UNC-Chapel Hill has the monument known as the Old Well. Penn State has the building known as Old Main. UVA has the Rotunda, designed by Thomas Jefferson.
All of these are "iconic spaces" on university campuses—but who uses them? Who feels that they belong there? 1/8
Researchers led by UVA psychologist Sophie Trawalter recently examined the relationship between students' socioeconomic status and their use of iconic public space. Lower-SES students were less likely to feel that they belonged in these spaces, and less likely to use them. 2/8
(Notably, the researchers found similar patterns by race: students of color use iconic public space on campus less than do white students and, in turn, this predicts lower sense of belonging at the university.) 3/8
But the researchers also found that increasing students’ use of iconic public space can CLOSE the "belonging gap" between lower- and higher-SES students.
"Momentary and space-bound experiences of belonging can give rise to a more general sense of belonging," they write. 4/8
"As students use iconic public space on campus, these spaces become familiar, part of their everyday lives, and in time, part of their identity," the researchers conclude. "They convey to students that they belong in this space and to this group." 5/8
Previous work has found that cues in the environment can affect people's sense of belonging. For example: Female students who enter a computer science classroom littered with soda cans and decorated with Star Trek posters report being less interested in pursuing the subject. 6/8
But the UVA study shows "how use of public space can increase sense of belonging, irrespective of the physical cues within that space," the authors note. Simply using spaces on campus—without changing physical cues present in those spaces—eliminated the SES gap in belonging. 7/8
In 2008, Nicholas Carr wrote a seminal article for The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
In the 13 years since then, digital technology has become only more pervasive and more integrated into our thinking processes—for better and for worse. But we know a lot more now. 1/9
In place of what was mostly speculation on Carr’s part, there is now a booming field of empirical research into exactly HOW and WHEN and WHY our encounters with technology influence our thinking.
For example: this new study from researchers at the University of Tübingen. 2/9
The study examines the pluses and minuses of "cognitive offloading"—the act of allowing our devices to hold information or perform operations for us that would usually happen inside our own heads. 3/9
So powerful is the effect of gesturing while learning that it can improve learners’ comprehension of a complex concept, EVEN WHEN they are not aware of the connection between the concept and the gesture they've been instructed to make. 1/8
Simply making a conceptually-congruent gesture while they’re learning about the concept helps clarify and reinforce the concept—forming a second channel of instruction that’s independent of the verbal one.
2/8
Matthew Hutson writes about "hand movements’ subconscious effects on learning" in a new article for Scientific American. He describes a study led by Icy (Yunyi) Zhang of UCLA, recently published in the journal Cognitive Science.
3/8
It's been a really weird year for college students. In thinking about the kind of supports they need, there's one we often overlook: their personal connection to the PLACE where they live. 1/6
Benjamin Meagher, a psychologist at Kenyon College, recently published a paper in which he examined the relationship between college students' psychological well-being and the degree of "place identity" they experience in regard to their housing.
2/6
Place identity, he writes, "is characterized by the extent to which a setting reflects, reinforces, and communicates the identity of its resident"—in short, it's a feeling of connection with one’s physical setting.
3/6
Andy Clark is one of the world's most interesting thinkers, and I'm always curious to hear what he's thinking about NOW. (With fellow philosopher David Chalmers, Clark proposed the theory of the extended mind, and is the author of "Supersizing the Mind," among other books.)
1/10
Anthony Wing Kosner recently published an article about the extended mind, featuring an interview with Clark. It includes a number of gems—such as Clark's suggestion that the isolation imposed by the pandemic has driven us further into what he calls "brainbound" thinking.
2/10
"Intense digital home-working scenarios could feed a kind of isolationist user-illusion, enhancing our native tendencies to a kind of dualism" between the mind and its environment, Clark told Kosner.
3/10
When engineers and architects tackle complex spatial problems, does all the action take place inside their heads? Not at all, write a team of learning scientists from Northwestern University. Such experts “don’t solve these problems just by manipulating mental models." 1/7
"They solve them through the coordinated manipulation of both internal and external representations”—like sketches, models, and even hand gestures. But the instruction we offer students fails to develop the outside-the-brain thinking skills used by real-world experts.
2/7
“Traditional school mathematics privileges analytic approaches (i.e., formulas and calculations) over spatial ones (i.e., graphs, models, and diagrams)," the Northwestern researchers note in a recent paper.
3/7
When engineers and architects tackle complex spatial problems, does all the action take place inside their heads? Not at all, write a team of learning scientists from Northwestern University. Such experts “don’t solve these problems just by manipulating mental models." 1/7
"They solve them through the coordinated manipulation of both internal and external representations”—like sketches, models, and even hand gestures. But the instruction we offer students fails to develop the outside-the-brain thinking skills used by real-world experts. 2/7
“Traditional school mathematics privileges analytic approaches (i.e., formulas and calculations) over spatial ones (i.e., graphs, models, and diagrams)," the Northwestern researchers note in a recent paper. 3/7