{"id":6378,"date":"2021-12-10T15:00:14","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T20:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=6378"},"modified":"2021-12-26T18:29:32","modified_gmt":"2021-12-26T23:29:32","slug":"why-i-still-love-learning-and-the-brain-conferences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/why-i-still-love-learning-and-the-brain-conferences\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Still Love Learning and the Brain Conferences"},"content":{"rendered":"

I attended my first Learning and the Brain in 2008; I believe the topic was “The Science of Attention.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Since then, I’ve attended at least two dozen: in New York, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco. Discussing Stress<\/em>, and Memory<\/em>, and Ethics<\/em>, and Technology<\/em>. And, of course, learning<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

At some point, you might reasonably think, I’d get tired of the handouts and the slides and the coffee.<\/p>\n

But, no: I still can’t get enough.<\/p>\n

Reason #1: Old Friends<\/h2>\n

Being an interdisciplinary endeavor, the field of Mind, Brain, and Education is dramatically large…and comfortably small. When you come back, you start recognizing folks right away.<\/p>\n

John Almarode<\/strong> presents regularly (and, with his bow tie, vivaciously) about applying cognitive science to the classroom. A post-presentation chat with John is one of the great learning experiences you’ll ever have.<\/p>\n

I met Sarah Flotten<\/strong> — currently the interim Director<\/a> of the Peter Clark Center for Mind Brain Education — through a friend several years ago. It’s now an annual event to catch up with her insights, her school, and her center.<\/p>\n

Joanna Christodoulou<\/strong> (a former professor of mine) combines knowledge of neuroscience, knowledge of reading, and enthusiasm so compellingly that I’m still learning from her. I get to catch up with here every year or so at LatB.<\/p>\n

This list could go on at length: Pooja Agarwal and Ellen Anderson, and even David Daniel (who doesn’t like it when I mention him in the blog).<\/p>\n

In brief: if you want to find colleagues who think the way you do about teaching and learning, you’ll find them here. Even better: you’ll build relationships and coalitions that grow over the years.<\/p>\n

Reason #2: New Friends<\/h2>\n

Once you enter the world of Mind, Brain, and Education — on this blog, on twitter, at the conferences — you’ll start meeting people from (literally) across the globe.<\/p>\n

At this most recent conference in Boston, I FINALLY got to meet people I’ve been online chatting with for years.<\/p>\n

Beth Hawks (twitter handle @PhysicsHawk) — a science teacher, who blogs here<\/a> — offers a rare twitter presence. She is encouraging, wise, well-informed, and unwilling to be bamboozled<\/em> by uplifting-but-empty slogans. I’ve been liking her posts for years, and got to meet her in Boston.<\/p>\n

Kristin Simmers (@KristinASimmers) — currently studying the intersection of neuroscience and education — reached out to me about my first book AGES ago, and we’ve been in e-conversation ever since. Perhaps 2 years after that first e-exchange, we got to have lunch at the conference. Where else would I get to meet her in person?<\/p>\n

Your MBE colleagues are out there — sometimes a continent away. You can meet them at the conferences.<\/p>\n

Reason #3: SO MUCH TO LEARN<\/h2>\n

Of course, depending on your interests, this could be reason #1.<\/p>\n

Even after 14 years, I still have so much to learn in this field. The speakers explore their research and insights — challenging me (and each other) to rethink settled ideas in light of new information.<\/p>\n

For instance: on the very first day of the Boston conference, two speakers (politely, curiously) squared off on this important question: can we use\u00a0conscious\u00a0<\/em>strategies to respond to stressful environments?<\/p>\n

If the answer is “yes,” then we can guide our students (and our colleagues, and ourselves) down one path.<\/p>\n

If the answer is “no” — because “stress turns off the pre-frontal cortex” — then we need a different path entirely.<\/p>\n

What’s the correct answer? Honestly: check out Judson Brewer and Bessel van der Kolk to see whose analysis you find more persuasive.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gv-CmqMecVY<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=d_YApSkqsxM<\/p>\n

The best place I know to hear these debates and have these conversations:\u00a0Learning and the Brain<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Beyond FOMO<\/h2>\n

If you’re worried that you’ve missed out, I’ve got good news: the schedule<\/a> for the February Conference in San Francisco has been posted!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I attended my first Learning and the Brain in 2008; I believe the topic was “The Science of Attention.” Since then, I’ve attended at least two dozen: in New York, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco. Discussing Stress, and Memory, and Ethics, and Technology. And, of course, learning. At some point, you might reasonably think, I’d get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6378"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6406,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions\/6406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}