TOP RESEARCHERS EXPLORE WAYS TO IMPROVE SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL SKILLS IN STUDENTS...

 

MEDIA ADVISORY


January 28, 2014

Contact:

Kristin Dunay

(781)-449-4010 x 102

[email protected]

 

TEACHING SELF-AWARE MINDS: USING BRAIN SCIENCE TO BOOST SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL SKILLS

WHAT: Cognitive and Social Neuroscience research has found that social-emotional skills, such as self-awareness, self-regulation and resilience, are often more important than IQ for academic and later life success. Yet, many students today lack these necessary skills. A national group of neuroscientists, psychologists and educators will be presenting new brain research findings on self-awareness, self-control, relationships and resilience before 1,500 educators at next month’s Learning & the Brain® Conference in San Francisco, CA. They will also provide new strategies and new cognitive technologies for improving these skills in the brain to help students succeed in today’s standards-based, distracted, disconnected, digital age.
WHO: The program is co-sponsored by several organizations including the Stanford University School of Education, the Greater Goods Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, the Laboratory of Educational Neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco, the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, and both the national associations of elementary and secondary school principals, and is produced by Public Information Resources, Inc.

Antonio R. Damasio, MD, PhD, the David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, will be a featured speaker at the conference.  He is also a Professor of Psychology and Neurology and the Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute there as well as an Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Dr. Damasio’ research has focused on the neural basis of emotions and the role emotions play in decision-making, memory, language and consciousness.  He is the author of many academic articles and several books including Self Comes to Mind (2010), Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (2005) and Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain (2003).

In addition to Dr. Damasio, some of the featured speakers will be:

▪    Patricia S. Churchland, BPhil, LLD, President’s Professor of Philosophy Emerita, Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego; Adjunct Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies; Author, Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain (2013), Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality (2011), Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy (2002) and The Computational Brain (1992)

▪    Edward M. Hallowell, MD, Child and Adult Psychiatrist; Founder, The Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health (Boston, New York, San Francisco); Former Faculty, Harvard Medical School; Author, Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People (2011), Overloaded Circuits (2009), CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! (2006), Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness (2003) and Connect (2001)

▪    Michael S. Gazzaniga, PhD, Professor of Psychology; Director, SAGE Center for the Study of Mind, University of California, Santa Barbara; President, Cognitive Neuroscience Institute; Author; Who’s in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain (2012), Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique (2008), The Ethical Brain: The Science of Our Moral Dilemmas (2006) and The Mind’s Past (2000)

▪    Adam H. Gazzaley, MD, PhD, Director, Gazzaley Cognitive Neuroscience Research Lab; Associate Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco; Assistant Adjunct Professor, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley; Host of the PBS-Special “The Distracted Mind”; Co-Author, “Video game training enhances cognitive control in older adults” (2013, Nature)

▪    Denise C. Pope, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Stanford University School of Education; Co-Founder, Challenge Success; Author, “Beyond ‘Doing School’: From ‘Stressed-Out’ to ‘Engaged in Learning” (2010, Education Canada) and Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Mis-educated Students (2001); Co-Author, “Success with Less Stress” (2009, Educational Leadership); Winner of the 2012 Education Professor of the Year “Educators’ Voice Award” from the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences

 

WHEN: Thursday, February 13-Saturday, February 15. Conference begins 1:00 PM. General Registration is $579 through January 31 and $599 after January 31.  Contact Kristin Dunay at 781-449-4010 x 102 for media passes.
WHERE: Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill, San Francisco, CA
Learning & the Brain® is a series of educational conferences that brings the latest research in neuroscience and psychology and their potential applications to education to the wider educational community. Since its inception in 1999, this series has been attended by more than 40,000 people in Boston, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago.

 

For more information about the conference, visit www.learningandthebrain.com.

category: News

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