The brain is NOT a computer

This from David Brooks:

"The most important and paradoxical fact shaping the future of online learning is this: A brain is not a computer. We are not blank hard drives waiting to be filled with data. People learn from people they love and remember the things that arouse emotion. If you think about how learning actually happens, you can discern many different processes. There is absorbing information. There is reflecting upon information as you reread it and think about it. There is scrambling information as you test it in discussion or try to mesh it with contradictory information. Finally there is synthesis, as you try to organize what you have learned into an argument or a paper." 

The editorial is about on-line learning, but the description above is more generally applicable to the learning process.  At this point in the semester, near the end, we are moving toward synthesis, trying to move from merely acquiring information and playing with it (scrambling in Brooks' terms) to making our own meaningful patterns.