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Neuroplasticity in Rural India
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

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You hear so much about “neuroplasticity” at Learning and the Brain conferences that you already know its meaning: brains have the ability to change.

In fact, you hear about neuroplasticity so often that you might start to lose interest. You say to yourself: “Brains can change: blah, blah, blah. Tell me something I don’t already know.”

And then you read this study about adult women in rural India. They had never learned to read; heck, they had never even been to school.

And, sure enough, when they were taught to read, their brains started changing. After only six months, their brains looked measurably different–all because they had started to read.

On the one hand, this result is perfectly straightforward: if their brains hadn’t changed, how would they have learned anything? And yet, unlike most “doing X causes your brain to change!” stories, this one struck me as quite poignant.

Consider this your feel-good-about-neuroscience story of the day.

The Dangers of Weird Neuroscience
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

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How do psychologists know what they know about human mental processes?

Quite often, they run studies to see how people behave: what do they remember? where do they look? what do they choose? how do they describe their thoughts?

If they run those studies just right, psychologists can test a very small number of people, and reach conclusions about a very large number of people.

Perhaps they can reach conclusions about all 7,400,000,000  of us.

Unless…

What if that small group of people being studied isn’t even remotely a representative sample of the world’s population. What if almost all of them are psychology majors at American colleges and universities?

What if they are–almost exclusively–from countries that are Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic?

(Notice that, cleverly, those adjectives acronym up to the word WEIRD.)

Here’s an example of the problem. Last year, I spoke about Mindset at the African Leadership Academy in South Africa: a school that draws students from all across the African continent.

And yet, I know of no research at all that studies Mindset in an African cultural context. I could share with them research from the US, and from Hong Kong, and from France, and from Taiwan. But Africa? Nothing.

How valid are Mindset conclusions for their students? We don’t really know–at least, “know” in the way that psychologists want to know things–until we do research in Africa.

(By the way: if you know of some Mindset research done in Africa, please send it my way…)

Beyond Psychology

This article over at The Atlantic does a good job of describing this problem in neuroscience.

Because the sample of the population included in neuroscience studies is so skewed, the conclusions we reach about…say…typical brain development schedules are simply wrong.

Better said: those conclusions are correct about the subset of the population being studied, but not necessarily correct for everyone else.

And, of course, most people are “everyone else.”

What Does This Problem Mean for Teachers?

Here’s my advice to teachers:

When a researcher gives you advice, find out about the participants included in their study. If those participants resemble your students, that’s good. But if not, you needn’t be too quick to adopt this researcher’s advice.

For example: if a study of college students shows that a particular kind of challenging feedback promotes a growth mindset, that information is very helpful for people who teach college.

But, if you teach 3rd grade, you might need to translate that challenging feedback to fit your students’ development. In fact, you might need to set it aside altogether.

Because participants in these studies are often so WEIRD, we should beware extrapolating results to the rest of the world’s students, including our own.

Action Video Games Harm the Hippocampus, Right?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

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Here’s a headline to get your attention: Action video games decrease gray matter, study finds.

The article opens with this alarming sentence:

“A new study suggests that playing action video games can be detrimental to the brain, reducing the amount of gray matter in the hippocampus.” [emphasis mine, ACW]

We have a number of reasons to be curious about this claim.

Primarily, researchers have debated one another with vehemence–and occasional vitriol–on the benefits and detriments of action video games–such as Call of Duty. This article seems to be an interesting addition to that debate.

The article itself is behind a paywall, but you can read the abstract here. Let me quote the first and last sentence of the abstract:

“The hippocampus is critical to healthy cognition, yet results in the current study show that action video game players have reduced grey matter within the hippocampus. [… ]

These results show that video games can be beneficial or detrimental to the hippocampal system depending on the navigation strategy that a person employs and the genre of the game.” [emphasis mine, ACW]

So, does this research show that video games can be detrimental to the hippocampus, as the article’s first sentence claims? Yes, it does.

But, as my highlighting makes clear, it also shows that video games can be beneficial to the hippocampal system.

In other words: the article’s scary headline — and several of its subsequent statements —  mischaracterize the underlying article.

After all, if I wrote an article claiming that Leonardo diCaprio is the best and the worst actor of his generation, and you summarized my article with the headline “Watson calls DiCaprio This Generation’s Worst Actor,” you’d be technically correct, but substantively misleading.

You can’t just leave out half of the argument.

To be fair: the study itself is quite complex. It distinguishes, first, between action video games — like Call of Duty — and 3D video games — like SuperMario. It further distinguishes between two strategies that players use to navigate those games.

SuperMario-like games are beneficial to hippocampal gray matter whichever navigation strategy players use. For Call-of-Duty-like games, the benefit or detriment depends on the navigational strategy.

The Lesson for Teachers to Learn

I believe that we, as teachers, must increasingly inform our classroom practice with research from neuroscience and psychology. We should know, for instance, whether or not action video games do bad things to the brain.

(When I spoke with parents at a school in New York just two weeks ago, I got that very question.)

If we’re going to rely on scientific research, however, we need to hone our scientific skepticism skills.

For me, here’s rule number one: ALWAYS READ THE ABSTRACT.

If a book or a speaker or an article make a research-based claim, get the primary source and read the abstract–that’s the first paragraph that summarizes the key points of the study.

(It’s usually very easy to find the abstract: use Google Scholar.)

When you read the abstract, you can see right away whether or not the speaker, article, or book summarized the research correctly–or at least plausibly.

In this case, you can easily see that the article mischaracterized half of the the researchers’ conclusions. So, as a newly-minted skeptic, you know what to do: look elsewhere. This source isn’t strong enough to use as a resource for making school decisions.

(BTW: I have reached out to the website that published this summary. As of today–October 4–they’re sticking to their claims. If they make changes, I’ll update this post.)

Next Steps

If you’d like to hone your skepticism skills, you might check out the TILT curriculum at The People’s Science–developed by Stephanie Sasse (former editor of this blog) and Maya Bialik (former writer for this blog; speaker at the upcoming LatB Conference).

 

Maturation of the Hippocampus
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

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Why do adolescents learn and remember specific information more easily than younger children?

We have, of course, many answers to this question.

For instance: working memory increases during childhood, and so adolescents have–on average–greater working memory capacity than younger students.

Also, prior knowledge usually makes acquisition of new knowledge easier. And so, adolescents–who have more prior factual knowledge than children–can more easily take in new information.

Today’s Headline

New research from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development offers yet another reason: hippocampal development.

The hippocampus, tucked in below the cerebral cortex below both of your temples, helps process and form new long-term memories. It turns out that the hippocampus is developing much longer than we had previously known. Far from being fully developed in childhood, it continues its maturation at least until the teen years.

The specific teaching implications of this research are still years away. For the present, this article at Neuroscience News gives a helpful overview of what we know now, and how this new research fits into our current understanding.

The Neural Effects of Media Multitasking
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

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If you’re attending Learning and the Brain’s “Merging Minds and Technology” Conference in November, you’re probably interested in Mona Moisala’s research. After all, Moisala wants to know if media multitasking influences distractibility among 13-24 year olds.

That is: does switching from Instagram on an iPad to Angry Birds on an iPhone to email on a laptop make it harder for students to pay attention in class later on? (Moisala has your attention now, right?)

And, just to make her research even more intriguing, she investigates the relationship between time spent playing video games and working memory capacity.

Here’s what she found:

First: the more that students reported media multitasking, the more they struggled with attention tasks in the lab.

Second: the more that students reported playing daily computer games, the higher working memory capacity they demonstrated.

Third: more daily computer game play also correlated with improved reaction times, and with higher ability to switch from visual to auditory attention.

The Question You Know Is Coming…

Moisala finds a relationship between these uses of technology and various cognitive functions. However, which direction does causality flow?

Does media multitasking cause students to struggle with attention? Or, are those who already struggle with attention drawn to media multitasking?

Moisala’s research doesn’t yet answer that question–although she’s applying for funding to study longitudinal data. (Data showing changes over time ought to reveal causality.)

Some Tentative Answers 

Although this research doesn’t answer causality questions, I have some suspicions.

First: I think it’s unlikely that daily video game play increases working memory capacity. Instead, I suspect that people who have a high working memory capacity enjoy the complexity of video-game play more than those who don’t.

Why do I think this? Well: for the most part, we haven’t had much luck increasing working memory capacity outside of psychology labs. So, it would be big and surprising news if playing everyday video games grew working memory.

Second: I suspect that playing video games does improve reaction time and attention switching. Those cognitive capacities are trainable, and video games ought to help train them.

Third: I suspect–although this is purely conjecture–that media multitasking and attentional difficulties feed each other. That is: people with short attention spans are prone to media multitasking; and media-multitasking trains people to reorient their attention more frequently.

Here’s an even better answer: if you come to the November conference, you’re likely to meet people who have researched these very questions.

I hope to see you there…

Neuroscience and Neuromyths
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

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Does neuroscience education help reduce a teacher’s belief in neuromyths?

According to this recent study: not as much as we would like.

In some cases, neuroscience education does help teachers.

For instance, 59% of the general public falsely believe that listening to classical music increases reasoning ability. That number is 55% for teachers, but drops to 43% for teachers who have had neuroscience training.

Similarly, teachers with knowledge of neuroscience are less likely to embrace a “left-brained vs. right-brained” understanding of learning than teachers without. (See video here.)

However, neuromyths about learning styles and about dyslexia persist–even among teachers with neuroscience education.

Among the general population, 93% of people incorrectly believe that “individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style.” That number falls to 76% among teachers–but is almost identical (78%) for teachers who know from neuroscience.

And: teachers who have studied neuroscience believe that writing letters backwards is a sign of dyslexia at almost the same rate as those who haven’t.

The Big Question

Studies like these lead me to this question: why are some neuromyths so sticky? Why do so many of us teachers believe in, say, learning styles theory despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary?

Why does this belief persist even among those–like we who attend Learning and the Brain conferences–who have placed science at the center of our professional development?

I welcome all thoughts on this question…

Lefty or Righty?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

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You’ve surely heard about students being left-brained or right-brained. And: you’ve probably heard that this belief is a myth.

The folks over at Ted Ed have made a helpful video explaining the genesis of this belief, and the ways that we know it’s not true.

An important note in this controversy: it is certainly true that some people are more creative than others. It’s also certainly true that some are more logical than others. After all–to summarize psychology in three words–people are different.

Also, the phrase “left-brained” may be useful shorthand for “rather more logical,” and “right-brained” for “more creative than most.”

After all, we can use the phrase “heart-broken” without believing that this lovelorn person’s heart is–you know–actually broken.

But, we should be quite clear that creativity and logical thought aren’t “happening” on different sides of the brain. In fact, we should also recognize that a sharp distinction between creativity and logical thought doesn’t even make much sense.

So: you might be left-handed or right-handed, but you aren’t left-brained or right-brained–except in a rather creative way of speaking.

(By the way, if you’d like to learn about AMAZING research into people who literally have only half a brain, click here.)

Default Image
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

Two articles jumped out at me today because of the illustrative way they clash with each other.

Writing on Twitter, and providing helpful links to several sources, Adam Grant argues that “Differences between Men and Women are Vastly Exaggerated.”

Whereas Neuroscience News published a summary of a recent research study (by Daniel Amen) with the headline “Women Have More Active Brains Than Men.”

So, which is it? Are differences between the sexes exaggerated? Or do male and female brains operate very differently?

Let’s use three lenses to look at that question.

The First Lens: Discipline

Oversimplifying for the sake of clarity, we can say that neuroscience studies brains–that is, physical objects. It looks at neurons and blood flow and neurotransmitters and electrical energy. Things.

Psychology studies the behavior of brains–that is, what people do with those physical objects. It looks at a student’s ability to remember, or an athlete’s ability to concentrate, or an adult’s ability to learn a new language. Behaviors.

Obviously, both neuroscience and psychology are fascinating. But, which discipline is more useful?

Of course, the answer to that question depends on your definition of “useful.”

I myself think that teachers benefit from learning about the behavior of brains (that is, psychology) more than we do from learning about brains as objects (that is, neuroscience).

For example, if I tell you how brains change physically when long-term memories form, that information is interesting. (In fact, I often share this information when I talk with teachers.)

But, if I tell you what kind of teaching behavior makes long-term memory formation more likely, that information is really useful.

For this reason, I think Grant’s summary–which focuses on psychology–is likely to be more useful than the Amen study–which focuses on neuroscience.

For example: Grant’s summary looks at anti-stereotype-threat strategies that combat gender differences in college majors or professions. Teachers can do something with this information.

The Amen study, on the other hand, tells us about different levels of brain activity as measured by Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT). I don’t know exactly what SPECT is, and I certainly don’t know how I would teach differently given this information.

So for me, again, neuroscience is fascinating, and psychology is useful.

(To be clear, I have several colleagues–whose judgment I highly respect–who disagree with me strongly on this point; that is, they think the neuroscience is just as important for teachers as the psychology. So, if you think I’m wrong, you’re not the only one.)

The Second Lens: The Population Being Studied

Whenever you use brain research to help your teaching, you should focus on the participants in the study. The more the participants resemble your own students, the likelier it is that the research findings will benefit your students.

So, if you find a study that says three repetitions of a practice exercise benefits long-term memory, that study might be very helpful. But: if the participants in the study were college students at an elite university, and you teach 1st graders who are already struggling with formal education, the study might not mean much to you.

After all, your students differ from those in the study so substantially that there’s no way to be sure the conclusions apply to your teaching context.

Grant’s research summary chooses several very large analyses. When he looks at (very small) gender differences in math scores, for example, his source draws on almost 4,000 studies. It seems likely that such broadly supported research will apply to my students too.

Amen’s study looks at a very large population–almost 27,000 people. However, and this is a big however, all but 119 of those people were suffering from “a variety of psychiatric conditions such as brain trauma, bipolar disorders, mood disorders, schizophrenia/psychotic disorders, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).”

For obvious reasons, it’s hard to draw conclusions about neurotypical brains by studying aneurotypical brains.

So, again, because the Grant summary includes students like mine, and the Amen study doesn’t, I’m likelier to benefit from Grant’s conclusions.

(By the way, it’s entirely possible that your students seem more like Amen’s participants than those included in Gran’s summary–in which case, you may be more swayed by Amen’s findings.)

The Third Lens: Biases

In the world of science, “bias” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. All analysis–including yours, including mine–includes bias. Our goal should not be to eliminate bias (we can’t), but to recognize it in ourselves and others, and to do the best we can to look for countervailing biases.

So, let me be up front with you: my bias is, I’m usually skeptical about strong claims of gender difference in education. This skepticism has many sources–but, no matter how good those sources are, you should know that I’m not an impartial author delivering truth from on high.

I am, instead, someone who rarely finds evidence of gender difference in education persuasive…and (surprise!) my post has twice concluded that the “gender makes little difference in education” article is more useful and persuasive than the “there are big gender differences in brains” article.

Now that you know my bias, you should a) look for people with the opposite bias, and see if you find their arguments more persuasive than these, and b) recognize your own biases, and do your best to counterbalance them.

After all, one thing is certainly true about male and female brains: we’re all faster to believe ideas that support our own prior conclusions.

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Two final notes:

First, my thanks to Stephanie Sasse (prior editor of this blog) and Maya Bialik (former writer for this blog) for their idea of “lenses” as a way to analyse brain research.

Second, brain research generally hasn’t come to grips with people who fall outside a male/female gender dichotomy. Our understanding of gender and learning will be stronger and more useful when it does.

Memory Training That Really (Sort of) Works
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

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Imagine yourself following a route that you know quite well: perhaps your morning commute. You take your car out of your garage; drive past the Dunkin’ Donuts, past the old movie theater, past the grocery store; you park in your favorite spot, walk through the lobby, down the library corridor…

You can easily think of these places in order because you’ve followed this same path hundreds of times. Well, an ancient memory trick takes advantage of your well-rehearsed visual memory.

If you have–say–a list of words to memorize, you can take some time to associate each word with those places. For example, if you have to memorize the words “tomato, airplane, tuba,” you can create a vivid picture of a tomato splatted on your garage door, an airplane flying over the Dunkin’ Donuts, and a tuba band marching in front of the movie theater.

You can then recall those words simply by mentally following your morning commute to work.

Even if you have a very long list of words, this method still works; you can, after all, visualize many, many places along this familiar route.

The Research Questions:

This memory trick–called “the method of loci”–has been around for centuries. Memory champions typically win memory contests by using it. But, can just anyone do it? Do you need to be born with a special memory talent?

Martin Dresler’s research team answers some of these questions. He started by scanning the brains of memory champions while they did some memory feats, hoping to discern neural patterns associated with excellent memory.

He also scanned some non-memory experts as a baseline for comparison.

Sure enough, he found connectivity patterns that helped distinguish between these two groups.

Next, he trained those non-memory experts in two memory techniques. One group practiced the method-of-loci approach for 40 days, 30 minutes each day.

The other group used a well-established short-term memory exercise. (Perhaps you’ve heard of the n-back test.)

What did the researchers find?

The Research Answers:

First, the method of loci really helped. Those trained in this method more than doubled their ability to remember words on a list. (Those who did short-term memory training saw little more improvement than control subjects.)

Equally interesting: the method of loci training created the neural patterns that Dresler had found in the memory experts.

That is: this training paradigm BOTH helped participants remember more words AND changed their brain connectivity patterns.*

In other words: we have two really good reasons to believe that method of loci training helps people remember word lists.

The Inevitable Caveat

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know I’m going to point out a downside sooner or later. That moment has arrived.

First, the method of loci helps students do something we don’t often ask them to do: remember lists of unrelated words. It’s a cool party trick, sure. But, at what point do we care if our students can do such things?

For example: I suspect the method of loci could be used to help students learn all the elements in the periodic table in order. But–why would we want them to do that? Would such knowledge meaningfully improve their understanding of chemistry?

Second, notice the extraordinary about of time the training took: 30 minutes a day for 40 days! Imagine what else you could do with those twenty hours.

So, I’m not exactly opposed to teaching the method of loci; I’m just unimpressed by it. The method requires lots of training time, and creates a benefit that doesn’t help very much.

If, by the way, you have a good use for this method, please let me know. I’d love to hear about its practical classroom uses.

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  • Although it’s true that this training changed the brains of those who participated in it, it’s also true–as I’ve written before–that any activity repeated at length changes your brain. This finding is interesting, but not exactly surprising.

Regions or Networks, Take 2
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

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Just yesterday, I posted some thoughts about “thinking both-ily”; that is, understanding that brain processing happens in both regions and networks.

Today, I found a Beebs video showing a remarkably detailed version of the neurons that make up brain networks.

You’re probably used to seeing images of the brain like the one above — one that emphasizes regions over networks. This video provides a useful counter-example — a way to visualize networks over regions.

If you can picture both together, you can get even better at thinking both-ily.