Language: English

Abstract/Notes: Emerging digital technologies enable teachers and students to access and manipulate sights and sounds in their school environments. The challenge is to systematically include these new media in academic environments, and to include adults who are ill prepared in technical issues as primary guides in this effort. This article suggests that child's play should be the focus of these efforts, and that the Montessori classroom provides a good model to guide these considerations. Kristina Woolsey is a Learning Experience Designer at the Exploratirum; Matthew Woolsey is a reporter at Forbes.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1080/00405840801992330

ISSN: 0040-5841, 1543-0421

Abstract/Notes: According to the Montessori legacy and fidelity view of authentic Montessori, children should work and not play. The Montessori prepared environment and the Montessori materials were designed to assist children with self-development, and self-development occurred when children concentrated (Montessori, 1966, p. 139). Given the circumstances of COVID-19, children's development may have been significantly disrupted by the effects of extended periods of isolation due to closed schools, locked-down communities, and quarantined families required to stay indoors (Benner & Mistry, 2020; De Araújo et al., 2021). A number of studies and literature reviews recommend play as a remedy for the negative effects of months of isolation on children's development, and submit that young children (between the ages of 2 and 8) returning to school after isolation need to first socialize and play for an extended period in order to then self-regulate and attend to academic lessons (Kourti et al., 2021; Prime et al., 2020; Nieto et al., 2021; Urbina-Garcia, 2020). Children also use the Sensorial materials and build houses, trains, rockets, and other pretend constructions.

Language: English

ISSN: 1054-0040

Abstract/Notes: When emotions, thoughts, and actions align, this is referred to as “self-congruency”. Therefore, this study aimed to determine how temporal covariance of the heart and brain signals were related to self-congruency. Thirty-eight healthy adults underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging to obtain neural markers of variability, whereas heart rate variability (HRV) was measured using photoplethysmography. Participants were also asked to report their level of self-congruency with a graphic rating scale. A cross-covariance analysis (CCA) was performed to assess the temporal covariance of signals arising from both organs, which was then correlated with self-congruency scores. Overall, the CCA results revealed brain-to-heart-driven interplay in brain regions involved in the neurovisceral integration model (e.g., ventromedial prefrontal cortex) and in emotion regulation (e.g., anterior cingulate). However, higher self-congruency scores were related to heart-to-brain-driven interplay in brain regions involved in emotion regulation and empathy. Together, the present findings suggest that, while global brain-to-heart-driven interplay occurs on average, it is heart-to-brain-driven interplay that reflects higher self-congruency. Given the impact of heart-brain interplay and self-congruency on mental health, further investigations on each concept could be interesting in developing tools for early intervention.

Language: English

Published: Aug 30, 2023

Abstract/Notes: Cover title: You Can Be What you Want to Be: A Musical Play - Life of Maria Montessori

Language: English

Published: Oregon, Ohio: Creative Services, 1985

Language: English

ISSN: 0140-0460

Abstract/Notes: In modern childhood, free, unstructured play time is being replaced more and more by academics, lessons, competitive sports, and passive, electronic entertainment. While parents may worry that their children will be at a disadvantage if they are not engaged in constant, explicit learning or using the latest "educational" games, David Elkind's The Power of Play reassures us that unscheduled imaginative play goes far in preparing children for academic and social success. Through expert analysis of the research and powerful situational examples, Elkind shows that, indeed, creative spontaneous activity best sets the stage for academic learning in the first place: Children learn mutual respect and cooperation through role-playing and the negotiation of rules, which in turn prepare them for successful classroom learning; in simply playing with rocks, for example, a child could discover properties of counting and shapes that are the underpinnings of math; even a toddler's babbling is a necessary precursor to the acquisition of language. An important contribution to the literature about how children learn, The Power of Play suggests ways to restore play's respected place in children's lives, at home, at school, and in the larger community. In defense of unstructured "down time," it encourages parents to trust their instincts and resist the promise of the wide and dubious array of educational products on the market geared to youngsters.

Language: English

Published: New York, New York: Da Capo Press, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-7382-1053-7

Language: German

ISSN: 0722-2513

Language: English

Abstract/Notes: Error-monitoring is a crucial cognitive process that enables us to adapt to the constantly changing environment. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) plays a vital role in error-monitoring, and its prolonged maturation suggests that it can be influenced by experience-dependent plasticity. To explore this possibility, we collected morphometric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures of the ACC and error-related response-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) in 26 schoolchildren, aged 6–12 years, enrolled in either a Montessori or a traditional curriculum in Switzerland. We show that the caudal ACC undergoes significant morphometric changes during this developmental age range that seem related to error detection ERP activity. Furthermore, we observed differences in source localization activity related to error detection within the caudal ACC between Montessori and traditionally-schooled children, indicating a potential difference in the development of error-monitoring in these groups. Our study provides preliminary evidence for a potential window of opportunity to influence error-monitoring during development and calls for more work in that direction.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1111/mbe.12395

ISSN: 1751-228X