The Learning Success Blog

The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy got its famous lean because the architects and engineers messed up back in the 14^th century.

They didn’t build the foundations correctly.

In the 600 years since it was built the tower has turned into a tourist attraction. That’s lucky, because a tower with a lean isn’t much good for anything else.

From recent comments in the media about the latest PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) results an impartial observer could be forgiven for thinking that Australian education may be going the way of the Leaning Tower of Pisa -  interesting, but possibly not really doing the job it was built for.

The latest PISA results have shown that Australian students are continuing to fall behind other countries in maths and literacy. In the last 10 years Australia dropped from 6^th to 12th in reading and from 9^th to 20^th in maths on this global comparison.

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

Peter Carabi, vice president of Global Business Development for Scientific Learning has been watching how educational neuroscience is changing learning for students around the world.

He sees how this relativey new brain science, which is the foundation for the Fast ForWord brain training, language and reading programs, opens new opportunities for students regardless of their country or ability.

Peter recorded an interview with the Learning Capacity Podcast in which he discussed English language learning and educational neuroscience.

This blog is a transcript of his comments about the latter.

In my role as producer of the Learning Capacity podcast, I get to talk to many interesting people from around the world.

Occasionally, the tables get turned, and the people I meet start to ask me more questions than I ask them.

Nick Kenny, hosts a program on Sydney based community station Northside Radio, FM99.3. It’s named A Fair Call and is a political commentary and current affairs talk show. He invited me to join him on the program to discuss what learning capacity is, what I thought about current developments in the education system in Australia, and why I thought reading is so important.

He wasn’t afraid of asking tough questions, and it made for a very enjoyable discussion. The program was recorded, and I’m pleased to add it to the growing list of interviews that make up the Learning Capacity podcast.

Listen to the discussion:

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:

Dorothy Dore, principal of Urana Public School spoke with The Learning Capacity Podcast about how the school is building student learning capacity with the Fast ForWord neuroscience program.

Urana Public is a small primary school of 26 students (K- 6) located in the Riverina region of New South Wales, 600 kms south west of Sydney.

The school has implemented Fast ForWord for the past five years with excellent results, according to Dorothy.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

“It's here now. If you haven't looked, you may not have noticed it.”

That's neuroscientist, Dr Steve Miller, speaking on The Learning Capacity Podcast about the emerging field of educational neuroscience.

He pointed out that neuroscience, the knowledge of how our brains work, is being applied in a range of diverse fields and has recently come to education.

Research from neuroscience is being applied in:

• Professional athletics – to improve performance
• The military - to make their elite teams consistently more elite
• Medicine - for diagnosis and treatment
• Business - to understand decision-making and consumer behaviour
• Education - to improve teaching methodologies and learning outcomes

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Have you ever asked yourself, “why do I allow my child to eat up to 30 teaspoons more sugar every day than global health guidelines”? 

Would you allow them to eat this much sugar if you knew that reducing it may help them improve their learning capacity (how well they are able to learn)? 

Australians and New Zealanders - men, women and children - eat on average about 40 teaspoons of sugar a day. The health recommendations are for no more than 6 to 9 teaspoons per day. 

How much sugar does your child actually eat everyday? It's probably much more than you think.

What is educational neuroscience? Is it a specialist area of knowledge or just a general title for intellectual sounding conversation? Can it help teachers get better learning outcomes for their students?

Maybe it's just "the latest thing" which will fade away in a year or two, just as many educational ideas that initially sound good, turn out not to be very useful.

Dr Martha Burns, Director of Neuroscience Education at Scientific Learning corporation answered these questions, and more, in a discussion on The Learning Capacity Podcast.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Dr Burns explains that educational neuroscience is a new branch of neuroscience.