A School Grows in Brooklyn

Today we feature a guest blog by Elizabeth Frank, the Head of School at Sage Heights School, which will be opening in Brooklyn, New York in September 2016. Dr. Paul Yellin is an Advisor to Sage Heights. The school will utilize the approach of Mind, Brain, and Education to apply best practices in the classroom from research in Neuroscience, Psychology, and Education. Sage Heights is a member of the Harvard International Research School Network.

Everyone is different. We say it all the time, but is it fully embraced by our schools, by us? When taught and nurtured according to their individuality, children are more engaged with the process of learning. Educational research has confirmed what many parents and teachers experience daily; each child is infinitely varied from the next and cookie cutter solutions do not meet their needs. Recognizing our inborn differences allows for children to develop their passions and strengths, while fostering challenges and aversions.

Jillian is an advanced eight-year-old who doesn’t have to try very hard to get perfect marks at school, and tests above the average range on assessments like the ERB. She is often praised for her brightness and quickness. She is starting to avoid anything she thinks is too hard, because she fears the grown-ups might discover her secret. She believes, “If I can’t do this fast and easily, then I must be dumb,” keeping her from her own unique potential to learn and succeed.

Charlie is a seven-year-old gregarious kid who excels at school, is athletic, and very popular. However, he recently retreated into himself, refusing to participate in activities he once loved, after his beloved grandmother passed away.

Annabeth is six and loves books, words, and games. She has great difficulty staying out of trouble. Lately, she’s been left off the birthday invitation lists of her classmates.

Henry is a six-year-old, well liked, quiet boy. He loves building intricate structures with blocks and avoids anything with letters or numbers.

All four students are typical and should be treated as such. We do not learn in synchronistic ways and sometimes life gets in the way. All can excel if the adults in their lives help to cultivate their challenges and support their gifts, while emphasizing the natural differences in all of us. We want schools to see our children for whom they are and respond to them as their lives unfold.

All children are learning machines and learning begins with the brain. Neuroscience tells us brains are unique and plastic. There are no two duplicate brains in the world, now or ever. While the basic structure of our brains are the same, at the molecular level differences can be detected that affect our ability to learn, even in identical twins. If all people are different from one another, it follows that instruction should be differentiated. Differentiated doesn’t mean easier, but rather creating high challenge and low risk for each individual.

Additionally, the brain’s plasticity is occurring constantly as we encounter the world. Our brains automatically rewire neural paths with each song sung, picture painted, soccer scuffle, or negative/positive thought. Schools and parents can use this plasticity to their advantage by creating environments where they reinforce important skills and belief systems around learning. Days should be designed to develop proficiencies in reading, math and other content areas, but more importantly on effort, collaboration and problem solving strategies. This way students become ready for the challenges of adult life. Isn't that what school should be for?

Neuroscience & The Classroom

Dr. Yellin is a featured faculty member in an exciting new initiative from Annenberg Learner, a program "to advance excellent teaching in American schools through the development and distribution of multimedia resources for teaching and learning." Annenberg Learner is one of many projects of the Annenberg Foundation, whose mission is to assist nonprofit organizations throughout the U.S. and the world, with a focus on improved communication and education.

The course in which Dr. Yellin is featured is Neuroscience & the Classroom: Making Connections, designed to help K-12 teachers learn more about the field of Mind, Brain, and Education, and to thereby become better able to understand the continually growing body of scientific information about how brains work and how students learn.

Among the other speakers featured in this series are Kurt Fischer, Director for the Mind, Brain, and Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Matthew H. Schneps,  director of the Laboratory for Visual Learning at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), who has been previously featured in this blog; Dr. Todd Rose, a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he teaches a course on educational neuroscience, as well as a research scientist at CAST (the Center for Applied Special Technology), Dr. Antonio Damasio, who directs the University of Southern California Brain and Creativity Institute, and numerous others.

The course materials are available for free as streaming video, with downloadable written materials. The materials can also be purchased from Annenberg Learner in other formats, along with printed course material.

Watch an interview with Dr. Yellin from the series about creating a common language shared by neuroscientists and educators (depending on your browser, you may need to page down on the linked page to the appropriate link).

Linking the Mind and the Brain

A fascinating blog post by the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health looks at the interaction of the brain -- its structures, functions, and malfunctions -- and the mind -- the way we think, behave, and feel.

Dr. Thomas Insel notes that advances in imaging and other related techniques allow us to look beyond lesions in the brain, which cause such illnesses as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Researchers can now use tools such as functional MRIs, PET scans, and advanced EEGs to examine the circuitry in the brain and to study patterns of cortical function that are present in such conditions as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). As Dr. Insel states, "For the first time, we can study the mind via the brain."

Using the example of ADHD, Dr. Insel discusses how a condition which is generally described by its impact on behavior (hyperactivity) and cognition (attention) appears to be related to delayed cortical maturation. Likewise, research has indicated that serious depression seems to have "biomarkers" in the brain that may yield possible pathways to new treatments.

Understanding the brain functions and structures that underly conditions such as ADHD or depression is the first step to coming up with new and effective forms of treatment. It also allows for the exciting -- and as yet unrealized -- possiblity of prevention and early intervention to prevent the cognitive, social, and emotional difficulties that are the consequences of disorders of brain circuitry. We are certainly not there yet, but Dr. Insel has provided a tantalizing glimpse of the future.

Photo used courtesy of NIMH

A Day in the Cosmos

I spent yesterday at the intersection of Mind, Brain and Education -- and the cosmos -- when I visited with Dr. Matthew Schneps at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. An astrophysicist, Dr. Schneps is the Director of the Laboratory for Visual Learning at the Center, which combines the resources and research facilities of the Harvard College Observatory and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Dr. Schneps is actively involved in dyslexia research and has asked me to serve on the Advisory Board for a research project which is looking at novel ways to deliver written material to children with dyslexia.

During my visit I was also interviewed on camera for another project, funded by the Annenberg Foundation, which is looking to create web-based materials to make information about neuroscience and learning accessible -- and practical -- for educators. Dr. Schneps is particularly interested in emerging evidence that perceptual variations associated with “learning disabilities” are actually advantageous. For example, it turns out that many of the world’s most accomplished astrophysicists have dyslexia. Dyslexia is frequently associated with an increased ability to perceive information in the peripheral visual fields -- which is advantageous when examining the cosmos. Dr. Schneps also introduced me to a brilliant and resilient astrophysicist who began losing her sight as a graduate student -- and now studies the universe using sound.

After my meeting with Dr. Schneps, I finished the day at a Board of Directors meeting for CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology). CAST continues to amaze all of its Board members with its continued progress in leading the field of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). With technology and an understanding of the wide range of normal variation in children, CAST continues to create tools to make academic material accessible to all learners. If you haven’t heard of CAST and UDL, you will soon. CAST is increasingly sought out by policy makers, foundations, and educators interested in bringing these groundbreaking ideas and technologies to schools and school districts.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This is Your 3rd Grader's Brain on Math

We continue to be amazed by what our colleagues in the field of neuroimaging can teach us about how children think and learn. A new study by Stanford University School of Medicine researcher Vinod Menon, Ph.D. and his colleagues reveals substantial differences between how children in second grade and those in third grade solve math problems. 

The researchers used functional MRI (fMRI) scans to look at the brains of 90 children who had just completed 2nd or 3rd grade. While the studies were conducted, the children worked on simple or more complex addition problems. The studies revealed that while the 2nd grade children's brains showed no real differences when they worked on hard or easy problems, the students who had completed 3rd grade had significantly different brain activation when working on the more difficult problems than when they worked on the simpler ones. The third graders showed more activity in two brain areas in particular while working on the more complex problems: the areas for vision and for working memory. 

Of course, seeing these differences in brain function and determining how these findings can or should impact how children are taught, is key to the field of Mind, Brain, and Education. Imaging researchers cannot yet determine whether the observed changes are a result of normal brain development from ages 7 through 9 (the age span of the children studied) or if they are the result of how the children are taught mathematics. They also cannot determine how these findings should be used by classroom teachers. What should a math lesson look like when we know how (and in what area of the brain) students process what they are learning? And how do we tell which students will do best in math in the long run? 

Although there is much missing from these findings, they are a terrific example of how our knowledge of learning and thinking is constantly expanding, and how collaboration among researchers, clinicians, and educators is needed to translate the latest scientific findings into classroom and clinical practices.