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<\/a><\/p>\nAfter all, she said, that was the\u00a0really important<\/em> stuff when it came to brains and learning.<\/p>\n Of course, the differences between alpha and gamma waves can fascinate us. And, pictures of various graphs can look dramatic — especially if the graphic designer has made the colors particularly attractive.<\/p>\n And yet, this kind of neuroscience information offers almost no useful guidance to teachers.<\/p>\n Here’s why.<\/p>\n Pretend for the moment that we can plausibly say “this brain region shows gamma waves when it is learning, and alpha waves when it isn’t.”<\/p>\n (By the way, we almost never can say that plausibly. But, we’re pretending here.)<\/p>\n What should teachers do with that information?<\/em><\/p>\n Presumably we should ask: how can we reduce alpha waves and enhance gamma waves?<\/p>\n The answer to that question will always include a particular teaching practice. We should use retrieval practice. Or, we should space out repetitions. Or, we should reduce working memory load.<\/p>\n In every case, we know about the effectiveness of those teaching techniques by studying psychology<\/em>, not neuroscience<\/em>.<\/p>\n We can, of course, see changes in brain activity when use various classroom techniques.<\/p>\n But, we can determine their effectiveness <\/strong>only by measuring some behavioral outcome<\/em>. Did the students do better on the test? Did they pay more attention to the stimulus? Or, did they demonstrate higher working memory scores? In every case, those are psychology<\/em> questions.<\/p>\n I write about this topic every few months, because confusion between the two disciplines crops up fairly regularly.<\/p>\n For today, I want to highlight a blog post over at the Learning Scientists<\/a>, where they’ve gathered several resources<\/a> to explore this distinction.<\/p>\nWhat Should Teachers Do?<\/h2>\n
Today’s News<\/h2>\n