Alvaro and I had the good for­tune to attend a great con­fer­ence last week called Learn­ing & The Brain: Enhanc­ing Cog­ni­tion and Emo­tions for Learn­ing. It was a fas­ci­nat­ing mix of neu­ro­sci­en­tists and edu­ca­tors talk­ing with and lis­ten­ing to each other. Some top­ics were meant to be applied today, but many were food for thought — insight on where sci­ence and edu­ca­tion are headed and how they influ­ence each other.

Using dra­matic new imag­ing tech­niques, such as fMRIs, PET, and SPECT, neu­ro­sci­en­tists are gain­ing valu­able infor­ma­tion about learn­ing. This pio­neer­ing knowl­edge is lead­ing not only to new ped­a­go­gies, but also to new med­ica­tions, brain enhance­ment tech­nolo­gies, and ther­a­pies.… The Con­fer­ence cre­ates an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary forum — a meet­ing place for neu­ro­sci­en­tists, edu­ca­tors, psy­chol­o­gists, clin­i­cians, and par­ents — to exam­ine these new research find­ings with respect to their applic­a­bil­ity in the class­room and clin­i­cal practice.

Take-aways

• Humans are a mix­ture of cog­ni­tion and emo­tion, and both ele­ments are essen­tial to func­tion and learn properly
• Edu­ca­tors and pub­lic pol­icy mak­ers need to learn more about the brain, how it grows, and how to cul­ti­vate it
• Stu­dents of all ages need to be both chal­lenged and nur­tured in order to succeed
• Peo­ple learn dif­fer­ently — try to teach and learn through as many dif­fer­ent modal­i­ties as pos­si­ble (engage lan­guage, motor skills, artis­tic cre­ation, social inter­ac­tion, sen­sory input, etc.)
• While short-term stress can heighten your cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, long term stress kills you — you need to find bal­ance and release
• Test anx­i­ety and sub­se­quent poor test results can be improved with behav­ioral train­ing with feed­back based on heart rate variability
• Dr. Robert Sapol­sky is a very very enlight­en­ing and fun speaker
• Allow time for rest and con­sol­i­da­tion of learned material
• Emo­tional mem­o­ries are eas­ier to remember
• Con­fer­ences like these per­form a real ser­vice in fos­ter­ing dia­logues between sci­en­tists and educators

The ses­sions were bro­ken into sev­eral subtopics:

ENHANCING THE BRAIN, COGNITION & EDUCATION
Top­ics included: neu­roethics, school readi­ness, “back to basics” ver­sus “dis­cov­ery learn­ing”, func­tional neu­roimag­ing, the Six Devel­op­men­tal Path­ways of phys­i­cal, cog­ni­tive, lan­guage, social, eth­i­cal, and psy­cho­log­i­cal skills

Speak­ers included: Michael S. Gaz­zaniga, Ph.D., Kurt W. Fis­cher, Ph.D., John D.E. Gabrieli, Ph.D., Linda Darling-Hammond, Ed.D., Daniel L. Schwartz, Ph.D., Jeb Schenck, Ph.D., Ross A. Thomp­son, Ph.D., Fay E. Brown, Ph.D., and Mar­i­ale M. Hardi­man, Ed.D.

MOOD, LEARNING & GENDER DIFFERENCES
Top­ics included: chronic stress, bipo­lar dis­or­der, ADHD, autism, learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties, sex dif­fer­ences in learn­ing, and creativity

Speak­ers included: Robert M. Sapol­sky, Ph.D., Kay Red­field Jami­son, Ph.D., Stephen P. Hin­shaw, Ph.D., Bryna Siegel, Ph.D., Kiki D. Chang, M.D., Michael Gurian, M.A., Sam Gold­stein, Ph.D., Lawrence H. Diller, M.D., and Ter­ence A. Ket­ter, M.D.

ENHANCING MEMORY AND EMOTIONS
Top­ics included: mir­ror neu­rons, stress, anx­i­ety, emo­tions, phar­ma­co­logic manip­u­la­tions of mem­ory, emo­tional events, sex dif­fer­ences, and “brain-considerate” learn­ing envi­ron­ments, social func­tion­ing, deci­sion mak­ing, moti­va­tion, achieve­ment, positive-emotion refocusing

Speak­ers included: Ken­neth A.Wesson, Ph.D., Ken­neth S. Kosik, M.D., Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., Larry Cahill, Ph.D., Mary Fowler, M.A., Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Ed.D., Ed.M., and Robert Syl­wester, Ed.D.

NEUROSCIENCE, LANGUAGE & READING
Top­ics included: read­ing dis­or­ders, dyslexia, assess­ment, instruc­tional strate­gies, the achieve­ment gap, and inte­gra­tion of visual, audi­tory, and lan­guage information

Speak­ers included: Brian A.Wandell, Ph.D., Con­nie Juel, Ph.D., and Steven G. Feifer, Ed.D., NCSP.

THE ARTS, MUSIC & COGNITION
Top­ics included: artis­tic process ver­sus art con­tent, effects of music on cog­ni­tive per­for­mance, and the gen­er­al­iz­abil­ity of of artis­tic abil­i­ties to cog­ni­tive abilities

Speak­ers included: James S. Cat­ter­all, Ph.D. and Frances H. Rauscher, Ph.D.

Con­fer­ence Co-Sponsors:

• Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity School of Education
• Har­vard Grad­u­ate School of Edu­ca­tion, Mind, Brain & Edu­ca­tion Program
• Yale School of Med­i­cine, Comer School Devel­op­ment Pro­gram, Child Study Center
• Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Santa Bar­bara, Neu­ro­science Research Institute
• The Dana Foun­da­tion, Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives
• Boston Uni­ver­sity School of Education
• Pub­lic Infor­ma­tion Resources, Inc. (PIRI)
• National Asso­ci­a­tion of Sec­ondary School Prin­ci­pals (NASSP)

Fur­ther Reading

• Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Training
• An ape can do this. Can we not? An Inter­view with Dr. James Zull
• Life­long learn­ing, lit­er­ally: neu­ro­plas­tic­ity for stu­dents, boomers, seniors…
• Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science and Edu­ca­tion Today

Save the Date! April 28–30, 2007 is the next con­fer­ence, Learn­ing & The Brain — Mold­ing Minds: How to Shape the Devel­op­ing Brain for Learn­ing & Achieve­ment, in Cam­bridge, Mass. We will post more infor­ma­tion about this con­fer­ence shortly.

Be Socia­ble, Share!

•