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.