Body Language
20% Project
This project will be focused on body language, more specifically nonverbal communication. I find that nonverbal communication is one of the most effective ways to send a message and I find it so intriguing that you can read a persons body to find out what they are really thinking. A great example of this would be the fictional TV show "Lie to Me", a show based on a body language reader who tells if someone is lying.
My initial questions for this project are:
1) Is the ability to read body language the way it is projected in the media a real thing?
2) Can someone learn how to read other people with practice?
3) Is it possible to learn how to not give away cues on what you are thinking?
4) Is it ethically or morally sound to be able to read someone when they are unaware you can do it?
5) Does knowing body language cues have potential to make you a better communicator?
6) How much of face to face communication is composed of body language?
7) What are the skills needed to be proficient in this ability?
8) What are the potential gains to knowing how to read body language?
9) Can you learn how to tell if someone is telling the truth of lying?
10) Can you "turn it off"? If you don't want to be able to read it anymore or is it once you have learned it you can never go back to being unaware?
20% Project
This project will be focused on body language, more specifically nonverbal communication. I find that nonverbal communication is one of the most effective ways to send a message and I find it so intriguing that you can read a persons body to find out what they are really thinking. A great example of this would be the fictional TV show "Lie to Me", a show based on a body language reader who tells if someone is lying.
My initial questions for this project are:
1) Is the ability to read body language the way it is projected in the media a real thing?
2) Can someone learn how to read other people with practice?
3) Is it possible to learn how to not give away cues on what you are thinking?
4) Is it ethically or morally sound to be able to read someone when they are unaware you can do it?
5) Does knowing body language cues have potential to make you a better communicator?
6) How much of face to face communication is composed of body language?
7) What are the skills needed to be proficient in this ability?
8) What are the potential gains to knowing how to read body language?
9) Can you learn how to tell if someone is telling the truth of lying?
10) Can you "turn it off"? If you don't want to be able to read it anymore or is it once you have learned it you can never go back to being unaware?
Research of body language
I originally wrote out a long texty explanation of what body language is and how to use it effectively in communication. I thought about the efficiency and the authenticity of explaining body language without using and body language, I made this short youtube video to help explain all of the tricks of the trade that I will be learning .
I originally wrote out a long texty explanation of what body language is and how to use it effectively in communication. I thought about the efficiency and the authenticity of explaining body language without using and body language, I made this short youtube video to help explain all of the tricks of the trade that I will be learning .
Our reptilian Brain
The reptilian brain is the oldest part of our brain and is approximately 200 million years old. The best analogy that I have heard is that of a peanut M&M. The peanut M&M represents the anatomical structure of our brain. The colored outer shell would be representative of our neocortex, which controls thought and higher order thinking. We next have the chocolate, which is representing our limbic system which controls emotions, its older then the neocortex which is why is the under layer. Last we have the peanut, representing the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain is the oldest and is almost the same in every human. It controls impulsiveness. All impulsive behaviors have their genesis at the reptilian brain or also referred to as the R COMPLEX. It is believed that racism, xenophobia, prejudice stem from this ancient part of our existence as a species. It comes from the fact that because our brain identifies people who look different, talk different, walk different as not one of our group and we see them as a threat. We have to learn to calm our reptilian brains before we can achieve success of power effective communication.
Step 1 of powerful communication and calming of the R Complex-
We can make sure that our audience can see the palms of our hands as we speak. This is going to ensure that they know we are not holding a weapon (this is really the evidence we are going to use to calm the ancient part of the brain. Showing we do not have a weapon, seems very primitive and strange but it works).
Step 2 of powerful communication
Make sure that when you are smiling that you have a Duchanne smile, meaning that you have a wide smile and you have small wrinkles next to your eyes (this is explained in previous videos if you want more in depth explanation). Their brain starts to see our body language. It starts to see our eyebrows raise, our smile and our open hands, these are all things someone does when they see a friend. Their brain starts to sense that we recognize them as a friend. After a few seconds of us telling them (with our body language) that we are friends their brain starts to believe it. With this is mind we can start to make those great first impressions and start communicating what we really want and get the results we desire.
The reptilian brain is the oldest part of our brain and is approximately 200 million years old. The best analogy that I have heard is that of a peanut M&M. The peanut M&M represents the anatomical structure of our brain. The colored outer shell would be representative of our neocortex, which controls thought and higher order thinking. We next have the chocolate, which is representing our limbic system which controls emotions, its older then the neocortex which is why is the under layer. Last we have the peanut, representing the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain is the oldest and is almost the same in every human. It controls impulsiveness. All impulsive behaviors have their genesis at the reptilian brain or also referred to as the R COMPLEX. It is believed that racism, xenophobia, prejudice stem from this ancient part of our existence as a species. It comes from the fact that because our brain identifies people who look different, talk different, walk different as not one of our group and we see them as a threat. We have to learn to calm our reptilian brains before we can achieve success of power effective communication.
Step 1 of powerful communication and calming of the R Complex-
We can make sure that our audience can see the palms of our hands as we speak. This is going to ensure that they know we are not holding a weapon (this is really the evidence we are going to use to calm the ancient part of the brain. Showing we do not have a weapon, seems very primitive and strange but it works).
Step 2 of powerful communication
Make sure that when you are smiling that you have a Duchanne smile, meaning that you have a wide smile and you have small wrinkles next to your eyes (this is explained in previous videos if you want more in depth explanation). Their brain starts to see our body language. It starts to see our eyebrows raise, our smile and our open hands, these are all things someone does when they see a friend. Their brain starts to sense that we recognize them as a friend. After a few seconds of us telling them (with our body language) that we are friends their brain starts to believe it. With this is mind we can start to make those great first impressions and start communicating what we really want and get the results we desire.
Final Reflection
I have learned so much from this 20% project. While I learned a lot about body language, more then I was expecting I also learned about research. I think that while I was using some of the skills that I learned in my formal education; vetting a source to test its validity, including a variety of sources in the research and general principles for collecting data, the main research I did seemed to be less formal. I went to almost every website that came up under a google search for body language (coincidently and not to my benefit there was a hip hop song called "body language" published two weeks before we started this project which made a lot of searches come up with a hip hop song), with some pretty interesting and trivial results for the most part.
Most of what we see or hear or think about body language is in fact wrong. That was my biggest take away from this project, most of what I thought I knew was not even true. The more I researched the more narrow and stringent my standards became, I started to research a man by the name of Mark Bowden, who is a Dr. and an author of a few body language books. Bowden has done research on our brain and has been able to make learning body language very straight forward and easy to understand. The biggest tip I can give you is to walk around with a SMILE, a genuine smile or a fake smile that looks real (see earlier videos on how to make that happen). I kid you not, smiling will change your life.
As I sit to write this last post for the 20% project I started to think about how I can connect this to a classroom. How can I use what I learned to make my classroom even more engaging and relevant. Well I thought about having students do a 20% project, they could choose anything they wanted and let it run the whole year with them doing research on one topic and writing a blog on that as they go for an entire school year. I think this was a great experience and I would love to see what comes out of it at a semester mark or through the year. Getting students engaged in something they are interested in and then having them turn their passion into something academic seems like a great way to teach them skills why they seek out their own information actively instead of passively receiving it.
I have learned so much from this 20% project. While I learned a lot about body language, more then I was expecting I also learned about research. I think that while I was using some of the skills that I learned in my formal education; vetting a source to test its validity, including a variety of sources in the research and general principles for collecting data, the main research I did seemed to be less formal. I went to almost every website that came up under a google search for body language (coincidently and not to my benefit there was a hip hop song called "body language" published two weeks before we started this project which made a lot of searches come up with a hip hop song), with some pretty interesting and trivial results for the most part.
Most of what we see or hear or think about body language is in fact wrong. That was my biggest take away from this project, most of what I thought I knew was not even true. The more I researched the more narrow and stringent my standards became, I started to research a man by the name of Mark Bowden, who is a Dr. and an author of a few body language books. Bowden has done research on our brain and has been able to make learning body language very straight forward and easy to understand. The biggest tip I can give you is to walk around with a SMILE, a genuine smile or a fake smile that looks real (see earlier videos on how to make that happen). I kid you not, smiling will change your life.
As I sit to write this last post for the 20% project I started to think about how I can connect this to a classroom. How can I use what I learned to make my classroom even more engaging and relevant. Well I thought about having students do a 20% project, they could choose anything they wanted and let it run the whole year with them doing research on one topic and writing a blog on that as they go for an entire school year. I think this was a great experience and I would love to see what comes out of it at a semester mark or through the year. Getting students engaged in something they are interested in and then having them turn their passion into something academic seems like a great way to teach them skills why they seek out their own information actively instead of passively receiving it.
The tool that I used for content annotation was diigo. The link to my library can be found at; https://www.diigo.com/user/lmiddlebrook
I have also included a list of the sources that I have annotated as well:
https://diigo.com/074uln
https://diigo.com/074ule
https://diigo.com/074ulh
https://diigo.com/076ejx
https://diigo.com/076ek1
https://diigo.com/076ek8
https://diigo.com/076ekc
https://diigo.com/076ekf
https://diigo.com/076eki
These are all of the websites that were used in the curation of the project.
I have also included a list of the sources that I have annotated as well:
https://diigo.com/074uln
https://diigo.com/074ule
https://diigo.com/074ulh
https://diigo.com/076ejx
https://diigo.com/076ek1
https://diigo.com/076ek8
https://diigo.com/076ekc
https://diigo.com/076ekf
https://diigo.com/076eki
These are all of the websites that were used in the curation of the project.