The Learning Success Blog

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.

What is targeted teaching?  Does it produce better student outcomes? How do you implement it in your school?

The answers to these questions are included in a new report titled "Targeted Teaching: How Better Use of Data Can Improve Student Learning", from the independent think tank, the Grattan Institute.

Dr Pete Goss, Director of the Institute's School Education Program, spoke to The Learning Capacity Podcast about the report.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

"When we build a student's Learning Capacity by using appropriate, validated neuroscience-based brain training exercises, is this the same as accelerated learning?"

An educator, who had read our blog, NAPLAN 2015: How Fast is it Possible to Improve Literacy & Numeracy?  asked this question recently. She was concerned about possible negative consequences for students who are pushed too hard to accelerate their learning, and wondered if improving the students' ability to learn could 'backfire'.

She said,"Unfortunately people consider ‘accelerated’ learning to be the answer to poor student performance. But this is counterproductive in the long term. I have seen too many students suffer from ‘burnout’ by they time finish high school, because they have been subjected to high performance syndrome and have lost motivation to continue learnng. They have been stretched prematurely".