[B]iology is becoming more important for learning about learning. Along with cognitive science, Fischer says, “It is laying the groundwork that will eventually transform education.”
My hypothesis: Collaboration of academics enriches each field collectively and separately more than treating each as a separate entity.
My hypothesis: Collaboration of academics enriches each field collectively and separately more than treating each as a separate entity.
The American education system faces a tragic paradox: we have the world's most advanced research in psychology, neuroscience, and educational methods, yet we perennially mire among the bottom of developed countries in the quality of our K-12 education. How is it that we know so much about teaching, but are still so poor at it? The problem is one of communication between researchers and educators: it takes decades for advances in the science of learning to be implemented in the classroom. Often, notes disabilities consultant Dorothy van den Honert, the findings are not even passed on at all.
But what if programs implemented change now, instead of 10 years later? That’s exactly what Harvard University’s Mind, Brain & Education field is looking into today, and has been for the last four years. The International Mind, Brain and Education Society (IMBES) also brings together researchers and practitioners to further development in this much needed area.
Specifically, IMBES’s mission is to facilitate cross-cultural collaboration in biology, education and the cognitive and developmental sciences. Science and practice will benefit from rich, bi-directional interaction. As research contributes to usable knowledge for education, practice can help to define promising research directions and contribute to the refinement of testable hypotheses.
Currently, Innovations Academy is looking to partner with IMBES and Harvard’s Mind, Brain and Education department. In collaborating and contributing, we hope to give back by furthering research directions, and then by designing assessment measures and observational methods, which we can then use to offer data on the application of these programs.
Locally, we have been looking to collaborate with the Center for Behavioral Teratology at SDSU (CBT) to look at how we can implement neurological testing which will help us as educators and staff to better facilitate learning for our students. Furthermore, we hope to be able to help research institutes (like CBT) to find participants for their studies.
In my private practice (when I’m not working on this great project!) I use the neurological testing offered by CBT to inform myself about how my students cognitively function. For example, if I notice that they test high on verbal memory but not on visual memory, I’ll try to teach as much to their strength as possible. After students have this testing, as an educator I come in with a more thorough understanding of what strategies I’m going to use with them. It’s more than learning styles, it’s matching their cognitive makeup.
The connection between mind, brain, and education is a very important aspect of Innovations Academy. In the future, we look forward to attending conferences and partnering with research institutes so that the latest publications can be brought into practice in our community. “A better understanding of the role that timing plays in human learning could lead to improved teaching technique and alter the trajectories of countless human lives,” says Dr. Garrison W. Cottrell, a researcher who brings neuroscience and education together. Furthermore, he states in his article, “What brings us all together is a realization of the important role of time in learning. We are studying everything from ‘spike-time dependent plasticity’ - our current best guess at how neurons learn - to the timing of social interactions between teachers and students.”
Why is this collaboration important? Because we are not closed systems, neurology isn’t separate from psychology or education, or vice versa. This partnering of sciences and education is called Translational Research. If we continue to treat fields separately, the education researchers will hopefully come to similar conclusions…but years, is way too late.
If you are a researcher, academic, or community member interested in partnering with our community, please contact us.
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