While you’re at Learning and the Brain, we’d love to hear your story.
What have you learned? What will you try when you get home? How will you measure results?
If you’d like to share your experience, please send me an email with:
Who you are and what you do.
The research and the researcher that inspired you (and, at which conference you heard this idea).
What you plan to do (or, already did) with this inspiration.
The results you will collect (or, have already seen).
Please be sure to include a specific source (a speaker, a book, or an article) for the ideas that you tried. And, keep in mind that you’re writing for a blog audience—short and punchy entries are especially welcome.
We won’t be able to publish every entry, but…we hope to hear from you!
Common themes ran throughout the Learning and the Brain conference in San Francisco, February 17-19, 2017 but the ones that resonated most strongly with me were the ideas of curiosity and play, and how they impact both learning and parenting. It makes sense that this should be the case given that I am a mother of two teenagers and an educator of almost 25 years.
Like most, I am drawn to the ideas that confirm my biases around learning. So much of what I have always believed can now be confirmed through brain science and not just my hunches! Some of these key beliefs include:
Standardized tests don’t improve learning.
Play and creativity are important at all ages.
Parenting and teaching have a significant influence on both.
Yong Zhao in his keynote, Counting What Counts: Why Curiosity, Creativity and Student-Centred Learning Matter, argued that the goal of “closing the gap” sounds admirable, but paradoxically results in making everyone average.
He suggested that, ultimately, the role of education is to help our children become who they are meant to be instead of working towards an average which testing promotes.
He explained that we claim to want to “close the gap,” but then challenged us to consider that the gap itself doesn’t matter. After all, the tests that determine where the gaps exist, are flawed in the first place.
Zhao noted that we use these flawed tests to determine:
the achievement of our children,
the skill level of our educators and ultimately,
the success of nations—
for instance, with the PISA test.
Yong Zhao explained that what we test is actually quite random; standardized tests evaluate students based on whatever success model is presently in vogue. We take this narrowed, biased model of success and try to replicate it in schools; yet these models further reduce diversity of thought, experience and creativity among our students.
(They also reduce diversity of thought among educators, who know that teaching to the test is the path of least resistance. )
Zhao’s clear message was, “success is about supporting each person to become unique. When we talk about closing the gap, we are narrowing the variability.” He fears that “education was created to suppress diversity” in a time when assembly lines were the prevailing job that workforce had.
If we are to support our children to become creative problem-solvers, then we need to move away from pursuing averages that are based on a single prescribed profile for all learners.
Eddie Brummelman’s message in his session, The Praise Paradox: How Well-Intended Words Can Backfire, wasthat we should not treat our children as “unique snowflakes”: an argument which initially seemed to contradict Zhao’s research–but, in fact, supports it.
At the core of Brummelman’s work was the belief that yes, of course, we can praise our children– but not in comparison to others.
The reason we praise our children should be the desire to support them in their growth. When praise is mixed with comparison to others, it confuses the message by implying that what makes the child special is related to others when in fact, it is only tied to the individual. So when we say, “You are a wonderful artist. I love the way you use colour to convey mood!” versus “You are a much better artist than _____!” Brummelman stresses that uniqueness relies on comparison but that praise should be connected to the child’s passions, interests and talents that will lead them towards their best selves.
In this way, Brummelman echoes Zhao’s argument. By creating norms and averages we are drawn to comparison and rank–rather than to our children’s curiosities about what they want to learn, become or aspire to be.
Brummelman’s research cautions parents against overpraising our children, lest we lead them to narcissism and entitlement. It isn’t that we should avoid praise, but that certain types of praise are more effective in raising children to be successful, functioning adults.
Specifically, he explained that when parents believe their children are struggling with low self-esteem, they tend to overpraise–believing that extra praise will in fact raise the child’s self esteem. But, his research showed that it does the opposite. Children with praise-boosted narcissism tend to be more perfectionistic. They seek more praise and therefore fear risks; in other words, they are less likely to embrace play and creativity.
If praise is tied to the child’s perception of success, and success is tied to narrow definitions of achievement, then children work towards that common standard against which Zhao cautioned us. If they are less likely to take risks then they will seek a single right answer rather than embrace both creativity and curiosity. The standardized test will always be the measure of success.
Brummelman explained that what has the most profound impact on our children is the experience of parental warmth, interest and shared joy. They don’t need praise–they need our presence and affection. Zhao stresses that as educators and parents we must guide and nurture our children and students so that they can grow into the unique people they are meant to become.
Mom explains to her son , “The world just wants us to fit in and to fit in, we just gotta be like everyone else.”
Dash challenges her with a “ya, but” as many kids do, “But dad always said our powers were nothing to be ashamed of–our powers made us special!”
His mother tells him, her frustration obvious from her tone, “Everyone is special, Dash…”
He turns away to look out the window and replies, “Which is another way of saying no one is…”
Of course, Dash’s mom is doing this to protect him and her other children.
In other words, like Dash, we all have super powers, and as Dash’s mom stresses, we stay in our space of trying to fit in and be like everyone else because it is safer in many ways. When the time is right and she realizes the importance of her children’s powers, she encourages both Dash and his sister to use them.
When Dash is discouraged from standing out, he is falling in line with the average that Zhao argues is the problematic goal of education. When he moves out of the space and engages with his powers, it connects us to the ideas of Brummelman, who sees these powers as self expression and self actualization.
As a system leader, I understand how deeply important for us to consider what both Zhao and Brummelman are saying about the role of assessment, praise and student success.
I have taken their ideas and informed my own understanding of the vital role of assessment, reporting to parents and school/system improvement as a whole. I have made a commitment to question the status quo and the acceptance of average as the goal to ensure that our students are supported in finding who they are as creative and curious learners.
If you would like to see the sketchnotes and comments for all the keynotes and presentations I attended, you can see more of my thoughts about the conference here.
[Editor’s Note: Dr. Debbie Donsky is Principal of Curriculum and Instruction Services, Learning Design & Development, and the Arts, at the York Region District School Board in Ontario, CA. You can follow her on Twitter: @DebbieDonsky]
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…”
