Mandyland

I’m going to invite people into the process of my next project related to human intelligence and the need to rethink the way we see intelligence. In this first episode about it, I talk about Multiple Intelligence according to Howard Gardner and also about VIA Character Strengths. At the end, I invite people to take my in-progress screening survey on multiple intelligence and the VIA survey. The link for those are both listed below.

Take the VIA survey first so you can tell me what your top 5 character strengths are in my survey.

https://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey

My First Draft of a Multiple Intelligence Survey:

https://goo.gl/forms/L1jEngE4yQ5hujMV2 

My goal with all of this is to use a combination of questionnaire, interview by a trained coach, and if possible, field assessments. I will be looking for volunteers for the initial pilot testing. If you want to be considered, please do both the VIA survey followed by my survey and you may be contacted for follow-up. 

Please note, this survey is not about identifying people as intelligent or not but rather about the hope of identifying individual’s dominant intelligence and strength. 

After a few years of students from the second-year neuroscience class I teach at the University of Guelph-Humber asking for how they can learn more neuroscience, I decided to take some of them on as part of their placement requirements. Here we will be exploring various topics in neuroscience. This is our first formal audio meeting where we hear from them, what they are interested in and give us some idea of how to proceed for the next couple of months working together.

Sarah JohnsonSat, Jan 19, 1:18 PM (2 days ago)to me

In this episode, originally sent as a voice memo to Mandy and Mike, Sarah recounts the immediate aftermath of being kept up overnight by side effects of one of her treatments. This was back in September 2018, before recording the first podcast we published with Sarah on Mandyland. But she wants to share this note as it captures feelings of vulnerability, frustration, confusion, and exasperation that arise in dealing with cancer treatment. It's happened a few times now that a new symptom pops up and spurs a chain of medical appointments, scans, and tests. Figuring out what is going both in her own experience in her body, and from the perspective of multiple doctors, has proven to be one of the most challenging types of cancer experience. At present, Sarah's happy to report the small probably benign lesion for which this episode is named has not grown or caused any significant problems since it showed up, and her brain remains entirely healthy and tumor-free. 

I’m with Sarah in San Diego, at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, a place we have been together many times. We had many slow(er than normal) days and quiet nights in our hotel room. And then we got a chance to really dive into what her new normal is. The conference was a perfect place to compare what use to be, with what is now.

Mike and I got into a conversation about The Interoceptive Mind, a way of feeling our inner body provoked partially by a book that I picked up at the Society for Neuroscience back in November. According to the authors Interoception is “the body-to-brain axis of signals originating from the internal body and visceral organs (such as gastrointestinal, respiratory, hormonal, and circulatory systems). [It] is the sensing of the state of the inner body and its homeostatic needs, to the ever-fluctuations state of the body beneath its sensory (exteroceptive) and musculoskeletal sheath.” In the process of discussing how we sense things — and how he and I might sense things differently — we bring up many related topics including intuition, gut feeling/reactions, multiple intelligence, depression, artists, and whether the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Resources:

Mandy’s Blog Post: Rethinking Intelligence: http://www.mandyland.ca/blog/2018/2/26/rethinking-intelligence-its-not-all-or-none

Dawn’s depression, referred to in this conversation:

http://www.mandyland.ca/the-podcast/2017/12/9/depression-and-anxiety-with-dawn

http://www.mandyland.ca/the-podcast/2018/6/14/follow-up-about-depression-and-anxiety-with-dawn

Book: Tsakiris, M. & De Preester H. (2019). The Interoceptive Mind - From Homeostasis to Awareness. Oxford University Press. Oxford, UK. 

Clearly, I have more important things to do with my time than creating episodes. Here’s a little snapshot into that. Note, this was recorded by Mike at the end of our date night, on Dec 1st. I only found out about it yesterday (Dec 9th). Apparently he sent it to me but I didn’t even see it or listen to it.

Enjoy. ;P

An introduction to focusing on the breath, a basic concentration practice that sets a foundation for meditating and for deepening your practice. Mostly instruction and practice, with a little bit of commentary on why we are meditating. 

I reconnected with one of my favorite students from Ryerson. He was that super engaged student who asked good critical-thinking questions and really took things to another level. So when he contacted me to say he developed a game on scientific thinking, I was super excited to meet up and learn more about his game. And what he showed met my expectations. Jon is reflective, intelligent, a deep critical thinker, and a social justice advocate. All of these elements came out clearly in our conversation about his game “Think Like A Scientist!”. In an age where information is both a commodity and exploited, learning how to think like a scientist is even that much more important! It was a fun conversation where I decided to mostly keep my scientist hat on. I did challenge him a little bit on his bias against natural and the conflict of interest in science. We broached the topic but didn’t go to deep, because it was simply beyond the scope of this audio. ;)

Resources:

ASAPScience: http://www.asapscience.com/

Politifact: https://www.politifact.com/

Cash Flow: Game about investing: http://www.richdad.com/promotions/Cashflow-Classic-Evergreen

Get a pack of cards yourself: "Think Like A Scientist Set" is the first one listed, and comes in a pack of 2: https://www.printerstudio.ca/sell/designs/54-cards-total-two-sets-of-27-science-education-card-game-university-high-school-come-shrink-wrapped.html. The expansion pack is, as the name suggests, a longer version with more critical thinking cards and more situations. It's the most updated version, comes with instructions, and in the box.

There were a lot references for this conversation… if you want any, let us know. Jon has them!

I’m taking a Facebook Sabbatical… and this is why.

Resources

CBC episode with Jeron Lanier (the internet guy who talks about getting off social media): https://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/the-current/segment/15610520. Also see: Talk also by Lanier: https://www.ted.com/.../jaron_lanier_how_we_need_to...

ZigZag is a podcast about changing the course of capitalism, journalism, and women’s lives. For real. https://zigzagpod.com/about/

Me and Mike talking about Blockchain... http://www.mandyland.ca/.../what-is-the-internet-and...

I didn’t talk about this but this is related: Sir Tim Berners-Lee (the founder of the Web) recently launched Inrupt to develop Solid, as described in his open letter: https://www.inrupt.com/blog/one-small-step-for-the-web. About Solid: https://solid.inrupt.com/about

#MeToo Movement: https://metoomvmt.org/

Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford: https://metoomvmt.org/a-love-letter-to-dr-christine-blasey-ford/face

Other social media platform that I’m exploring, Diaspora: https://diasporafoundation.org/

Computer programming training that I’m considering, Ladies Learning Code/Canadians Learning Code: https://www.canadalearningcode.ca/