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Greg Ashman is enthusiastic about research, and yet skeptical about\u00a0innovation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ashman\u2019s argument resonates with me in large measure because it helps explain the power of Mind, Brain, Education as an approach to teaching.<\/p>\n Of course, MBE does offer its own specific pedagogical suggestions. For example:\u00a0if you\u2019ve spent any time at Learning and the Brain conferences, you know the benefits of active recall. (Both Ian Kelleher<\/a> and Scott MacClintic<\/a> have blogged on this topic recently.)<\/p>\n The Bigger Picture<\/strong><\/p>\n More broadly, MBE gives teachers a consistent rubric with which we can measure the value of many other pedagogical approaches<\/u>. Here\u2019s what I mean:<\/p>\n Is project based learning<\/em> a good idea? How about flipped classrooms<\/em>? Service learning<\/em>? 1-to-1 laptop<\/em> programs? Design thinking? <\/em>\u00a0Or, the new idea that will inevitably surface tomorrow?<\/p>\n If you\u2019re being encouraged to try one of these approaches, it can be hard to know how to measure its effectiveness. All of them have research (of some kind or another) showing how beneficial they are. All of them have enthusiastic endorsements by earnest-seeming teachers. All of them have books and conferences and websites and \u2026 I don\u2019t know \u2026 Ben & Jerry\u2019s flavors named after them.<\/p>\n But: do they all work? How can they \u2013 some seem to conflict with each other.<\/p>\n The more you know about MBE, however, the more tools you have that allow you to make consistent comparisons.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what I mean\u2026<\/p>\n The First Tool in the Toolbox<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019ve learned about working memory<\/em> at an LaTB conference, then you already know it is a short-term memory capacity that allows people to hold several pieces of information, and then reorganize and combine them into some new pattern.<\/p>\n For example: if I ask you to put the 6 New England states into alphabetical order, you have to hold all six names in your memory, and then reorganize them in a particular way. That\u2019s working memory.<\/p>\n You may also know that working memory is very small; you can probably alphabetize 6 states, but you couldn\u2019t do sixteen \u2013 at least, not without writing them down.<\/p>\n Once you understand even a few simple facts about working memory, then you can use that MBE knowledge to analyze all of the pedagogies listed above.<\/p>\n Is project-based learning a good idea? Well: what might it do to working memory?<\/p>\n Do 1-to-1 laptop programs increase or reduce working memory demands?<\/p>\n In other words: now you have a consistent criterion<\/em> \u2013 one you can use to analyze all new proposals that come across your doorstep.<\/p>\n More Where That Came From<\/strong><\/p>\n Michael Posner\u2019s work on attention<\/em> provides an equally useful yardstick. It might tell you, for example, whether flipped classrooms are likely to enhance or diffuse attention. (Or, more likely, both\u2026)<\/p>\n So too Carol Dweck\u2019s work on mindset<\/em>, and Claude Steele\u2019s work on stereotype threat<\/em>. And Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang\u2019s work on emotion<\/em>.<\/p>\n And so: MBE allows you both<\/em> to learn about specific psychology- and neuroscience-based teaching strategies and<\/em> to develop a system for measuring all the other pedagogical proposals that crowd your inbox.<\/p>\n As Ashman implies: research helps us not only because it allows<\/em> innovation, but also because allows consistent, skeptical analysis<\/em> of innovation. Our students will benefit from both.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Greg Ashman is enthusiastic about research, and yet skeptical about\u00a0innovation. Ashman\u2019s argument resonates with me in large measure because it helps explain the power of Mind, Brain, Education as an approach to teaching. Of course, MBE does offer its own specific pedagogical suggestions. For example:\u00a0if you\u2019ve spent any time at Learning and the Brain conferences, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":1798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,30],"class_list":["post-1778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-skepticism","tag-working-memory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1778"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1801,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778\/revisions\/1801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}