The Learning Success Blog

“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

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"Can you please pay attention?"

How often have you, as a teacher or parent, said this?

I'm sure you've done it many times, because you know that your message will not get through to the listener unless they pay attention.

Neuroscientist and attention expert, Dr Steve Miller spoke to The Learning Capacity Podcast about attention and learning, how we need to turn our brain’s attention spotlight on, and how this essential learning skill can be developed.

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“The results have been quite phenomenal. It's just been amazing to watch”

That's how Dr Con Kafataris described the changes he saw in his nine-year-old son George after the Fast ForWord program.

Dr Kafataris was speaking with The Learning Capacity Podcast about George’s language and learning difficulties, the improvements following George’s participation in the program, and why he decided that his six year old daughter, Eleni, should also do the neuroscience based exercises.

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George’s parents had known since he was about three years old that his language was delayed.

There’s quite a bit of talk going on these days about the emergence of neuroscience in education. Some people are even talking about a scientific model of education, and not just pedagogy (the method of teaching).

But what is educational neuroscience - are there programs that schools can implement which deliver the principles of this science in a practical way?

The Learning Capacity Podcast has produced a 3 part mini series in which two teachers and a parent tell their stories about how they implemented an educational neuroscience program, and the results they got.

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Do you ever think much about thinking?

For most of us, busy with our day to day lives at home and at work, this is probably not something we do often. But is it a useful thing to do? 

Two teachers (an English teacher and a visual arts teacher) asked The Learning Capacity Podcast questions about thinking, and these sparked a discussion about the concept of critical thinking with Dr Martha Burns, Director of Neuroscience Education at Scientific Learning Corporation. 

What is critical thinking?

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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.

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

Maths is not fun......

Most of us easily and naturally use language, but when it comes to maths many people struggle, and find it is not so “natural” to work in numbers or maths concepts. Why is that?

Do we have brains that are wired for language from birth, but not for maths? Or is there such a thing as a “maths brain”? Do some of us have it while some don't, and if we don’t, how do we activate it?

Dr Martha Burns, expert in the neuroscience of learning, author of over 100 journal articles and three books, and Director of Neuroscience Education at Scientific Learning Corporation answered these questions in a conversation on The Learning Capacity Podcast.

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She explains: “One way to think of it is that maths is a different language. It involves a different symbol system.

Teachers do much more than just teach - they build student brains. 

This is the message from Dr Martha Burns, professor of communication sciences and disorders at Northwestern University, in a podcast episode on The Learning Capacity Podcast.

Dr Burns discusses the new science of learning, and how it involves educational neuroscience and understanding individual differences in children. 

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“The single biggest thing that a parent can give their child is the encouragement to do better, and not give them limiting beliefs about their ability or what they could achieve”.

This is an opinion expressed by David Stanley, former math teacher and now Director of Learning Ecosystems Growth at Learn Fast Australia, in a wide ranging two part interview on the Learning Capacity Podcast.

 In the first part David discussed rote learning of maths tables, how this can improve a student’s learning capacity, the role of parents in helping students set goals, and the educational power of celebrating success.

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Recently, educator Colin Klupiec recorded our conversation where he teased out my understanding of how memorising maths tables can help students build learning capacity and the importance of the role played by parents. It is recorded in two parts on the Learning Capacity Podcast with the key points summarised below.

We discussed some findings from the neuroscientists around brain plasticity - the cognitive neuroscience and how it relates to what some people may think is a bit old-fashioned – rote learning, or learning by repetition.

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