The Learning Success Blog

There has been a surge of interest in meditation in recent years due to mounting scientific evidence and research that links regular meditation with improved physical and mental health and well-being.   

Meditation has a great deal of brain boosting effect also, including improved memory, attention span and learning capabilities. This article will explore the ways in which meditation can improve learning.

Improved problem-solving abilities

Studies show that practicing meditation can help us become more creative and flexible in our thinking. This in turn improves our ability to problem-solve and conceive of novel or original ideas.

What is STEM and why did it become STEAM?  

I asked John Burfoot, a STEAM teacher in a New South Wales Primary school to explain and we recorded our chat as an episode of The Learning Capacity Podcast.         

John also told me about how STEAM lessons enable students to learn valuable 'soft' life skills, as well as technical and technological skills.

His journey from a student who failed all his final high school exams to a degree qualified teacher is inspirational, and can serve as a reminder to students that their lives are not defined by what marks they achieve in school exams.

He worked as an electronics apprentice, a job in avionics, and making explosives for special effects in films before realising his passion is teaching.

How do you communicate complex information in a way that people unfamiliar with the subject's jargon can understand it? 

How do teams of experts from different disciplines communicate with each other? 

Dr Judy Ford, retired genetics expert and now a communications specialist, spoke to The Learning Capacity Podcast about ways to overcome these challenges.

She has been working with PhD students to help them navigate through their PhDs, and this includes how to communicate in writing and especially speaking.  

In the Podcast she talks about the Three Minute Thesis Competition in which students have only three minutes to communicate the ideas that are important in their PhDs.

Too much sugar, especially from soft drinks, may damage your child’s learning ability and memory.

That’s the finding from a study of the diets of more than 1000 pregnant women and their children.  The study included assessments of the children’s cognitive skills at ages 3 and 7.

This research, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, suggests there may be learning benefits from reducing the sugar intake of women during pregnancy and limiting sugar consumption by their young children.  

Key findings include:

New research shows behaviour in high school is a stronger predictor than IQ or socio-economic background of better jobs and higher income.  

The research has been published by the American Psychological Association based on data collected from 346,660 U.S. high school students in 1960 and follow up research 11 and 50 years later.

The 1960 high school phase measured a variety of student behaviours and attitudes as well as personality traits, cognitive abilities, parental socioeconomic status and demographic factors.

The follow-up surveys measured overall educational attainment, income and occupational prestige.

Do you know what it feels like to be discriminated against, to be excluded?

I hope you don’t, it’s not nice.

It happened to me recently.  A travel insurance company told me they would not renew the annual travel insurance policy I’d had for years.

The reason?  I’ve had a birthday.  I’m a year older, and they don’t insure people my age on that policy.

Every day in our schools some kids feel discriminated against, feel excluded.  Because they are different in some way from the group. They may be physically different. They might have learning challenges and can’t keep up with the rest of the class.

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.

More than 730,000 children in Australia are living below the poverty line.

These disadvantaged children are at risk of having their learning compromised.

The Poverty in Australia 2016 Report, released last week, found the number of children living in poverty is increasing.

The report was written by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) in collaboration with the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.

Find out how poverty and disadvantage can disrupt learning – see this infographic (courtesy of We Are Teachers and Scientific Learning Corporation).

Dr David Rabiner, Research Professor at Duke University, USA is a world recognised expert on attention and ADHD.

He has developed a new approach to attention training called Nervanix Insight.  It uses neurofeedback (also known as EEG Biofeedback) to monitor and train attention skills.

According to scientific research, neurofeedback is the nonmedical approach for developing attention skills that has the strongest evidence for its effectiveness.

Traditional neurofeedback approaches generally use game-like activities that don’t have much resemblance to academic tasks that students need to focus on.

I have been having an ongoing 8 episode discussion with educational consultant, Simon Brooks about Cultures of Thinking. This is an educational framework that emerged from the work of Ron Ritchhart and the Project Zero team at Harvard University.

In each of the discussions we delve into the 8 cultural forces that, according to Ron Ritchhart, we must master in order to truly transform our schools.

In this episode, part 6, I discuss the cultural force of 'routines' with Simon, who spent years implementing cultures of thinking into his classrooms. I asked Simon if routines are more than just another classroom activity. 

This is Part 6 of the 8 part series with Simon Brooks about implementing cultures of thinking in our schools.

Listen to the podcast.