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Validating Ways to Enhance Learning
For example, the brain-integrating procedure of Image-Streaming (see
self-taught instructions for this procedure in our online book, You Are Brighter Than You Think!) improves student performance on achievement tests and on language skills almost immediately. The effects of that procedure on non-verbal intelligence performance require two to three months to establish, following a given intervention or experience.
These methods also usually reduce stress compared to the ordinary
classroom procedures. Reduced stress also generally improves emotional
and social indices. Further improvements result from the satisfaction of
high-level achieving in classroom or intellectual or artistic or creative
contexts. It would be unfair to measure attitudes during the high euphoric
hours or days immediately following such experiences, but several weeks later
would be a fair measure.
With various of these methods, language gains are so very strong that reading
comprehension scores will jump even if no reading has been involved during
the experimental interval!
Some significant gains appear immediately, others more over time. In
language, both reading and, generally, comprehension will show the greatest
gains, grammatical and spelling correctness the least. In this regard we
believe it sounder to build fluency first and then (positively) reinforce it
toward more correct models than to impose negative correction upon
inadequate levels of fluency as is too often the general practice. Have
something there to correct before you correct it, instead of discouraging it
out of existence.
Further gains result from linking various areas of sensitive and far-ranging experience and perception more directly to conscious verbal expression. This links many areas of the brain more directly to consciousness and makes the resources of those areas more readily available to the learner. More of the available resources of brain and mind, including various aptitudes, become engageable.
Other, more specific gains in various aptitudes result as deepened insight
and interest in one context lead to deepened insight and interest in other
contexts. Those contexts build a base of further recognition and
understanding, and those interests build a higher rate of intellectual or
aesthetic feed. Over time these effects cumulatively build aptitude scores.
Also, the close relationship between language, perception and apparent mental
ability means that some of the sharp gains in language proficiency will also
gradually and cumulatively build high aptitude scores and I.Q. scores, among
other things. Most of the major gains in this category are long-term,
approaching their highs from 6 weeks to 6 months after the initial
experiences which triggered them.
![]() Scientific issues The Feed-the-Loop model and theory completely transform the bases of present educational theory and practice, as well as related professional fields. To the extent that its description of natural processes is accurate, human learning and development can be readily improved beyond measure. Many specific testable hypotheses and predictions can be generated in that model, and then tested, to verify. This model offers a high point of leverage which will affect much else, both in the profession of education and beyond. "Pole-Bridging" the brain is another very important specific theory which will apparently transform both education and neurophysiology. A crucial dimension in brain function is how readily various regions of the brain communicate with each other, and how quickly. External sensory feedback is far more rapid than is internal sensory feedback. If the characteristic functioning of different regions of the brain can be externally expressed and integrated together, the coordination of those activities through external sensory feedback forces a much more immediate relationship between those several regions. This builds specific abilities and aptitudes and even "I.Q." or "intelligence," by whatever definitions and measures. Pole-Bridging has specific application implications even for instances of severe brain damage and/or mental retardation. The initial test results (the study by physics professor, Charles P. Reinert, on the effects of the practice of Image-Streaming) supported very strongly the theory of Pole-Bridging. Many other and further hypotheses and predictions can be made from the Pole-Bridging theory and tested, defining a key scientific issue. A preliminary description of Pole-Bridging theory is widely available in Win Wenger's book, The Einstein Factor. Getting magnetic resonance or other instantaneous and detailed studies run on the brains of people learning and practicing Image-Streaming, or some of the other activities associated with Project Renaissance techniques and methods, would be extremely informative not only in reference to particular theories but generally. We ask for help in finding facilities and professionals willing to conduct such studies.
![]() Conclusion Begin with what's at hand ... the many methods already published, any tests immediately available, and such newsletter and bulletin-board pieces as your students can generate evidencing the effects of the particular method. Strengthen your hand for further and more formal testing. If you can report your results to Project Renaissance, we can help you get published, to become an acknowledged professional "authority" in the field. See the convenient Research Proforma guidelines provided. We can also help you plan toward more formal measurement studies, whose results will have better scientific standing. We can also help you problem-solve on such matters as may develop. It is best to go for your initial results quietly, until the evidence is already very well established. This is more so the case for those methods which most help your students. The procedures, and the results associated with them, are certainly specific enough. From any legitimate standpoint, either practical or humanitarian, they are very well worth the doing. Besides, we are reminded that American education says that its intent is to foster the values of open-minded inquiry and scientific empiricism. Let us then inquire and gather the evidence. Proforma guidelines for reporting your results
![]() Comments to Win Wenger
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Project Renaissance PO Box 332, Gaithersburg, MD 20884-0332 |
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