Building a Bridge from Neuroscience to the Classroom

Abstract

NEUROSCIENCE and cognitive science relating to education are hot topics. They receive extensive but simplified coverage in the mass media, and there is a booming business in brain-booster books and products, which claim to be based on the Eric Jensen advocates more collaboration among scientists from the full variety of disciplines engaged in brain This collaboration, with corresponding evaluations using cognitive and classroom research, can offer educators more coherent knowledge that they can use in teaching. And educators want this knowledge, as shown by a communication I received from Lisa Nimz, a fifth-grade teacher in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, in response to my May 2007 Kappan article. We know how important it is for relevant research from the scientific community to be shared with and used in the education community. We are anxious for neurological research to become more a part of educators' thinking and wonder how to make it so. There seem to be only a few people in the unique position of being able to understand the research, figure out its implications for the classroom, and use those implications to direct their teaching. We are actively pondering how a sturdy and wide enough can be built between the scientific community and the education community. There are many obstacles to building such a construct. Reading the primary sources of neurological research can be challenging even for the brightest of us. And even if someone can comprehend these primary sources, there are many highly educated people who don't seem to approach scientific evidence with the caution and skepticism necessary to make fair judgments about the implications of that evidence. There are also many members of the scientific community and academia who haven't studied pedagogy. We are thankful for books, articles, and presentations that mitigate some of that disconnect. Ms. Nimz' quandary reflects educators' increasing concern about how to keep up with the exponential growth of the body of information coming from the varied scientific specialties about the structure and function of the brain with regard to learning and memory. Of equal concern is how to interpret the multitude of claims, usually by nonscientists, that the effectiveness of various brain-based has been proven by brain research. The interdisciplinary collaboration of neuroscientists, molecular geneticists, cellular biologists, cognitive scientists, and education professionals can be the wide, sturdy bridge Ms. Nimz seeks to connect scientific knowledge of the human brain to applications of that research in the classroom. But before that is completed, we need to allow some flexibility. In order to help educators make sense of the massive amounts of information, I propose a two-tiered structure in which factual, collaborative brain research is designated as such and educational strategies strongly suggested by neuroscientific data are identified as interpretations of that The resulting structure will change with time because the interpretive tier will become more concrete as initial interpretations are supported or contradicted by subsequent neuroscience. The first step is to debunk the neuromyths. Even some of the purest, most accurately reported neuroscience research has been misinterpreted. People trying to capitalize on research with their elixirs, books, cure-all learning theories, and curriculum packages have perpetrated much of the damage. Other folks have unintentionally made errors of interpretation when they have been unfairly asked for scientific evidence to support the strategies they have been using successfully for years. But it is important to understand that some research findings can be applied to education now. For example, a review of neuroplasticity research shows how collaboration across fields, with certain checks and balances, can lead to classroom strategies that can add to teaching success. …