Because brains are so complicated, people who explain them routinely search for analogies.
Your brain is like a muscle: practice makes it grow stronger.
Your brain is like an orchestra, and the prefrontal cortex is the conductor.
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor is like MiracleGro for synapses.
All such analogies have weaknesses; a few of them have their uses. Most often, the brain is so amazingly unusual that it’s like itself and nothing else.
This article from Science Magazine, however, offers a precise and unusual analogy (and, an unusually precise analogy): your brain is like the internet. Specifically, the way long-term memories strengthen (and weaken) resembles control of information flow on the internet.
Especially if you’re technology savvy, you might enjoy this particular comparison.
If you’ve got brain analogies that you especially like — or don’t like — you might put them in the comments below.
The Washington Post reports on [edit] Orchard School in South Burlington, VT, [a PK-5 school in Orchard, VT] which no longer assigns homework. Instead — and this is a crucial “instead” — it does urge students and families to read together. Also, it discourages students from adding to screen time, exhorting them to go outside and play.
The school isn’t keeping systematic data (as far as I can tell), but so far they’ve got positive anecdotes — balanced by a few concerns.
For a more research-driven approach to this question, see this earlier post.
[Editor’s note: my thanks to an astute reader who points out there is no such place as Orchard, VT. “Orchard” is the name of the school, not the town.]
In the spirit of April Fool’s Day, I thought it would be fun to consider several of the false — even foolish — beliefs that people often have about brains. Take a look at the six statements below and judge whether each is true or false – a learning fact or a learning myth. Then, after the brain break in the middle of the article, check out the answers. Enjoy.
Hemispheric dominance in the brain means some people are dominantly left brained (more analytical), while some are dominantly right brained (more creative)
Some people are kinesthetic learners, some are auditory learners, and some are visual learners.
Lecture is an outmoded form of teaching
Male and female brains are significantly different
Typing notes in class is just as effective as handwriting them
Rereading notes is a good way to prepare for a test, so teachers should actively coach this skill
The Wonderful World of Teaching, by Joe Wolf
False: There is no such thing as left/right brain dominance. All thinking tasks involve multiple parts of the brain working together in a coordinated way – some on the left side, some on the right. This coordination is helped by a massive group of fibers called the corpus callosum that links the two sides.
False: each student has different current strengths and weaknesses, and it is good for students and teachers to be aware of these. But research suggests that labels like “kinesthetic learner” are harmful because they can become self-fulfilling prophecies. In fact, neuroplasticity means that current strengths and weaknesses can change over time with the thoughtful use of strategies. [1]
False: Core knowledge is a fundamental part of any learning episode. Lecture is one method to use to help build this core knowledge. But to be effective, it should be used strategically, and in conjunction with other methods. In particular, teacher should use strategies that require students to recall knowledge, such as formative assessments, and ones that require students to use the knowledge in a novel context. The goal is to build knowledge that is durable and flexible.
False: Though there may be subtle differences between male and female brains, the normal and natural range of differences within each gender is far, far greater than the differences between them. There is absolutely no significant evidence to suggest that the genders learn or should be taught differently. This myth might stem from a misinterpretation of books such as The Essential Difference: Men, Women, and the Extreme Male Brain, which focused largely on patients with autism. [2]
False (for most people): “Because handwriting is slower, we are forced to interpret and paraphrase what a speaker says instead of simply producing a transcript. This act of synthesis leads to better semantic processing, which means that schematic changes to long-term memory are likely to be taking place as notes are taken. Typing, because it demands less of us, results in less change to long-term memory.” [3]
False: Rereading is not the best method because it can give “the illusion of fluency” – students become familiar with the words and think they “get it” when they might not. Research suggests that active recall methods:
getting out a piece of paper and writing out everything you know then checking your notes,
repeatedly working on practice questions, checking your answers, then checking your notes.
How did you do? Anyone get 6 out of 6? I know, it was a bit cheeky to give you six false ones. Whilst this is a bit of fun, these perhaps trivial sounding statements can have profound effects on learning – and all are easy to address.
Numbers 1, 2 and 4 lead to students defining themselves in limiting ways that often become self-fulfilling prophecies. “I can’t do that, because my brain or my learning style is like this.”
All students — from the academic high fliers to those with learning challenges — are good at some cognitive demands and weaker at others. And it is good to know these. But it is important to remember that they are current strengths and weaknesses. Neuroplasticity means that each student’s brain is constantly rewiring – an interplay of genetic coding and the environment it is experiencing. The reflective, iterative use of strategies, played out over time, is a powerful thing. Hard work plus strategic work is a brain changer.
At St. Andrew’s, we often get students arriving from other schools who have suffered for years from being told that they are, say, a visual learner or a left brained person — so much so that they initially shy away from certain tasks believing that failure is certain because they are just not that kind of learner.
But in a community that refuses to believe these neuromyths, that challenges students to work at finding strategies in all areas that work for them, a magic happens. We see students not just taking risks in areas that they had previously shut off, we see them develop a self-awareness that they are that much more whole of a person. And this brings a happiness and confidence that is well earned.
Numbers 3, 5 and 6 are simple traps that we can find ourselves walking into, in part because there is so much brain-rubbish out there. Sometimes the classic methods are still great methods – but it helps to use them with the added wisdom that they are just the right thing at just the right time.
I recently told my students the story of how the profession of teaching’s reluctance to use research evidence to inform practice is a bit like going to your doctor and having them get out a jar of leeches. Aidan immediately said to me, “You know, Dr. Kelleher, leeches are still used in medicine for some things, like cleaning up tissue in certain kinds of surgery.” A great riposte!
But I think it just aids the metaphor. Much of the classic repertoire of teaching is still great, and well supported by research evidence. But we need to know what is and what isn’t. Leeches might still be the best tool available, but we need to know where to use them, are where to employ methods that might result in a better outcome.
Most importantly, though, these six things are simple ways to use research to inform your practice. Beginning your journey as a research informed teacher is actually quite easy – just take these six things on board. Then pass them on, the word needs to be spread. As ever, if the answers are problematic to you, or raise more questions, please get in touch.
[Editor’s note: if you’d like to see my own thoughts on typing vs. handwriting notes, click here. The short version: I think that–if done correctly–laptop notes will be as effective as handwritten notes; and that researchers who claim the contrary are dramatically overinterpreting their data.]
Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105-119. [link]
For an easy read into this subject: Eliot, L. (2010). Pink brain, blue brain: How small differences grow into troublesome gaps — and what we can do about it. Boston: Mariner Books.
David Didau, @LearningSpy, Human’s Can’t Mutitask [link]
I’m reviewing the vocabulary I learned in today’s Spanish class. The last time I went through my flashcard deck, I got all of those new words right. Should I keep studying? Or, is it time to move on to my Algebra?
In a recently published paper, Shibata and colleagues argue that overlearning benefits long-term memory formation. That is: I should keep studying, because that extra level of work — above and beyond what’s required to get all my flashcards correct — protects these new memories from later interference.
(If you want the neurotransmitter details, Shibata finds that overlearning, which he calls “hyperstabilization[,] is associated with an abrupt shift from glutamate-dominant excitatory to GABA-dominant inhibitory processing in early visual areas. Hyperstabilization contrasts with passive and slower stabilization, which is associated with a mere reduction of excitatory dominance to baseline levels” p. 470. Got that?)
And yet, there’s a reason I put that question mark in the title of this article. Earlier researchers have found that overlearning just doesn’t work. (Doug Rohrer and Hal Pashler have published on this topic here and here.)
For the time being, I’m inclined to believe Rohrer and Pashler. Why? Because Shibata’s research paradigm showed a change in neuotransmitters after 2 days. Rohrer and Pashler’s paradigm showed no benefits for learning after 1 month.
In my view, teachers ought to be more interested in learning than in GABA and glutamate; and we ought to be less impressed by results obtained after 48 hours than by results obtained after 4 weeks.
(To be clear: I am interested in neurotransmitters. But, as a teacher, I’m MUCH more interested in demonstrated learning.)
So, for the time being, I’m will continue to recommend that students and teachers not emphasize overlearning. However, I will add an asterisk to that advice: as of today, our understanding of the neural results of overlearning is far from complete.
Some time ago, I linked to an article about varieties of ADHD diagnoses. A recent article in Medical News Today makes a similar point about autism.
From one perspective, we can be tempted to say that someone either does or does not have autism.
From another perspective, that’s a bit like saying some people are taller than 5’10” whereas some aren’t; that statement is true, but it misses MANY crucial complexities. After all, within that category, some people are 5’11”, and others are 6’11”.
There are–in other words–meaningful differences within the category of people taller than 5’10”, and meaningful difference within the category of people who have autism.
In this recent article, researchers announce an additional 18 genes whose variants are associated with autism diagnoses — bringing the (current) total of such genetic variations to 61.
This finding tells us that differences in the presentation of autism may well result from underlying genetic differences that predispose people to autism in the first place. As is always true with complex cognitive functions, we should expect varied plausible causes, and expect several different manifestations.
No two brains are identical; no two diagnoses are identical; no two people are identical. As teachers, we want to understand groups and categories, but we always work with individuals.
We’ve posted quite frequently about mind-wandering on this blog (here, here, and here — to pick just a few). This post introduces a comprehensive article about the brain activity that correlates with various mind-wandering states.
As John Leiff (M.D.) notes, when you just lie still and think about nothing in particular, your brain isn’t quiet; a well-defined set of neural networks is firing. This group is called the Default Mode Network (DMN, or DN), and it has gotten a lot of research love in recent years.
Lieff’s article explores — in detail — the relationships between different parts of the DN and different kinds of mind-wandering and meditation.
This comprehensive review doesn’t offer any immediate teaching implications. However — and this is a big however — if you’re interested in mindfulness, and want to use brain research to make you case to your admin team, you will benefit from knowing the information that Lieff offers you here.
As most parents, teachers, and education policy folks know well, early childhood education is expensive. Whether federally-funded, state-funded, or family-funded, preschool and structured early care generally operate on a pretty tight budget. They also generally operate on pretty high hopes: academic achievement, personal growth, reduced delinquency, and much more.
And they should! As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “there is no knowledge that is not power.” We certainly need to maintain high expectations for youth to get the most out of their academic careers. As well, we should expect the programs that we invest in to set children up for the success that they promise.
Show us the Results
So what happens when we don’t see those hopes result in program outcome data; in particular, at the state- and federally-funded program level?
Do we launch an investigation into what went wrong?
Do we take the money away?
Do we blame the teachers, or parents, or school districts?
The “what now?” of underwhelming achievement is a challenging road to venture down. For some context, check out my colleague Austin’s recent blog post regarding a newly published study looking at the infamous fadeout effects in Head Start preschools.
Unfortunately, questions of whom to blame have dominated much of the “what now?” conversation over the years. Yet some studies, like the one Austin discussed, are trending in a new, positive direction for developmental and educational research alike.
Let’s Re-think ‘Results’
This new genre of studies does two things. First, it looks at such factors as fidelity to a particular program’s plan. Let’s take Head Start as an example. Researchers will ask: how well and how often are Head Start’s specialized strategies actually being implemented in classrooms?
Second, and most important, these studies don’t stop there. Instead, they go on to broaden the idea of an outcome to include measures of mental health and social growth, and the image of a learning environment to include the home and child care centers.
Broadening what we think achievement is, and where we think learning happens, is an important movement. Of course, many developmental psychologists have been advocating for this broadening for years. Social psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner, for example, began studying ways in which intra- and inter-person factors affect learning back in the 1970’s. But the merging of research questions that focus on individual context with research questions that focus on school program evaluation is an exciting new empirical endeavor.
Differential Susceptibility
An endeavor that we stand to gain a lot from. One way that these new context+program evaluation research questions are making an impact is in studies of early achievement and differential susceptibility (DS).
DS is a theoretical model that aims to understand why some things affect some people differently. In developmental research, DS refers to children who are more behaviorally or biologically reactive to stimuli and, as a result, more affected by both positive and negative environments. [1]
Study 1
Let’s look at a longitudinal study conducted by researchers at Birkbeck University of London. [2] They investigated the effects of early rearing contexts on children of different temperaments. The following data was collected from 1,364 families:
predictive measures
parents reported the temperament of their child at 6 months (general mood, how often they engage in play behavior, how well they transition to a babysitter, etc.);
parenting quality (i.e. maternal sensitivity) was assessed at 6 and 54 months during laboratory and home observations;
quality of child care (e.g. daycare) was assessed at 6, 15, 24, 36, and 54 months via observation
outcome measures
academic achievement, behavior problems, teacher-child conflict, academic work habits, and socio-emotional functioning were assessed regularly between 54 months and 6th grade
Results showed that children who had a difficult temperament in infancy were more likely than children who didn’t to benefit from good parenting and high-quality childcare. They also suffered more from negative parenting and low-quality child care.
Most pronounced was the finding of differential effects for child care quality. Here, high quality care fostered fewer behavior problems, less teacher-child conflict, and better reading skills while low quality care fostered the opposite — but, only for those children who had a difficult temperament.
The takeaway: children that had a difficult temperament in infancy were differentially susceptible to quality of parenting and child care. For them, the good was extra good, and the bad was extra bad.
Study 2
Researchers at Stanford University engaged high- and low-income kindergartners in activities designed to elicit physiological reactivity (measured by the amount of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva). [3] In other words, the children completed activities that were difficult and kind of frustrating. They also completed a battery of executive function assessments.
It turns out that children who displayed higher reactivity (more cortisol) during the activities were more susceptible to their family’s income. That is, family income was significantly associated with children’s EF skills — but only for those children with high cortisol response. Highly reactive children had higher EF skills if their family had a higher income, but lower EF skills if their family was lower income.
The takeaway: children that were highly reactive when faced with challenging activities were differentially susceptible to their family’s resources. Their EF was particularly strong if their family had high income, yet particularly weak if their family had a lower income.
Evaluating Program Evaluation
How is being mindful of phenomena like differential susceptibility helpful when we receive the news that children made no special long-term gains after being enrolled in a publicly-funded program?
First, we should recognize that we may have set ourselves up for some disappointment at the outset if we assumed that all children would be equally susceptible to the positive effects of home or school interventions.
Of course, at school entry, we don’t necessarily know which students are arriving with difficult temperaments. Or whether their child care environment has exacerbated or buffered it. Which means that we’re also not going to be able (practically or ethically) to separate students by level of disadvantage in order to decide which program they should be enrolled in. So let’s just accept that we’re going to see some variation in individual outcomes.
Let’s also remind ourselves that variation is not necessarily reflective of an ineffective program. At Head Start, for example, it is probably safe to speculate that most families are juggling some amount of stress, financial instability, and social tension. And according to the DS model, students who are predisposed to be highly reactive will be hit hardest by these things. As a result, reactivity is probably going to interfere with their reaching what we define as success. But DS also tells us that they have the most to gain from a nurturing, consistent environment.
So let’s not take the money away. Let’s hold off on passing the blame around. And let’s not refer to these data as something going “wrong”. Let’s instead look at the students who continue to struggle and ask what contextual factors — such as a child’s weak self-regulation skills and their parent’s inability to address it in the way their teacher wants because they work two jobs — are at play.
I’m no gambler, but if we can figure those things out, and commit to doing something about them, then I say we double-down when it comes to funding.
References
Ellis, B. J., Boyce, W. T., Belsky, J., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2011). Differential susceptibility to the environment: An evolutionary–neurodevelopmental theory. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 7–28. doi:10.1017/S0954579410000611 [link]
Pluess, M., & Belsky, J. (2010). Differential susceptibility to parenting and quality child care. Developmental Psychology, 46, 379-390. [link]
Obradovic, J., Portilla, X. A., & Ballard, P. J. (2015). Biological sensitivity to family income: Differential effects on early executive functioning. Child Development, 87(2), 374-384. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12475 [link]
Scientific American Mind has entitled this brief piece “Too Much Emotional Intelligence is a Bad Thing.”
Given the content of the article — and common sense — a more accurate title would be “In very particular circumstances, the ability to read others’ emotions well might raise cortisol levels for some people while they speak in public.”
That alternate title isn’t as clickable…but, it also doesn’t substantially misstate the point of the research it summarizes.
The Larger Point
Even reputable magazines can overstate researchers’ conclusions — especially in headlines. For this reason, we should always look closely at the particulars of any research paradigm before we make decisions about relying on an article.
For example: if I wanted readers to click on a headline, I might summarize Ina Dobler’s study this way:
“Asking Students to Remember Causes Them to Forget!”
Believe it or not, “retrieval-induced forgetting” is a thing, and — in particular circumstances — might be a problem in classrooms.
(I wrote about retrieval-induced forgetting last year; you can read that article here.)
However, as you know if you’ve attended recent LaTB conferences; or read Scott’s or Ian’s entries on this blog; or read make it stick by Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel; or How We Learn by Benedict Carey, asking students to generate answers to questions is most often a highly beneficial way to help them consolidate memories.
In other words, my headline — by sloppily overgeneralizing Dobler’s conclusions — could badly mislead casual readers.
To quote a recent Scientific American headline: “Overreliance on Magazine Headlines is a Bad Thing…”
Children and adolescents with greater empathy tend to be happier, more successful, more resilient, and more critical in their thinking. Dr. Michele Borba, educational psychologist and psychology expert on several TV programs, argues in Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in our All-About-Me World that we can help students accrue the “empathy advantage” by helping them develop 9 key habits to strengthen and utilize empathy. Given that today’s youngest generation is more self-absorbed than previous ones and is experiencing high rates of bullying, cheating, and mental health issues, it is critically important to help this generation understand the feelings and thoughts of other people, even when those other people are very different from oneself. This book will appeal to parents and educators, who are interested in fostering empathy, not only to raise kind children, but also to raise satisfied and successful ones.
Emotional literacy, or the ability to read cues of others’ emotional states, has been associated with better school performance. Skilled perspective-taking is associated with greater popularity. Kids and teenagers’ heavy digital media use (on average almost eight hours a day) can undermine the development of emotional literacy. Borba suggests that parents model appropriate use of technology, and have times when kids don’t use technology. She suggests also expressing feelings, teaching children a large vocabulary of emotional words, reading books and news stories that make them think about others’ feelings and situations, befriending a diverse group of people, and practicing reading emotions and taking perspective by giving children the opportunity to care for others.
Borba argues also for the importance of developing strong moral identities and moral imaginative abilities. She shows that the majority of today’s teenagers value their personal happiness over their being a good person, and parents contribute to teenagers’ under-valuing moral goodness by rarely praising character, even as they over-praise other accomplishments. Borba suggests parents teach children to value being the type of person who cares about others by explicating the family’s core values, modeling altruism, debating moral issues, reading fiction, and pausing to ask “what if” questions while reading.
Self-regulation, teamwork, and practicing kindness are three skills that help kids utilize their empathy abilities. Drawing on the work of Walter Mischel (reviewed here), Borba shows that self-regulatory abilities are associated with several important professional and health-related life outcomes. Parents and teachers can help by modeling calmness, teaching breathing exercises, and creating quiet spaces. Borba states that teamwork and collaboration make kids happier, healthier, and better academic performers, yet opportunities to spontaneously engage in collaboration are decreasing due to limited unstructured play time and the elimination of recess.
To help students learn to be team players, it is important for kids to see how they are similar to other people and see their success as linked to others’ success. Parents and teachers can praise teamwork above individual performance. To help kids practice kindness, the most important first step is to do something kind because doing one kind deed makes people more likely to do another, according to Borba. Kids should know that their parents value their being kind people. Parents can model kindness for their kids. They can help their children brainstorm ways to do kind things and then do those kind acts together. Borba reminds us that many kind gestures (e.g., giving a sincere compliment) do not cost a dime.
Finally, to experience the transformational power of empathy, children need moral courage and the ability to act as an altruistic leader. They need to develop an internal drive that compels them to help those others, even when they might experience repercussions for doing so. They also need to actively defend their values. Often time kids fail to demonstrate moral courage (e.g., in the face of bullying) because they feel powerless, they are unsure about whether intervening is appropriate, they are concerned about peers’ reactions, they think someone else will address the issue, or they are crippled by their feelings for a victim’s plight. Parents can help children develop moral courage and the ability to lead by modeling moral action, exposing children to heroes who can inspire them, rehearsing with kids what they might do if faced with a moral challenge, teaching kids that their ability to empathize can grow with time, and highlighting for them the impact that their good deeds have on others. By valuing moral goodness parents counter-act popular culture messages that place supreme value on fame and materialism.
With Borba’s description of these 9 helpful empathy habits, stories that illuminate the value of each, an explanation of the science supporting the habits, and a list of creative and age-specific examples of how to foster them, parents can help their children receive the empathy advantage.
Borba, M. (2016). Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-about-me World. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Over at the Cultural Cognition Project, Dan Kahan has offered a fascinating post about the relationship between political beliefs and trust in science.
As we all know, party affiliation strongly aligns with beliefs about human causation of climate change. Whereas — according to graphs that Kahan has posted — something like 90% of those who are “very liberal” believe that humans have caused climate change, only 20% of those who are “very conservative” do.
Kahan’s question: does that political skew appear for other questions requiring scientific expertise?
The answer: NO.
For instance, liberals, moderates, and conservatives are all more than 75% confident that the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks, and have confidence in the public health officials who make these decisions.
In another graph, Kahan shows that both liberals and conservatives hold the scientific community in very high regard. For liberals, it ranks #1 for institutional confidence ratings (above medicine, the military, and the Supreme Court…and way above television); for conservatives, it ranks #2 (behind the military, above medicine and the Supreme Court…and way above the press).
For teachers who want to use scientific data to inform teaching practice, Kahan’s post may well come as a great relief. If you’ve been worrying that your reliance on research might sound like a kind of political affiliation, you can rest easier knowing that most of us — liberals, moderates, conservatives — have a high degree confidence in scientists.
Children and adolescents with greater empathy tend to be happier, more successful, more resilient, and more critical in their thinking. Dr. Michele Borba, educational psychologist and psychology expert on several TV programs, argues in Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in our All-About-Me World that we can help students accrue the “empathy advantage” by helping them develop 9 key habits to strengthen and utilize empathy. Given that today’s youngest generation is more self-absorbed than previous ones and is experiencing high rates of bullying, cheating, and mental health issues, it is critically important to help this generation understand the feelings and thoughts of other people, even when those other people are very different from oneself. This book will appeal to parents and educators, who are interested in fostering empathy, not only to raise kind children, but also to raise satisfied and successful ones.
