The Learning Success Blog

The greatest joy for me from working with educational neuroscience -  for most of this century - is the feedback from parents and students about their improvements. In some cases, how lives have been changed for the better (see below).

I've also watched how educational neuroscience has evolved as a specialised subject from what was originally known just as neuroscience. It has been interesting how the public's awareness of neuroscience has gone from almost unaware to the situation we have now where the neuroscience label is being put on all sorts of things that, unfortunately, are not even remotely neuroscience based. 

However, it is encouraging to see how educators and learners around the world have increasingly used research validated educational neuroscience technologies such as:

*Fast ForWord - “glasses for the ears” improves learning capacity and English language skills

* Cogmed - educators love this fast fix for working memory issues

Mimma Mason is the Cogmed Manager for Pearson Australia, and has previously explained working memory on the Learning Capacity podcast.

But she also spends much of her time helping people understand the emerging field of educational neuroscience. Is it another band wagon, or pop science?

We’ve asked this question before, and it seems like the consistent message is that educational neuroscience is now increasingly informing educational practice and research.

So if it’s for real, how do we implement it? And what does this mean for future teacher education and professional development?

Mimma helps us understand what to make of it all in a discussion on the Learning Capacity podcast. 

Listen to the podcast episode:

What is working memory and what happens if your working memory is weak?

Mimma Mason, Cogmed Manager for Pearson Australia, explains that students with poor working memory find learning much harder.

Mimma spends much of her time raising awareness of working memory and its relationship to learning. Most of us might easily relate to long term memory, what we did a while back, or short term memory, like what we did yesterday.

But do we give enough time to thinking about working memory? That’s what’s going on when we get exposed to new things, and it’s a critical part of the learning process.

Mimma Mason explained working memory to the Learning Capacity Podcast, and spoke about how we can develop it.

Listen to the podcast episode:

Of the many jobs Principals are tasked to do on a daily basis, perhaps the most daunting one is keeping up with educational trends. 

It seems every time you turn on the television, read a newspaper, listen to the radio, attend a conference, talk to colleagues or Google anything to do with education, there’s a new educational philosophy or pedagogy that some educational guru is asking us to embrace. It’s enough to make your head spin! The latest terminology to be tossed into the ring – and rather enthusiastically I might add - is Neuroscience and how it might be applied to improve educational practice. 

Its great news for learners everywhere that scientists are building more technology to help improve learning capacity.

The latest example of this is Neuroscape Labs at the University of California in San Francisco. Led by neuroscientist, Professor Adam Gazzaley, a team at Neuroscape Labs is developing four video games designed to help children with learning.

The 60 Minutes program on Channel 9 (Australia) on Sunday June 1, 2014 included a segment about the Arrowsmith School, and featured some children from the 35 Australian families currently at the school in Canada. 

The Arrowsmith program was developed by Barbara Arrowsmith- Young and uses the principles of brain plasticity to improve the learning abilities of children with a range of learning disabilities including dyslexia.

Families who have gone to the Arrowsmith School report very significant improvements in their children. If your child has a severe learning problem, they may be able to be helped by the Arrowsmith program.

Right now it is necessary for them to go to Canada because there are very few places in Australia and New Zealand where the program is available. Of course this involves considerable cost/financial sacrifice and potential disruption to their families as one parent usually accompanies the child to Canada.

An alternative for families contemplating relocating to Canada for the duration of their child’s attendance at the Arrowsmith School is to consider Fast ForWord, a brain plasticity program that improves learning capacity for all students, including those with severe learning difficulties.