430 likes | 704 Views
Neuroscience & Learning. Year 1 Semester 2 Lead Lecture Week 10 Chris Jenkins. WELL DONE TO YOU ALL!. SEN Personalised Learning Task. http://education.exeter.ac.uk/projects.php?id=159#task http://education.exeter.ac.uk/projects.php?id=165. The Brain & Learning:. Key Question:.
E N D
Neuroscience & Learning Year 1 Semester 2 Lead Lecture Week 10 Chris Jenkins
SEN Personalised Learning Task http://education.exeter.ac.uk/projects.php?id=159#task http://education.exeter.ac.uk/projects.php?id=165
Key Question: Do you think that knowledge about how the brain works is important in designing approaches to learning / education?
Facts about your brain: • An adult human brain is about the size of a grapefruit and weighs about1300-1400g. • It is 78% water, 10% fat and 8% protein. • It weighs about 2% of your body weight but uses about 20% of your energy and your oxygen.
Neo-cortex Mammalian brain Reptilian brain
Neuroscience • Education is about enhancing learning • Neuroscience aims to provide understanding of the mental processes involved in learning
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI): FMRI is an MRI procedure that measures brain activity by detecting associated changes in blood flow.
Electroencephalography (EEG)EEG is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp.
Neuromyths A neuromyth is… “a misconception generated by a misunderstanding, a misreading or a misquoting of facts scientifically established…” (OECD, 2002, p111)
Neuromyths Neuromytholgies of quantity: “If we can get more of the brain to ‘light up’ then learning will improve ...” Neuromytholgies of quality: “If we concentrate teaching on the ‘lit-up’ brain areas then learning will improve ...”
So what do we know? Brain Care: • Omega-3 (fish oils) • Caffeine • Sleep • Water
Omega-3 (fish oils) • Good regular diet probably most important nutritional issue influencing educational performance and achievement • Proven importance / impact of having breakfast • NO published evidence to demonstrate Omega-3 supplements enhance school performance in the general population of children • Growing evidence for reduced risk of dementia in later life and fish consumption in pregnancy may relate to infant IQ • Such oils do work in certain context for children with ADHD – findings as yet unclear
Caffeine • A 500ml bottle of cola has same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee • Children commonly experience caffeine withdrawal • Withdrawal - children aged 9-10 drinking no more than 2 cans a day demonstrate reduced alertness compared with non-users • Caffeine raises alertness only to baseline levels and only temporarily – implications?
Sleep • Sleep is an important part of learning • Helps us to ‘lay down’ and consolidate memories so we can draw on them later • Sleeping brain shown to reproduce neural activity characterising preceding state of wakefulness • Helps us prepare to learn more and use what we know to generate insights (‘sleeping on it’)
Water • Very few studies investigating effects of dehydration on children • Confirm deleterious effect of even mild dehydration on ability to think • BUT recent adult study shows drinking water when NOT thirsty has the same effect • Encourage children to drink WHEN THIRSTY • Exercise & exceptionally hot weather: children’s monitoring systems are less reliable – need encouraging
Developmental Disorders • Dyslexia / Dyscalculia • ADHD
Dyslexia / Dyscalculia • Brain imaging techniques show differences in brain function of those with these conditions and those without • Imaging techniques can potentially be used to identify: • those at risk • the effectiveness of interventions designed to help • Demonstrates brain’s plasticity – education can critically affect how the brain operates
ADHD – Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder • Research suggests: • Some children are much more impulsive, restless and disorganised than others • Strongest influence is genes that affect brain chemistry and neuropsychological functioning • Not a moral failing – children can’t choose to have ADHD • Some ways of teaching & managing classrooms suit these children better - schools need to be aware • At the extreme – some receive a medical diagnosis and medication (Ritalin)
Brain-Based Learning? • Brain Gym • Learning Styles • Multiple Intelligences • Right Brain / Left Brain
Brain Gym ‘ The pseudo-scientific terms that are used to explain how this works, let alone the concepts they express, are unrecognisable within the domains of neuroscience.’ Teaching & Learning Research Programme (2005) Neuroscience & Education
Ben Goldacre (author of Bad Science)The Guardian,Saturday February 16 2008 • http://www.badscience.net/2008/02/banging-your-head-repeatedly-against-the-brick-wall-of-teachers-stupidity-helps-to-co-ordinate-your-left-and-right-cerebral-hemispheres/#more-613
Vigorous exercise DOES improve mental function • It also provides a ‘brain-break’ • There is NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE to support the idea that co-ordination exercises integrate the functions of the right and left brain hemisphere
Close Exercise that increases blood flow anywhere, increases blood flow everywhere. (Geake, 2009)
Brain interconnectivity includes the senses • All primates are V A K • including humans • Congenitally blind children using Braille do so through the parts of their visual cortex sighted children use to learning written language • Unsighted people create the same mental spatial maps of their physical reality as sighted people do – information is auditory / tactile but used as if it is visual.
5 year olds can reliably distinguish different sized groups (V x V) ? vs
5 year olds can reliably distinguish different sized groups (V x V) ? vs What happens when one group is replaced by as many sounds (V x A)? ? vs
5 year olds can reliably distinguish different sized groups (V x V) ? vs What happens when one group is replaced by as many sounds (V x A)? ? vs No change in accuracy!
VAK not learning styles but pre-learning perceptual acuities • Input modalities in the brain are inter-linked visual auditory visual motor motor auditory visual taste • Input information is abstracted to be processed and learnt, mostly unconsciously, through the brain’s interconnectivity
VAK classroom paradoxes • The V and K ‘learners’ at a concert • The A and K ‘learners’ at an art gallery • The V and A ‘learners’ in a craft practical lesson VAK research • 121 different learning style inventories • Commercially available • Independent research: no learning benefit from any • No improvement of learning outcomes with V, A, K above teacher enthusiasm • “attempts to focus on learning styles were wasted effort” Kratzig & Arbuthnott (2006)
Plato (500 BC) logic rhetoric arithmetic geometry-astronomy music dance-physical meditation Gardner (1980 AD) logic-mathematics verbal interpersonal spatial music movement intrapersonal Multiple Intelligences - nothing new here ...
Plato (500 BC) logic rhetoric arithmetic geometry-astronomy music dance-physical meditation Gardner (1980 AD) logic-mathematics verbal interpersonal spatial music movement intrapersonal Multiple Intelligences - nothing new here ...
Common brain functions for all acts of intelligence: NB school learning Working memory <= lateral frontal cortex Long term memory <= hippocampus + … Decision making <= orbitofrontal cortex Emotional mediation <= limbic subcortex + ofc Sequencing of symbolic representation <= fusiform gyrus + temporal lobe Conceptual inter-relationships <= parietal lobe Conceptual rehearsal <= cerebellum Geake (2009)
In other words, there are no Multiple Intelligences, but rather, it is argued, multiple applications of the same multifaceted intelligence (Geake, 2008 p126)
Left & Right Brain; • The brain has 2 halves or hemispheres. • They process information differently • The left brain is more concerned with logic. • The right brain is more concerned with creativity. • But it’s far more complex than that. The two halves work together, balancing the abstract, holistic picture with the concrete, logical messages.
The Quiz Any aspects not covered / unclear? How did you do?
Bibliography : • Blakemore, S-J. & Frith, U. (2005) The Learning Brian: Lessons for Education. Oxford: Blackwell • Geake, J. (2008) Neuromythologies in Education Journal of Educational Research Vol. 50, No. 2, June 2008, 123-133 • Geake, J. (2009) The Brain at School: Educational Neuroscience in the classroom. Maidenhead: OUP • Goswami, U. (2006) Neuroscience and education: from research to practice, Nature Reviews: Neuroscience www.nature.com/nrn/journal • Greenfield, S. The Human Brain. London: Phoenix • Teaching & Learning Research Programme (2005) Neuroscience & Education http://www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/Neuroscience%20Commentary%20FINAL.pdf