Learning styles

Helping bridge neuroscience and education: 30+ experts debunk the theory of fixed, rigid “learning styles”

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No evi­dence to back idea of learn­ing styles (OpEd in The Guardian co-authored by 30+ neu­ro­sci­en­tists and psychologists):

“There is wide­spread inter­est among teach­ers in the use of neu­ro­sci­en­tif­ic research find­ings in edu­ca­tion­al prac­tice. How­ev­er, there are also mis­con­cep­tions and myths that are sup­pos­ed­ly based on sound neu­ro­science that are preva­lent in our schools. We wish to draw atten­tion to this prob­lem by focus­ing on an edu­ca­tion­al prac­tice sup­pos­ed­ly based on neu­ro­science that lacks suf­fi­cient evi­dence [Read more…] about Help­ing bridge neu­ro­science and edu­ca­tion: 30+ experts debunk the the­o­ry of fixed, rigid “learn­ing styles”

Upcoming webinar: 50 Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity & Technology For Better Brain Health

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holdingbrainDear read­er,

What will you be doing on Thurs­day April 21st?

We encour­age you to join a fas­ci­nat­ing Sharp­Brains webi­nar that day, and dis­cov­er 50 core facts required to bet­ter nav­i­gate and apply lat­est brain sci­ence. Our dis­tin­guished Fac­ul­ty–Dr. Robert Bilder @ UCLA, Tan Le @ Emo­tiv, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez @ Sharp­Brains–will clar­i­fy hot top­ics such as genet­ics vs. lifestyle, IQ vs cre­ativ­i­ty and resilience, left/ right brain hemi­spheres, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, brain sup­ple­ments, learn­ing styles, brain train­ing, med­i­ta­tion, neu­ro­feed­back, neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, and more.

When: Thurs­day, April 21st, 2016. 10:30am-noon US Pacif­ic Time/ 1.30–3pm US East­ern Time.

To Learn More & Register:

  • Click HERE (USD 50)
  • 20%-off dis­count code for the Sharp­Brains com­mu­ni­ty: SB20

Cheers and let’s all become well-informed brain own­ers and brain health ambassadors!

Do you believe these neuromyths? Do we only use 10% of our brain?

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brain myths and facts

Cour­tesy of the recent study Neu­romyths in edu­ca­tion: Preva­lence and pre­dic­tors of mis­con­cep­tions among teach­ers, by Sanne Dekker et al, here you have 32 brain-relat­ed state­ments. Are they cor­rect or incorrect?

  1. We use our brains 24 h a day (C ).
  2. Chil­dren must acquire their native lan­guage before a sec­ond lan­guage is learned. If they do not do so nei­ther lan­guage will be ful­ly acquired (I).
  3. Boys have big­ger brains than girls (C ). [Read more…] about Do you believe these neu­romyths? Do we only use 10% of our brain?

Learning with Video Games: A Revolution in Education and Training?

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In recent years, we have wit­nessed the begin­nings of a rev­o­lu­tion in edu­ca­tion.  Tech­nol­o­gy has fun­da­men­tal­ly altered the way we do many things in dai­ly life, but it is just start­ing to make head­way in chang­ing the way we teach.  Just as tele­vi­sion shows like Sesame Street enhanced the pas­sive learn­ing of infor­ma­tion for kids by teach­ing in a fun for­mat, elec­tron­ic games offer to great­ly enhance the way kids and adults are taught by active­ly engag­ing them in the process. [Read more…] about Learn­ing with Video Games: A Rev­o­lu­tion in Edu­ca­tion and Training?

Update: Mind. Learn. Eat. Shape. Play

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You may find that too much media cov­er­age on how to take good care of our brains is con­fus­ing, if not poten­tial­ly mis­lead­ing. In The True Sto­ry — is men­tal exer­cise good, bad, or irrel­e­vant, Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon dis­sects for you a recent large study which was large­ly report­ed as bad news when in fact it brings good news (no mir­a­cles, but good news).  We hope you enjoy her insight­ful analy­sis — and all the excel­lent arti­cles that fol­low in the Sep­tem­ber edi­tion of our month­ly eNewslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can use the box in the right col­umn to sub­scribe and receive this newslet­ter via email.

Do you Mind

Dear sapi­ens sapi­ens, do you mind: Dr. Joshua Stein­er­man encour­ages you to ask your­self the tough ques­tions: Do you mind your brain? Do you know your nog­gin’? Can you claim cere­bral own­er­ship or is your men­tal a rental? Plus, why we need a new lex­i­con for pos­i­tive cog­ni­tion interventions.

Time for a Cog­ni­tive Reserve Day: with 36 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide with demen­tia today and relat­ed care costs around 1 per­cent of the world’s gross domes­tic prod­uct (GDP), and grow­ing fast, may it be time to com­ple­ment World Alzheimer’s Day with Word Cog­ni­tive Reserve’s Day?

Food for Thought

Debunk­ing learn­ing styles: a recent arti­cle in The New York Times debunks many old myths about learn­ing and learn­ing styles, sum­ma­riz­ing emerg­ing cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science findings.

Sci­ence for the Peo­ple: quick now — think of a ques­tion, any ques­tion, that comes to mind. Chances are some one in the excel­lent ros­ter of 28 sci­ence blog­gers who took part in Sharp­Brains’ edi­tion of Sci­en­tia Pro Pub­li­ca blog car­ni­val answered it.

Food for Thought — II 

‘West­ern’ Style Diet Increas­es Risk of ADHD: Dr. David Rabin­er reports how, on the one hand, a recent large study track­ing 1172 Aus­tralian ado­les­cents and their par­ents found that dietary fac­tors can play an impor­tant role in the devel­op­ment of atten­tion deficits, at least for some children.

A Con­trolled Tri­al of Herbal Treat­ment for ADHD: on the oth­er hand, Dr. Rabin­er adds, a recent ran­dom­ized-con­trolled tri­al sup­ports the idea that appro­pri­ately pre­pared and tar­get­ed herbal com­pounds have the poten­tial to be ther­a­peu­tic and reduce atten­tion deficit symptoms.

Shap­ing the Future

Q&A about the new Sharp­Brains Coun­cil for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion: we have received many good ques­tions about the new Sharp­Brains Coun­cil … here you are our answers.

Meet the Experts: since 2006 we have inter­viewed dozens of experts on the future of cog­ni­tive enhance­ment and men­tal health, build­ing up the foun­da­tion for the type of inno­va­tion the Sharp­Brains Coun­cil wants to fos­ter. Here you can find what 26 lead­ing-edge sci­en­tists and experts believe and why.

Get­ting ther­a­py through your iPhone: The Dai­ly Beast (a great new media out­let) just pub­lished this excel­lent arti­cle on an emerg­ing “small rev­o­lu­tion” in men­tal health care.

Brain Teas­er

Brain Teas­er: are you ready to test your men­tal rota­tion skills?

Please feel free to share this month­ly eNewslet­ter to friends and col­leagues. Have a great month of October!

Learning habits, learning styles: The most recent findings

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For an excel­lent review of the most recent find­ings on learn­ing habits, check out The New York Times recent arti­cle: For­get What You Know About Good Study Habits. Tons of unex­pect­ed and fas­ci­nat­ing results!

The find­ings can help any­one, from a fourth grad­er doing long divi­sion to a retiree tak­ing on a new lan­guage. But they direct­ly con­tra­dict much of the com­mon wis­dom about good study habits, and they have not caught on. For instance, instead of stick­ing to one study loca­tion, sim­ply alter­nat­ing the room where a per­son stud­ies improves retention.

Take the notion that chil­dren have spe­cif­ic learn­ing styles, that some are “visu­al learn­ers” and oth­ers are audi­to­ry; some are “left-brain” stu­dents, oth­ers “right-brain.” In a recent review of the rel­e­vant research, pub­lished in the jour­nal Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence in the Pub­lic Inter­est, a team of psy­chol­o­gists found almost zero sup­port for such ideas.

Com­ment: The way we learn mat­ters for two rea­sons: a) we need to effi­cient­ly retain some infor­ma­tion for the var­i­ous tasks we have to per­form every day, but also b) learn­ing induces neu­ro­plas­tic changes in the brain, which  in turn may increase our brain reserve and brain health (see our pri­or arti­cle on Brain Plas­tic­ity: How learn­ing changes your brain).