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Curiosity:
Ask questions!
Choose the image that you feel best represents or captures the essence of curiosity.
1.
5.
2.
6.
3.
4.
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8.
I see:
I think:
I wonder:
https://goo.gl/Ne01kF
2. Understanding curiosity...
Definition: Curiosity
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Curiosity is a disposition to wonder, ponder and ask why. It involves a thirst for
understanding and a desire to explore.
ups and
Miles, a
begins
Arthurs
feelings.
What
happens
in
this
story?
My father said:
curiosity?
feelings
In
what
way,
if
any,
do
you think
emotions
are
related to
Research: Richard
Feynman as an
exemplar of
curiosity
Research Richard Feynman and how he demonstrated the virtue of intellectual curiosity.
Here are a few resources to help get you started:
Intellectual Character
Article - http://goo.gl/nDgGc6
Speech - http://goo.gl/h4z01u (delivered when awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965)
Video -https://goo.gl/7BtVAf (10 mins)
Video - https://goo.gl/psz8VN (2 mins)
3. What did Feynmans interaction with his father at age 11 teach him about knowledge?
5. In what ways did Feynmans life and career provide examples of curiosity?
3. Valuing Curiosity
Article: Cats, take notice: Brain study uses trivia to look
at how curiosity works
Why are you reading this story? Probably no one is paying you or forcing you to read it against
your will. Chances are, you are curious.
Curiosity, that thirst for information, is largely a scientific mystery. How and why it gets
triggered is not entirely understood, but a study has discovered similarities in brain activation
between a state of curiosity and the anticipation of rewards such as food or money.
In addition, it appears that being on a curiosity high can facilitate learning.
Things that youre interested in, you learn better, which is not very surprising, said study
author and psychologist Matthias Gruber of the University of California at Davis. But if
somebody remains curious for a specific time, would he learn better in general?
The answer may be yes, according to his findings, which could have important implications for
better teaching methods and understanding neurological disorders that affect learning and
memory. The study was published online Thursday in the journal Neuron.
Participants were asked to rate trivia questions covering a variety of topics (including science,
TV shows and politics) based on how curious they were to know the answers. Each individual
then went into an MRI scanner where the questions appeared on screen. For example, Who
was the president of the U.S. when Uncle Sam first got a beard?
There was an anticipation period of 14 seconds before the answer was given (Abraham
Lincoln). While the subject waited for the answer, a photo of an unrelated face popped up.
Gruber and his colleagues wanted to see whether being in a state of curiosity could help
participants remember any material, such as the faces, not just the topics of interest.
Immediately afterward, participants were given pop quizzes. The first asked them to recall the
answers to the trivia questions they had just seen as expected, they did better on the high curiosity questions. Next, participants were given a memoryrecognition test in which a face
was shown and the subjects were asked whether they had seen it during the experiment.
Faces that were presented during a highly curious state those faces were remembered
better, said study author and neuroscientist Charan Ranganath at UCDavis. That was really
the most surprising part.
Followup tests on trivia and faces the next day replicated this same trend. The observed
memory benefits were supported by brain activity in the hippocampus, an area of the brain
important for forming new memories.
Curiosity seems to place a stamp of importance on certain pieces of information that fly by,
and the brain stores them away for safekeeping. But this link between curiosity and memory
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may even extend beyond the topics that people find fascinating, to any material processed
while in a curious state of mind.
The MRI results also showed that the 14secondlong anticipatory period but not the answer
itself caused a spike of activity in brain areas linked to motivation, reward and dopamine
release.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is released by neurons in the midbrain in response to
unexpected rewards. For rats, it might be a drop of sweet fruit juice. For humans, it could be
money or a drug of choice. It has been called the pleasure chemical, but in reality dopamine is
much more complex.
Dopamine is released whenever you get news that youre going to get a reward, said
Columbia University neuroscientist Jacqueline Gottlieb, who was not involved in the study. Its
not actually getting the reward, but its the information that youre going to get it theres a
little burst of dopamine.
During states of high curiosity, the researchers saw brain activation patterns that appear
consistent with the release of dopamine.
Curiosity is sort of like a cognitive reward, and these results seem to suggest that cognitive
reward also activates dopamine, said Gottlieb, whose work focuses on the origin of curiosity
and what factors trigger it.
Gottlieb applauds the researchers for choosing to investigate such an everyday but little
understood phenomenon.
Curiosity is sort of a mysterious thing for us neuroscientists, and there havent been many
studies on it, she said.
Gottliebs main criticism was about the results of the facerecognition test, which struck her as
a weaker aspect of the study. She speculates the memory boost could be explained by where
the subjects happened to be looking at the time, not by a curious state of mind.
Im directing my attention to the center of the screen to see the answer, and then I see the
face, she said. Even though the face is irrelevant, it appears in the locus of attention.
Because many disorders such as drug addiction, Parkinsons disease, depression and
schizophrenia affect both memory and the reward circuit, these new findings represent a
first step in better understanding their complex relationship. Ranganaths future work will
involve using electrical stimulation in the key brain regions to see whether it is possible to
artificially create a curious state of mind.
For patients with these conditions, it might be possible to improve memory through the
development of medications or behavioral therapies to stimulate motivation and curiosity, he
said.
(Kim, 2014)
You have to say, Wait a second. Why are we doing it this way? Could it be better? Could it
be different? That kind of curiosity, that explorers mind, that childlike wonder thats
what makes an inventor.
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon
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computer, you can either click the physical off button or go through a series of menus to
shut the computer down.
A natural inclination might be to think that the adults would perform better at recognizing and
applying complex patterns a reasoning task at its core. However, children did better. Adults,
who most frequently come across disjunctive relationships outside of the lab, were biased to
interpret both disjunctive and conjunctive relationships as being disjunctive. That is, adults
approached most of the relationships with a solution resembling push the off button OR find
the shut down command, even though half of the items required an approach more similar
to plug in the computer AND press the on button. Children, on the other hand, were able to
see the two types of relationships as distinct.
In other words, the adults had an expectation about the way something should work, while
the children did not have experience telling them how to solve the problem. The result is that
children are far more inquisitive in their study of possible solutions. You could say kids are
actually problem-solving while adults are solution-retrieving.
Executives today face this challenge constantly. They want their businesses to grow and be
known as truly innovative, but they are leading people who are informed and inhibited by
their typically very useful brain patterns.
This study is just one piece of evidence supporting the idea that prior experience does not
always serve you. In fact, there are many case studies where childlike wonder, the innocence
to reconsider the already-known world, is what ultimately led to extraordinary outcomes.
Consider the way that we now consume media. It was unthinkable twenty years ago that we
would want to read books on an electronic device, such as Amazons Kindle. As of January of
this year approximately 28% of Americans alone use e-readers. To create this new reality,
Bezos and his team needed to move into a completely new territory. They faced the absence
of prior experience with this new product and possibly the history of other, failed innovations.
Bezos has aptly noted that innovation requires experimentation, and with more
experimentation comes more failure. The Genius of Bezos, however, is that he views failure as
a productive part of the innovation process, rather than a detriment to the process. This
relationship to failure may be the key to Bezos fostering the spirit of childlike wonder in his
organization; perhaps in the world of wonder, failure as we define it doesnt even exist.
There is no denying the importance of balance when considering new ideas in this case,
using prior knowledge to inform decisions while not allowing this knowledge to limit future
opportunities.
However, for the most part, producing new results requires thinking in new ways. And new
thinking comes when we suspend the experience that hampers our ability to be creative.
Maintaining childlike wonder, and choosing to evaluate a new product, a new person, or a new
venue with the curiosity befitting a child opens up the possibility for a break from the norm,
and in turn, great innovation.
You may be wondering how to foster a sense of childlike wonder in yourself and your
organization. Perhaps as you read this, you imagined yourself bringing together some great
minds from across your organization to look at an old issue or intractable challenge with a
renewed sense of imagination, suspending any nay-saying or preconceived solutions. But who
has the time? What about the resources necessary to deliver?
We must consider that the companies we admire most for their innovative cultures and
competitive edge are the ones that invest in their own childlike wonder. The question then
becomes: How can you afford not to?
(Gamache, 2014)
2. What was the major finding of the study conducted by Christopher Lucas?
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4. Developing curiosity...
4. Question relentlessly.
5. Create a challenge.
By creating a challenge, you will want to
prove to yourself (and perhaps to others)
that you can make it. One good way to do
that is by creating a project: build something
real out of what you learn. Another way is to
create a contest with your friends to find out
who can do something faster or better.
7. Diversify.
(Gladwell, 2008)
1. Choose two strategies and explain why you chose these two strategies in particular?
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5. Practising Curiosity...
ACTIVITY 1: Curiosity in class
Choose an activity/lesson that you typically dislike or find boring. The next time you are
involved in this activity, do the following:
1. Name the activity/lesson:
6. After the lesson, indicate your level of agreement with the following statements by circling
one number. Also enter this data into the Google form available at: https://goo.gl/gyyeCD.
Statement
I found the activity/lesson more interesting than
usual.
I found the activity/lesson more enjoyable than
usual.
I was able to concentrate more than I usually am
able.
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Strongl
y
disagre
e
Neutral
/
undeci
ded
Strongl
y agree
1.Question:
2.Question:
Answer:
Click to insert answer.
Answer:
Click to insert answer.
Further questions:
Click to insert answer.
Further questions:
Click to insert answer.
d. Finally, using your initial questions from Part (b) above, look over the list and
transform some of the questions into questions that challenge the imagination. You
can record these questions in your original Padlet post. Do this by transforming
questions along the lines of:
i. What would it be like if
ii. How would it be different if
iii. Suppose that...
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Having completed this activity, indicate your level of agreement with the following
statements. Also complete the Google Form available at: https://goo.gl/JklVeD.
Statement
I was more attentive to everyday occurrences this
week.
I learned more this week than normal.
It was difficult to think of questions.
I knew everything I encountered this week.
I found answers to my questions
I now have further questions to explore.
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Strongl
y
disagre
e
Neutral /
undecide
d
Strongl
y agree
6. Connecting
1.
the
What
are
positive
the
and
key
negative
differences
types
of
curiosity?
2.
form,
summarize
the
lessons
of
these
7. Evaluating
Proverbs 2:1-15
1
15
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Statement
Neutral
/
undecid
ed
Strongly
disagre
e
Strongly
agree
How have you demonstrated curiosity over the past few weeks at school?
What are some things youve found challenging or you want to change as a result of this
module?
References:
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BAEHR, J. 2015. Educating for Intellectual Virtues: An Introductory guide for college and
university
instructors.
Available
from:
https://jasonbaehr.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/e4iv_baehr.pdf .
DOW, P. E. 2013. Virtuous Minds: Intellectual Character Development, Illinois, InterVarsity
Press.
GAMACHE, J. 2014. Want To Think Like A Genius? Embrace Curiosity and Wonder [Online].
Available:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gapinternational/2014/12/03/want-to-think-like-agenius-embrace-curiosity-and-wonder/ [Accessed 8 December.
GLADWELL,
M.
2008.
In
the
Air.
The
New
Yorker
[Online].
Available:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/05/12/in-the-air [Accessed 8 December 2015].
IVA.
2015.
Intellectual
Virtues
Academy
[Online].
Long
Beach.
Available:
http://www.ivalongbeach.org/ [Accessed 06/08/2015.
KIM, M. 2014. Cats, take notice: Brain study uses trivia to look at how curiosity works. The
Washington Post, October 5, 2014.
VON STUMM, S., HELL, B. & CHAMORRO-PREMUZIC, T. 2011. The Hungry Mind. Perspectives
on Psychological Science, 6, 574-588.
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