Eclectic Technology

While brain theory is sometimes overrated, this gives good insights.

In experience creativity seems to be volitional not physiological, now there is some science to counteract this socially accepted point of view. 

When it comes to adolescents brain development in our western society today we can rely on school systems to play a large role in this. In this article is talks about how cooperative work groups in middle schools are the best ways for children to learn (Willis, 2012). I found this article to relate very closely to an academic journal I read comparing social development in pre schoolers in a values education program (Dereli-Iman, E, 2014, p.263). In the experiment of the academic journal researches found that children put into the values education program had better social development and less behavioural issues  (Dereli-Iman, E, 2014, p.263).  Even though this article of cooperative groups deals with middle schools students, it proves to say that cooperative learning groups gets all children involved, and forms for the greatest  levels of conceptual learning  (Dereli-Iman, E, 2014, p.263). In the text book Exploring Psychology in Modules, they state that day care is an area that has a huge impact on a child's development (Myers & Myers, 2008, p. 148). As Whetten stated, good quality child care is a warm and stimulations place for children, and poor child care is boring for this children making them unresponsive (Myers & Myers, 2008, p. 149). From these three articles you can see that schooling for children plays a huge role in brain development, and it is important to make sure they are in a good environment. Thought the author of this article, Judy Willis did not use a lot of scientific reasoning and proof in her article I found her findings and background to be very impressive. It would have made the article a little bit better if she would have added in some statistics to back up her reasoning about cooperative groups (Willis, 2012). A possible diverse group that would be effected through cooperative learning are kids from other countries who do not speak the foreign language. If a child was put into a cooperative group and was not able to converse with the other children it could possibly lead to negative outcomes for that student. 

Sources:

Myers, D. G., & Myers, D. G. (2008). Exploring psychology in modules. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

Willis, J. (2012, September 14). Brain Research: Adolescents Learn More in Cooperative Groups | MiddleWeb. Retrieved from http://www.middleweb.com/2847/how-to-build-happy-brains/

Dereli-İman, E. (2014). The Effect of the Values Education Programme on 5.5-6 year old children’s social development: social skills, psycho-social development and social problem solving skills. Kuram Ve Uygulamada Eğitim Bilimleri, 14(1), 262-268. 

Supportive middle school teaching strategies like cooperative learning, class celebrations, and community-school collaborations lower stress and increase resilience in students and create HAPPY MIDDLE-SCHOOL BRAINS, neuro-imaging shows.

Of course, they do! 

Reassuring confirmation of good practice based on experience

When you hear the word "addicted", normally the first thing that comes to mind is drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, what about the internet? I found it extremely interesting that there is actually a classified disorder in today’s age, Internet Addiction Disorder. What if you go out to dinner, and you are sitting at the table for just to long, have you ever gotten a craving to just go check social media? It appears to me that social media is chemically changing our brains around. An interesting route to go might be quitting the Internet “cold turkey”, if it works for other addictions, why not try it for this. Seeing how the dopamine, and other chemicals are really reacting inside our brain could be beneficial to determining a solution to this up and coming problem. It seems as if our changing society has lead to such problems, maybe these are some of the repercussions we must face with our advancing technological state.