Mental models

    See the blogs below that have this tag.

    Emotional Intelligence

    Know Your Feelings

    This blog was written by Austin Reid as a project for PADM 5449 at Cornell University.  The following three-part poster series is designed to serve as a teaching aid in preschool settings to assist children in understanding feelings and how to process them. This poster series can also be used as a teaching aid for children between the ages of three and five in other settings including daycare, summer camp or Sunday school. The first poster provides children with an opportunity to think about how they are feeling and explain why. Children will point to the face that most accurately mirrors how they are feeling and they can also learn from others how they are feeling. This check-in can also be done as a one-on-one exercise between a guardian and a child.  

    • Austin Reid
      Austin Reid
    Learning

    Slime Molds Are Systems Thinkers Too...

    This blog has been partially adapted from A Literature Review of the Universal and Atomic Elements of Complex Cognition. When you picture things that think, a slime mold probably wouldn't be the first organism to jump to mind. However, research has shown that you don't necessarily need a brain to think; in other words, non-neural organisms can think. Previously, we discussed how chemotaxis is an inherently DSRP-based process which allows bacteria and cells to make distinctions, build systems, recognize relationships, and take perspectives. As research has shown, slime molds can do DSRP too. 

    • Elena Cabrera
      Elena Cabrera
    Teaching

    Teach Your Child to Think

    There are moments in life when we instinctively know that our life is changing and that a corollary transformation of ourselves is underway. I am sure that every parent remembers with great clarity the moment that the totality of becoming a parent hit them. Never is there such a crystallization of absolute joy and heart stopping fear. The enormity of the responsibility of parenthood weighs on us before a child arrives in our home. Yet, we embrace the joy, face that fear, and take the responsibility head on to do what our instincts tell us to do as biological beings raising our young.

    • Laura Cabrera, PhD
      Laura Cabrera, PhD
    Emotional Intelligence

    Slider: Perfection Paralysis

    The term cognitive slider was coined by Derek Cabrera to communicate “a relatively small, nourishing or ‘meaty’ mental model” for use in increasing one’s prosocial or emotional intelligence. This blog is part of a set of blogs under the tag "sliders." Be sure to check out the tag to read them as a group and learn how sliders are at play and can help us in our everyday lives. Over the years, I’ve worked with many students and folks who are new to the workforce. I must say, working with a team of young, passionate professionals who still believe they can change the world for the better (and likely will) is one of the best parts of my job. 

    • Derek Cabrera, PhD
      Derek Cabrera, PhD