The main roles of the parietal lobes in the brain - somatosensory functioning: touch, pressure, pain, temperature, muscle movement, sensations, language, perception, spatial awareness and attention.
Its basic structure including the left and right parietal lobes and the primary somatosensory cortex
The roles of significant substructures
Damage to the lobes can result in aphasia, agnosia, right-left confusion, impaired recognition and spatial relations
The parietal lobes operate in coordination with other areas of the brain to carry out different functions
And apply knowledge to other contexts in a meaningful manner
content.
ACTIVITY 1.
Activity 1. Mind Teaser To Exercise Your Frontal And Parietal Lobes And Practice Attention
This quick activity is a mind teaser exercise that can be an excellent example of a tuning in activity or concluding activity. When presenting this activity, students should have learnt all about the four lobes to make sense of this activity. This activity utilises students’ frontal lobe and parietal lobe functioning. This activity has been used to improve the attention span of individuals which may promote mindfulness in students. It comprises of a sequence of random numbers. In the first task, students are asked to count the number of times the number 6 appears. In the second task, students are asked to count the number of times the number 3 and 7 appears at the same time. Counting is a function of the frontal lobe as it is involved in logical thinking and mathematical functions whereas analysing the numbers is a function of the parietal lobe as it is involved in interpreting the visual information. What this activity demonstrates is that although each lobes specialises in different functions, they work in conjunction with one another. They process information simultaneously and allow us to interpret the world how is it. In terms of inquiry based learning, the questions that teachers can pose to students to facilitate their understanding are:
Which of the lobes does this activity use?
This may serve as a trick question for students, leading them to believe that only one lobe is utilised when completing two tasks. Teachers can assess how well students know their content and apply what they learn in this activity.
What does this activity imply about the functionality of our brains? Hopefully this will prompt students to understand that the brain does not function independently of each other but rather as a whole.
Can you give me an example of the parietal lobe working in conjunction with the occipital and temporal lobe?
This activity increases students knowledge of the frontal and parietal lobe working simultaneously but not the other lobes. This will integrate all the content students learnt and allow them to apply that knowledge.
Activity 2. Skin-Deep Science: Find Your Sensitive Side
This experiment really highlights the functions of the parietal lobe which revolves around our senses. Students are instructed to pair up together. Teachers can allocate students with a partner or allow students to select their own. This creates an opportunity for students to develop social skills which is beneficial for their future when they must interact with people they are unfamiliar with or strengthen their relationship with someone they have established connections. The materials that must be prepared in advance are: paper clips and a ruler. The paper clip must be shaped into a U-shape with the tips being one centimetre apart. One person from each pair must close their eyes as the other gently touch both of the tips of the paper clip around various body surfaces: face, arm, hands, fingertip, elbow, back, knee and so forth. It is important that teachers ensure that this activity remains appropriate. This experiment is predominantly inquiry based learning because students must ask the other students whether they can feel one or two tips of the paper clip. If the student can only feel one tip, the U shape of the paper clip should be bent wider until the student can feel it. Students should record the smallest distance that they can feel both tips of the paper clip using a ruler. The smaller the area, the more sensitive it is in that region. Then students should swap roles.
In schools, there is an emphasis on establishing a democratic classroom where teachers act as facilitators and allow students to have some degree of control in their learning (Millwater & Beutel, 2015). Teachers are placing trust that their students will be able to carry this experiment themselves and develop their own explanations as to why we feel more senses in certain areas than others.
It promotes peer work which is beneficial for students because it allows students to feel included, supported by their peer and comfortable. Having the sense of love and belonging is another step towards self-actualisation. It essentially creates a positive atmosphere in which students can effectively thrive with one another.
After carrying out that activity, teachers should discuss with the whole class about it. Again through inquiry based learning, these are some of the questions that could be asked:
Which areas were the most sensitive?
This should be in the form of an open discussion where students can contribute their answers. To further support their understanding, teachers should draw up a venn diagram which highlights the commonalities of the answers and what was different.
Why are those areas more sensitive than other?
This will encourage students to critically think about their senses and why some sensations are more strongly felt than others.
What are the benefits of our senses?
This will allow students to find relevance in why they are learning about the brain and how it applies to everyday life. Students will retain more information if it is meaningful (McInerney, 2015). This is beneficial when it comes to tests or examinations as the content will be ingrained in their minds.
Activity 3. Drawing the body surface map of sensory neurons (more sensory neurons are devoted to the body part that requires more specificity).
Similar to one of the frontal lobe activity, this activity allow students to tap into their artistic abilities by either being provided with an outline of a human body or a blank paper for students to freely draw a human body. Since psychology is a very content dense subject, the form of learning may predominantly be visually or auditorily. This embeds cross-curricular learning in which students who do arts can further develop their skills. This activity really caters for those who are kinesthetic learners as it requires physical engagement. Teachers should instruct students to accentuate particular body parts that are more sensitive than others. It is advised that this activity follows Activity 2 so individuals students can create a visual representation of their personal senses. They should note which body region was most sensitive and which was not. For instance, their hands may be more sensitive than their toes. So in the drawing, the hands should be drawn much bigger than our toes. However not all students will be alike so some students sensitivities in some regions will not be similar to other students. This activity will create awareness that our mind and body are completely dissimilar to others.
In terms of inquiry based learning. The most applicable questions for this task is:
Why do some of our body region have more sensory neurons?
Although this question is the same as the one of the Activity 2 question, it is reworded differently so hopefully students will be still be able to interpret the question.
Why do some of us feel more senses in certain area than others?
Students must come up with and explain various reasons that accounts for our differences in bodies. This question increases students awareness that we are all different and we should accept our differences. Hopefully through this, students develop morals and more understanding learning in sociocultural contexts.
How does having more sensory neurons affect the parietal brain?
This question prompts students to utilise the content they have learnt and apply it. It is just revising material that was already thought. This will allow teachers to assess their understanding of the parietal lobe. If content is not understood well, it is expected that teachers will reiterate the content in different ways.
Activity 4. Spatial neglect / Neglect syndrome: an attentional disorder that results from brain damage to the right parietal lobe. Patients behave as if their left side of their body and the world does not exist.
Students will be asked to investigate one of the most common parietal lobe damage. Teachers should allow the class to watch a video of spatial neglect so students have a basic understanding of it.
For inquiry based learning, teachers should write various questions and print it out as a worksheet to hand out to students. It is recommended that students watch the video and simultaneously answer the questions that are asked of them. This activity utilises all the three forms of learning: visual, auditory and kinesthetic as they must look, listen and write. Videos are more engaging than asking students to read the textbook because humans are social creatures, we like to interact with people and observe the world to make sense of it. Since psychology is also scientific, reading off a textbook only gets student to imagine what spatial neglect is like rather than witnessing it themselves through a video.
The questions that should be asked with respect to the video are:
What is spatial neglect?
Damage to which specific brain region causes spatial neglect?
How does this damage occur?
Is it just objects that get ignored?
Provide three examples of what a person with spatial neglect may do in their everyday life.
If students have left any questions blank, teachers should allow students some time to research the answers themselves. Teachers should have an open discussion with the class once all students have completed the questions. For open discussion, teachers should rearrange the classroom perhaps in a circle where students feel more invited to contribute, included and can engage with one another.