learn a language since infancy, your never going to have native-like capabilities. However, you can get pretty close, and with enough time and effort, you will be indistinguishable unles your tested on highly niche things.
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9: Learning How to Move
In order to develop a proficiency with acquiring a new motor skill, we need feedback, repetition, and related exposure to others completing the same action. Verbalization (the act of others saying or describing the action as they do it) also helps a bit initially, but not so much after you've mastered the basics of said skill.
The more practice is distributed over a period of time, with rest intervals in between, the better the retention of a motor skill. This also works with learning vocab, and other things.
Knowledge of results is external feedback about the outcome of an action. In typing, you immediately see the letters appear on the screen. This visual output tells you whether you typed the correct letter or not – the result of your key press.
Closed motor skills are skills that are only done a certain, repeatable way. Think of bowling, or dancing. Open motor skills are things that have a lot more variety in them, like tennis, driving, or typing, and require a bit of generalization to perform well.
Once we do something a lot, it kind of becomes automatic, and this is in part to our proprioceptive system, which is like our body's internal sense of where our body parts are in space and how they're moving, without us having to look at them.
Deliberate thinking about something is inefficient, slow, and effortful, and is much harder then letting something be automatic, but its required to get something to the point where it can be automatic, and taken care of by our proprioceptive system.
Imagery is defined as the process of mentally rehearsing a motor act while moving the body, and actually has some serious benefits. Imagining motor movements takes about as much time as doing the motor movement, and our body even reacts in a way just like we did them. Visualization is similar to imagery, but often more goal oriented, or something like that. The semantics aren't important, its the concept that is.
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10: Learning Our Way Around
Spatial knowledege and learning is recalling where we are in relation to everything else. This is done by orienting (knowing where we are and where desired objects and places are), Navigating (getting there).
Allocentric perspectives are not necessarily specific to your own position within a space. Like a top down map, that has no regard to your current position, or a floorplan of a house.
Egocentric perspectives, or route perspectives, are the opposite of the above, and depend on where we are standing in relation to everything else.
People often tend to attempt to build a allocentric perspective from their own perspectives, and egocentric perspectives.
Both Allocentric, and Egocentric ways of navigating are great, especially when used in tandem, and should be used together.
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11: Learning to Tell Stories
Good stories have four features:
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Landscape of Action
Communicates what happens, who was there, etc.
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Landscape of Consciousness
Tells us what it felt like, and conveys the thoughts and desires of those who were there
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Way events happened in time
Not necessarily in order, but give enough data that we can reconstruct the story in the order that it happened.
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Make an experience coherent, sensible, and meaningful
Does this by telling the story so it has a point, and a greater meaning
Scaffolding is the help provided by adults, usually to children, to help them structure their own story. This of course, teaches children to tell stories similar to how their parents do. There are two different type of styles of doing this:
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Elaborative - Parents will ask questions to get kids to further elaborate on what the story was about, what happened, etc.
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Warm and affectionate
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Provide encouragement and support
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Provide clarity and assistance
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Repetitive - focused on a few key details, and focus less on the broader details.
When we tell a story, we are actively retrieving, and re-encoding the experiences of our lives, thus reinforcing them and making them easier to remember.
For those that tell redemptive stories (where things may have been bad, but they somehow turned good, or lead to something better), they report having higher levels of psychological well-being, less depression, and a stronger sense of purpose in life.
- often ask "what did we learn from a bad experience?"
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PSY 337: Cognitive Psychology
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1: Learning Approaches in Math and Science
Math and science domains combine the focus on what and how.
In class inclusion problems, there are multiple ways to solve a problem, usually logically, and empirically.
Example: John has 4 dogs and 3 cats. Does John have more dogs or more animals?
Logical Solution: Ignore the counting, and realize that since cat are also animals, there must be more animals then dogs.
Empirical Solution: 4 dogs, plus 3 cats, is 7 animals, therefore 7 is greater then 4.
Self explanation involves taking oneself through a difficult problem, remembering what one already knows, and making connections.
Discovery Based learning involves the learner being at the center of the action. Getting the learner to do things, to try things, and to really understand things by hands on activities. This is contrasted by Explicit learning, which is a typical teacher, telling the student what to do, and guiding them through. The most effective is a middle ground between the two, some examples:
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Guided Discovery - Adult or expert provides feedback and guidance
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Elicited self-explanations - Instructors get students to generate self-explanations.
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Problem Based Learning - Focus on solving problems, instead of just imparting information
A meta analysis is a technique for synthesizing findings from many different studies to draw a general conclusion. It's much more reliable and trustworthy then a single study.
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2: Learning as Theory Testing
Theories are interreated ideas or models about how a system works. Theories are based on a body of evidence that we get from making observations.
Models are formed by taking a theory, or existing model, and testing it against evidence, and seeing how it holds up, and then refining it, and repeating as new evidence comes to light.
Confirmation Bias is the tendency for prior knowledge, beliefs, or theories to get maintained in the face of contradictory evidence.
Naive Realism is the tendency to see our own theories and beliefs as corresponding to reality.
Biased blindspot is the tendency to see others as biased, instead of ourselves.
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3: Integrating Different Domains of Learning
Reptition is critical in learning about everything
Learning System One -
Low Effort, often unconscious process, that tracks associations between events.
Fast, Intuitive, Can process a whole bunch of information without conscious thought
Used by babies to learn languages, used by the motor system to fine tune movements, learning to tell stories, updating mental maps of a place, etc.
Learning System Two
Deliberate, conscious, and effortful.
Slow, Low Capacity
Often involves comparing new information with what we already know, and refining our own mental models of them
Used a lot in
Variable practice, the act of reviewing things under different conditions and ways, also works really well. In essence, the trick is to tell your brain that you need this information in various ways, and its not going anywhere, and then it will start trying to remember it.
Sleep acts on finalizing the neuron connections, and really driving the learning process home. When we are in REM sleep, the brain appears to be replaying skills learned, further cementing them.
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4: Choosing Learning Strategies
When it comes to our own judgements of our learning:
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Our judgements of learning are tightly tied to effort
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We tend to stop studying and testing ourselves on things we believe we've already learned
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We don't use repeated testing as often as other, less effective strategies
Monitoring means taking note of our own learning, and just simply knowing what we're good, and not good at. The actual strategy then comes after, figuring out what to do with those parts
We can use the amount of time that passes before we are aske dot make judgement calls about our learning as a good basis for judgements of learning
When we think something is hard, and spend time studying on it, we still think our judgement of how well we learned it, is lower, because its hard.
A discrepancy Reduction account is the fact that we can use the judgements of learning, how well we think we know stuff about something, and identify gaps in our understanding, and then proceed to focus on these gaps, and spend learning time filling them in.
Repated testing is a fantastic learning tool, becuase it forces regular recall. We can self test, we can externally test, whatever, but we need to repeat test ourselves if we want to learn something
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5: Source Knowledge and Learning
Learning source information, or source monitoring, refers to learning the source where we learned a fact, along with the fact itself. This invovles remembering who said what, or remembering whether an item was on your grocery list left at home or not, or knowing whether you told someone something or just imagined it.
Sometimes, especially if we're asked to improve the idea or add our own bits to it, we tend to take other peoples ideas and view them as our own. This is called unconscious plagiarism.
As a genera rule, humans kinda suck at remembering source information. Its a lot easier for young adults to remember the sources, when compared with children and older people.
Sleeper effect - A psychological phenomenon where we hear information from a low-credibility source, but then over time we forget the source and are influenced by the information.
Memory Phenomenology refers to how a memory feels to us when we are remembering.
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6: Cultivating a Desire to Learn
Self-Determination theory focuses on the importance of autonomy for the human motivation. Heteronymous is the opposite, and are things that we learn because we have to, or they are required by circumstance.
There two different outlooks to learning:
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Incremental Theorist - Somone who believes our intellegence can grow and expand
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Entity Theorists - Someone who believes we are who we are, and our intellegence is just stuck there.
These two outlooks can pretty heavily effect our motivation in learning, especially where we fail or fall short of our own expectations. Incremental theorists tend to do better in life, for obvious reasons.
In order to preserve autonomy in learning, which is very important, you have to provide lots of choices to learn, be very careful with controlling praise, and don't excessively supervise. Let the student be... ya know, autonomous.
Rewards are decent for getting someone to do somekthing, or want to learn something, but as soon as the reward disappears, so does the desire. In short, rewards are NOT a good way to get somebody interested in something. The best way to get somebody interested in something, is to relate it to how it can benefit them personally.
In regards to ourselves, we have to figure out why we're wanting to learn what we're learning, and relate the information to that.
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7: Intelligence and Learning
Implicit learning is the learning of patterns that we may not even realize.
Intelligence as the capacity for adaptive, succesful problem-solving
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Fluid Intelligence:
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Information Processing
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Detect Patterns
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Mentally rotate a figure
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Remember New Information
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Crystilized Intelligence:
- Measure of vocabulary and knowledge
Intelligence is actually hereditary
IQ Scores are really good at predicting the ability to learn various things, and also tend to be stable over time.
All that being said, what really really matters is the effects of the environment. The effects of a gene are intertwined with the environment so much, that you can't pull them apart.
IQ does NOT measure the ability to learn. It instead measures achievement, what you've already learned.
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8: Are Learning Styles Real?
Multiple intelligences - People have various levels of intelligence in different domains.
Mathematical Intelligence
Spatial Intelligence
Verbal Intelligence
Interpersonal Intelligence
Musical Intelligence
Kinesthetic Intelligence
Intrapersonal Intelligence
Learning Styles Hypothesis:
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People will learn better with one approach then another
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The best approaches varies for different people
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People will learn best when taught in a way that matches their learning style
Learning styles don't really matter though. We all have some preference, but studies show no matter what the way information is imparted, everyone learned about the same.
In reality, time should be spent assessing what a student already know, and building on that, as prior knowledge is the biggest factor in how a student is able to learn.
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9: Different People, Different Interests
Every individual has varying, and constant interests
Studies show:
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Preschool children were more likely to look at their interest objects then other objects
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When students are allowed to work on tasks related to their interests, sometimes learning was enhanced
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Interests sometimes masked students' comprehension difficulties, so they were less aware of gaps in their understanding.
Developing an interest is in four stages:
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Triggered situational interest - when you first notice something that catches your interest in an ongoing event
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Emerging individual interest - An interest that is growing, but you don't activley seek it out
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Maintained situational interest - something you are interested in, and will seek out information for.
According to the self-determination theory, humans have three fundamental needs in regard to learning:
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Need for autonomy
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Need to connect with others
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Need to feel competent
When selecting an interest, a human generally chooses something that makes them feel the above three points. Others can support these interests by providing social support, by providing additional opportunities, resources, or anything else related to that subject
We like and feel good at thing we are competent in, therefore, our interests tend to follow what we're already interested in, as we should already have some sort of competence in that field
Another determiner of interest was a person's openness to experience, which involves:
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Liking novelty
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Apprecation of aesthetic experiences
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Enjoying thinking about the meaning of experiences
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10: Learning across the Lifespan
Development is not learning, developement just kinda happens.
Humans are at their prime capacity for learning in their mid-twenties.
In a study by Paul Baltes, he found that under the exact same circumstances, the best older learners were worse then the worst younger learners.
As we grow older, we lose less interest in learning new things for various reasons. It also doesn't have a percieved long lasting benefit, as we're gonna die in a few years, vs having a life infront of us.
This is related to the positivy effect, which states that older people will make choices that will make their lives more immedetley positive, and go through less things that are negative, even if they may have better effects down the road.
The reminiscence bump is the phenomenon in which the learning of songs, news, and events is enhanced between the age of 10-30.
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11: Making the Most of How We Learn
The brain is highly plastic, and highly integrated. Plasticity means the brian is extremely malleable and flexible. When there's damage to one part of the brain, other parts can step up and fill in.
Mostly just a summary, read the notes above for specifics.
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PSY 315: The Science of Learning
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1: Learning 101
Humans are good at adapting to enviroments, because we learn.
Learning is acquiring knowledge or behavioral responses from experience
Psycologists typically consider memory to be the result of learning. This includes working memory, or short term memory, and long term memory.
Taking tests are some of the best way to learn things.
Our ability to learn depends on our ability of making millions of very small changes in the strength of our brain connections
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2: What Amnesia Teaches Us about Learning
Henery Molaison had the * part of his brain removed
Just combing the rest because I'm tired
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Retesting is best study method. Google the "Cornell Note Taking System", very useful
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In order to practice a skill for long term benefit, do it in three ways:
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Spaced - 30mins/day is far better then 4hours once per week
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Challenging - Push yourself to the limit. This will suck because it feels like your making no progress, but in the long term it makes a huge difference
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Randomization - Different times, different regiments, whatever you can randomize, do it. This will lead to a high increase across the board, instead of a single facet of whatever your trying to learn increasing.
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Habits, and Unlearning Habits
Habits, are simply learned responses and reactions that have been reinforced over time. They are literally neuron pathways that have grown stronger due to repetition. In order to form a habit, a certain action must be tied with a certain stimulus, then repeated over many times to reinforce the connection.
Example: You want to always fix your bed as soon as you get up. The stimulus is you getting up, literally your brain waking up. The action, is fixing your bed. To form the habit, you force yourself to fix your bed as soon as you get up. Repeating this will eventually make this behavior automatic.
As far as how many repeats it will take the form the habit, there are to many factors to give any definite answer. The shortest recorded habit formed is 18 days. The longest, is 254 days. Average is about 66 days. However, this much depends on the person, the motivation, the complexity of the action, and how often the stimulus is repeated.
For breaking a habit, its the exact same process, in reverse. Instead of strengthening the neural pathway between neurons associated with stimulus and behavior, we need to weaken them. The process? Instead of tying the stimulus and action together repeatedly, we repeatedly separate the stimulus and action.
Unfortunately, once a pathway is learned, its very hard to consciousnessly unlearn it, and very easy to slip back into, especially while under stress, pressure, or tiredness/lack of energy. Telling yourself "Don't do X, don't do X", where X is the habit trying to be broken is actually self-harming, as your still reinforcing the pathway, even if its not quite as strong as actually carrying out the action.
Some suggestions pulled from here:
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Put Systems in Place. Setting up systems that reinforce the desired behavior, instead of defaulting back to the old one. The goal is to completley overwrite the old behavior, with the new behavior. Its not a matter of adding the new behavior to the old one, but completely replacing it.
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Realize the Power of Social Pressure. This only applies in social settings where we're trying to set the expected behaviors for a group, but in short, lead by example. Especially if in a leadership role, people will imitate your actions, especially if you highlight it.
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Embrace a Growth Mindset. Life isn't perfect, and neither are building, or tearing down habits. Growth happens a bit at a time, and any progress is still progress. Habits can be built, and broken, with time, learning, and effort.
Research using Cognitive Neruoscience:
Habits are shaped by two brain systems - One that triggers automatic responses to familiar cues, and another that enables goal-directed control. Habits occur when automatic responses outweigh our ability to consciously control them - when automatic responses overpower goal-directed control. This applies to both good and bad habits.
Framework:
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Repetition and reinforcement are essential to forming habits. Repeating a behavior builds strong associations between environmental cues and responses, while rewarding the behavior makes it more likely to be repeated. In view of breaking habits, we can replace old behaviors with new ones to create competing automatic responses.
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The enviroment also plays a key role in habit change. Adjusting your surroundings can help; making desired behaviors easier to access encourages good habits, while removing cues that trigger unwanted behaviors disrupts bad habits.
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Knowing how to engage your own goal-directed system can help strengthen and weaken habits. Disengaging from effortful control accelerates habit formation. However, stress, time pressure, and fatigue can trigger a return to old patterns, so staying on top of things, being mindful of our own circumstances, and acting with intention is key when trying to break habits.
Full Paper found here.
Neuroscience Guide for Changing Habits (link):
Habits form through repetition, creating strong neural connections. No behavior happens without a corresponding change in the brain. In order to break a habit, the loop must be broken. This means figuring out the Cue, the Routine, and the Reward.
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Spot the triggers (cues) that kickstart the habit
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Identify the behaviors (routine) that follow
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Figure out the Rewards that keep them going
Brains are awesome, because they can reorganize themselves using neuroplasticity. This is the method used in rewriting habits. The process:
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Identify the Habit - Clearly define the habit you want to change. Be specific about the behavior that needs addressing.
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Understand the Habit Loop
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Identify the Cue - This could be a specific time, place, emotional state, or preceding event
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Pinpoint the Routine - This is the action we want to change.
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Identify the Reward - What satisfaction does the habit provide?
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Try out new Routines - Test out new routines that can replace the old routine while giving you the same reward. The new routine should be healthier or a more positive behavior.
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Establish a Connection between the Old Cue and the New Routine - Whenever you encounter the old cue, deliberately engage in the NEW routine. Over time, the repeated pairing of the old cue with the new routine will establish a fresh automatic response to the cue, particularly if it elicits the same or a similar old reward.
Tips for Success:
Be ok with gradually bringing on the new routine. Changes don't happen over night, and take time, and effort.
Track your Progress. Jot down wins and challenges, and keep yourself accountable.
Reward small victories. This is positive reinforcement, and can communicate with the L1 mechanics in our heads.
Stay Flexible. Change and tweak things until they work. The first run through probably won't be ideal. Notice, record, analyze, and tweak until it is.
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Alright, done. What's next?
Pain, apparently. Pain and loss.
Eh, more or less.