Category Archives: Echos de la recherche

fév 11 0 comments
Echos de la recherche

Department of Education, Darmouth College: Educational Neuroscience now

A rather explicit and optimistic view of the positive effects of joining the efforts of neurosciences and education, academic research and practice in the classroom comes from the Department of Education of the Darmouth College.

Extraordinary discoveries about how children grow, acquire language, think, reason, learn a variety of skills and knowledge (including reading, math, and science), and how they conceptualize their social, emotional, and moral worlds, have yielded a revolution within the discipline of Education. Researchers have begun to converge on an educationally important set of basic mechanisms that dynamically interact and change over time. This research has taught us the best points of entry for teaching, motivating, and learning specific content at specific ages across development. Much of this research is coming from our understanding of the developing and learning brain. Furthermore, contemporary research is showing us that the growing child’s social context is vital: Families, communities, and schools have the potential to influence positively children’s development through systematic and well-timed interventions. This exciting new research endeavor is called Educational Neuroscience.

The web site describes the existence, and the participation of the Department of Education of Darmouth College to, what is called the “MBE Approach”: Mind, Brain, and Education:

The interdisciplinary approach to understanding the developing and learning child from multiple perspectives taken by the Department is not unique, although Dartmouth may be the only undergraduate institution with a Department of Education committed to MBE. A number of leading schools have similar programs connecting psychology, neuroscience, and educational practice; for example, the Harvard University Graduate School of Education Mind, Brain, and Education Program, the Centre for Neuroscience in Education at the University of Cambridge, and the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center, a collaboration between the University of Washington and Stanford University, among others. Internationally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is committed to fostering links between rigorous research and educational practice, as is the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society.

This trend seems to be considered as related to the recommendation made by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, hence to an institutional indication to provide teachers with knwoledge concerning students’ mental development:

In June 2008 the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) convened an expert panel to make recommendations to teacher educators about how principles of child and adolescent development are taught, integrated, and applied within teacher education programs and to make recommendations to policymakers about “changing the culture of schools to include scientific knowledge about child and adolescent development.”

fév 11 0 comments
Echos de la recherche

NSF & The Learning Centers

In the US, the Science of Learning centers Program of the US National Science Foundation sustains 6 Science of Learning Centers:

  • Center for Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) (see older post)
  • Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center for Robust Learning (PSLC) “The Science of Learning Centers Program supports multidisciplinary efforts to advance fundamental knowledge about learning in humans, other animals, and machines. The goals of the program are to make transformative advances in learning through integrated research, and to connect the knowledge to education, technology and workforce challenges.”).Specifically, The Pittsburgh Science of Learning Centers (PSLC) two main goals are to enhance scientific understanding of robust learning in educational settings and to create a research facility to support field-based experimentation, data collection and data mining. PSLC is advancing both basic research on learning in knowledge-rich settings and applied research by contributing to a scientific basis for the design and engineering of educational approaches that should have a broad and lasting effect on student achievement. In many studies of learning and in many educational settings, learning is assessed immediately following instruction using test items like those presented in instruction. In contrast to such immediate learning assessment, we seek methods to produce and measure robust learning, by which we mean learning that is retained for long durations, transfers to novel situations, or aids future learning (Barnett & Ceci, 2002; Bransford & Schwartz, 1999; Singley & Anderson, 1989). In contrast to the education wars that have plagued progress in the learning sciences and in educational practice, we do not pit foundational skill building against sense-making and conceptual understanding, but instead believe we must address both to improve robust learning. These wars continue, in part, because we do not have adequate scientific basis to guide educational decision-making. We need rigorous, sustained scientific research in education, as called for by the National Research Council (Shavelson & Towne, 2002), and a key part of such sustained research is to better unify and integrate the proliferating variety of todays educational and learning science theories. As the saying goes, many theories in the learning sciences are like your toothbrush: everyone has one and no one uses anyone elses. Amongst the group’s publications, a large number deals with tutoring systems.
  • Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC). The Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC) brings together scientists and educators from Temple University, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to pursue the overarching goals of Understanding spatial learning, Using this knowledge to develop programs and technologies that will transform educational practice, helping learners to develop the skills required to compete in a global economy.
  • The Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (TLC). TDLC is a Science of Learning Center (SLC), one of six SLCs funded by the National Science Foundation. The purpose of TDLC is to understand how the element of time and timing is critical for learning, and to apply this understanding to improve educational practice. Our aim is to achieve an integrated understanding of the role of time and timing in learning, across multiple scales, brain systems, and social systems. The scientific goal of the center is therefore to understand the temporal dynamics of learning, and to apply this understanding to improve educational practice.
  • Visual Language and Visual Learning Center (VL2). The purpose of VL2 is to gain a greater understanding of the biological, cognitive, linguistic, sociocultural, and pedagogical conditions that influence the acquisition of language and knowledge through the visual modality.
  • CELEST. Center of excellence for learning in education, science and technology. CELEST seeks to understand the fundamental processes that underlie human learning by studying dynamic interactions within and among brain regions. Interdisciplinary research teams study how the brain learns to Plan, Explore, Communicate and Remember...CELEST is creating a new paradigm for educating graduate and undergraduate students in systems neuroscience by connecting biological knowledge about brains to an understanding of intelligent behavior through neural and computational models. Project teams will combine efforts across the modalities of modeling, experimentation, and technology transfer.

fév 11 0 comments
Echos de la recherche

Brain, Neurosciences, and Education a SIG of the American Educational Research Association

They claim to be the oldest organization to have put a bridge between neurosciences and education: it is the Brain, Neurosciences, and Education Special Group of Interest of the American Educational Research Association.

The Brain, Neurosciences, and Education SIG, formed in 1988 as the Psychophysiology and Education SIG, is the oldest organizational entity specifically dedicated to linking research in the neurosciences and education. It is also the only organizational group in the world which annually hosts a peer-reviewed venue for authors to present papers linking research and theory in the neurosciences and education.

Our group’s purpose is to promote an understanding of neuroscience research within the educational community. We hope to achieve this goal by promoting neuroscience research that has implications for educational practice and by providing a forum for the issues and controversies connecting these two fields.

The website has not been updated since 2006.

The current officers are David Wodrich, Arizona State University, and Jeffrey Gilger, Purdue University.

fév 11 0 comments
Echos de la recherche

Usable knowledge (HGSE): science of learning and evidence-based education

Usable Knowledge is a nice set of video and text resources for a large public from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Some examples:

In the section Learning and development, one can find domains such as Learning and the brain (featuring in particular Kurt Fischer’s programme on Mind, Brain, and Education), Learning by doing, Utilizing new and emerging technology.

But there is also a section about Decision through data, especially devoted to the idea of  Evidence-based Education and to the problems of evaluation and evidence that are at the core of the What works in Education/no child left behind USA prograe for testable results. With a useful view on charter, pilot and traditional schools in the US. And a very nice “lesson” from Judith Singer adn Beth Gamse concerning the concept of randomized experimentation in schools:

Get the whole story »

fév 11 0 comments
Echos de la recherche

Mind, Brain, and Education: the Journal and the Society

Going back to Mind, Brain, and Education topic (see the last post), Kurt Fischer is also editor of the Journal Mind, Brain, and Education, and  founder president of the IMBES:

The mission of the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES) is to facilitate cross-cultural collaboration in all fields that are relevant to connecting mind, brain, and education in research, theory, and/or practice.

The idea:

The connection between education and research should not be one-way. Instead, two-way, reciprocal relationships must be made, where practitioners and researchers work together to formulate research questions and methods that will move both science and teaching forward. This two-way collaboration is the only way that education can benefit from the kind of usable knowledge regularly created in fields like medicine.

The Society has held 2 conferences:

2007 Mind, Brain, and Education: The Nature of Human Learning and How Educational Policy Can Profit from Research. All the presentations are available in pdf. See for instance the presentation of Kurt Fischer

2009

The journal has opened its doors in 2007:

On April 2nd, 2007, Wiley-Blackwell celebrated the premiere issue of Mind, Brain, and Education with a reception at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During the celebration Kurt Fischer (Harvard University), Howard Gardner (Harvard University), Maryanne Wolf (Tufts University), and Stanislas Dehaene (Collège de France) discussed their recent findings regarding how brain science informs educational practice. Two of the speakers also contributed to the first issue of Mind, Brain, and Education. You can access these articles for free online:

Why Mind, Brain, and Education? Why Now?
Kurt W. Fischer, David B. Daniel, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Elsbeth Stern, Antonio Battro, and Hideaki Koizumi (Editors)

A Few Steps Toward a Science of Mental Life
Stanislas Dehaene

fév 11 0 comments
Echos de la recherche

Mind, Brain, and Education: Harvard School of Education

The Harvard Graduate School of Education hosts a special program on Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE): a master (eventually doctoral program) on cognitive sciences (as a matter of fact not only neurosciences but rather a varied set of disciplines) and education.

The master’s program in Mind, Brain, and Education is designed for students interested in connecting cognition, neuroscience, and educational practice, especially involving learning, teaching, and cognitive and emotional development. This intersection of biology and cognitive science with pedagogy has become a new focus in education and public policy in the current Age of Biology. Linked to the Harvard Initiative on Mind, Brain, and Behavior (MBB), the program is strongly interdisciplinary, including not only psychology, pedagogy, and neuroscience, but also philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, computer science, and other relevant disciplines.

The idea: that mind, brain and education is a new field that can inform educational practice

The Mind, Brain, and Education Program’s (MBE) broadest mission is to create a new field of mind, brain, and education, with educators and researchers who expertly join biology, cognitive science, and education. The immediate mission is to train students in this new field both (a) to return to schools and other educational settings where they can use this new knowledge in educational practice and (b) to become researchers with deep knowledge of both biological/cognitive science and education who can therefore create a research base grounded in this new union of knowledge.

What’s behind this program?

The director of the Program is Kurt Fischer. Kurt Fischer is strongly commited to the idea of a double-way collaboration between education and neurosciences, and a proposer of a device called Research Schools

“The goal of this program is to build a new kind of school-university partnership that provides a solid, long-term foundation for meaningful connection of research and practice,” Fischer says. “In the same way that teaching hospitals ground biological research in medical practice, Research Schools will ground educational research in school practice.”

Here is one of his publications on the general theme of a match between neurosciences and education:

Fischer, K.W., & Immordino-Yang, M.H. The fundamental importance of the brain and learning for education. In Jossey-Bass reader on the brain and learning (pp. xvii-xi). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (2008).

And here are some resources (texts and videos) available from the web site of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) Usable knowledge page, a special section being devoted to Learning and the Brain:

Beginning in the brain: Pioneering the field of educational neuroscience Bruno della Chiesa (OECD, visiting at HGSE)
What’s the brain got to do with it? Kurt Fischer
How education can change the brain Antonio Damasio
Skills and the brain grow together Kurt Fischer
The flexible brain Kurt Fischer
Are people more than just their brains? Kurt Fischer and Antonio Damasio

fév 10 0 comments
Echos de la recherche

Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington

A demonstration of the growing interest for learning and the brain, an institute of University of Washington which is explicitly dedicated to the development of interdisciplinary research on learning sciences, in order to achieve better results in education:

(see the video)

“The Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences is an interdisciplinary center dedicated to discovering the fundamental principles of human learning that will enable all children to achieve their full potential. Our goal is to become the world’s foremost research generator on early learning and development. We will translate and disseminate cutting-edge research discoveries to global constituents in order to help unify the science of learning and the practice of learning.”

Directors of the institute are Patricia K. Kuhl, UW professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences, and Dr. Andrew N. Meltzoff, UW professor of Psychology.

“Dr. Kuhl’s research focuses on how infant and adult brains process language. In breakthrough studies, she has demonstrated that early exposure to language alters the mechanisms of perception, producing a ‘neural commitment’ to one’s native language. Her findings have advanced our understanding of critical periods in learning.”

“Dr. Meltzoff’s research focuses on cognitive development and social understanding in infants, children, and adults. His pioneering work has demonstrated the importance of role models in human development and their profound effect on learning. His discoveries have revolutionized our thinking about memory development and deepened our understanding about the roots of social cognition. ”

Both are authors of a recent paper appeared on Science. The paper proposes the model for a new science of learning:

Meltzoff AN, Kuhl PK, Movellan J, Sejnowski TJ. Foundations for a new science of learning. Science 2009 July 19; 325(5938):284-288.

fév 10 0 comments
Echos de la recherche

David Pelhoff, Johns Hopkins School of Education on Games in Education

As Program Director for the Emerging Technologies at CTE, Mr. Peloff guides and coordinates development of online tools to support CTE’s work in all of its major grants and projects. Mr. Peloff is co-inventor of two electronic tools licensed by Johns Hopkins University, the Electronic Learning Community (ELC) and the Electronic Portfolio (EP). He continues to work on the functional enhancement of these and other CTE tools. Mr. Peloff also teaches in the JHU Technology for Educators program, and has been an adjunct instructor since 1997. Before joining CTE, Mr. Peloff was Program Director of LEARN NC at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he helped design and develop a statewide electronic performance support system for teachers across North Carolina and taught undergraduate courses in technology integration for UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Education.

fév 02 0 comments
Echos de la recherche

Marc Prensky

Marc Prensky is an internationally acclaimed speaker, writer, consultant, and designer in the critical areas of education and learning. He is the author of

Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning (Corwin 2010)

Don’t Bother Me Mom — I’m Learning (Paragon House 2005)

Digital Game-Based Learning (McGraw-Hill, 2001).

Marc is the founder and CEO of Games2train (whose clients include IBM, Nokia, Pfizer, the US Department of Defense and the L.A. and Florida Virtual Schools) and creator of the sites www.dodgamecommunity.com and www.socialimpactgames.com.

Marc has created over 50 software games for learning, including the world’s first fast-action videogame-based training tools and world-wide, multi-player, multi-team on-line competitions. He has also taught at all levels. Marc has been featured in articles in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and the BBC, and was named as one of training’s top 10 “visionaries” by Training magazine. He holds graduate degrees from Yale (Teaching) and Harvard (MBA).

Marc Prensky weblog

Marc Prensky Readings

The companion web site to Don’t bother me mom - I’m learning: Games Parents Teachers

fév 02 0 comments
Echos de la recherche

Bibliohtèque Compas. Don’t bother me mom - I’m learning (Marc Prensky)

This book is associated to a web site where can be found indications about how to use commercial off-the-shelf video games in education:

Games Parents Teachers

The book is intended to a large public. But more specifically to parents and teachers who might be afraid that their children are spending too much time (or just spending their time) at playing video games. Prensky wishes to reassure his readers that video games are not bad at all for the mental health of young players. For doing this, he largely draws on James Paul Gee’s work, and on his own observations concerning what children do when they play a VG. The message that parents are intended to take home is:  playing with VG is a positive rather than negative activity for children, a learning activity aimed at non-curricular but useful acquisitions, and this is true even for non-education, even for violent games.

“But the kids, it turns out, are right! You’ve been bamboozed into thinking all this game playing is bad! Kids ought to be playing these games and you ought to be encouraging them (within limits, of course) to play! Why? Because they are learning! Not only that, but almost all their learning is positive. IN fact, I claim that your kids are almost certainly learning more positive, useful things for their future from their video and computer games than they learn in school!” (p. 4)

It must be said that Prensky seldom cites hard evidence in order to ground his observations and tenants, rather preferring anecdotical evidence:

“Want your kids to grow up to be surgeons? - Let them play video games. Dr. james Rosser, the doctor in charge of laparoscopic surgery training at New York City Beth israel Hospital, found that doctors who had played videogames earlier in their lives made almost forty percent fewer mistakes in surgery!” (p. 7)

Here are listed some of the reasons Prensky advances in order to defend his position about the learning advantages of playing VG:

Get the whole story »