Neuroscience & the Classroom: Making Connections

Professional Development > Neuroscience & the Classroom: Making Connections > 5. Building New Neural Networks > 5.1 Dynamic Skill Development

Education

K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12, College/Adult

Dynamic Skill Development

Neuroscientist Kurt Fischer discovered how, each time students advance to the next stage of mastery, there is a surge of growth of new neural networks in the brain.

Harvard Professor Kurt Fischer has combined several avenues of research to converge on a model for learning that links stages of development—beginning with actions, then moving to representations, and finally arriving at abstractions—across all disciplines. Using neuro-imaging tools, he has shown that students’ advances to the next stage are accompanied by a surge of growth in new neural networks that follow a predictable pattern in the brain.

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Neuroscience & the Classroom: Making Connections

Credits

Produced by Science Media Group at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in association with the Mind, Brain, and Education program at the Harvard GSE; and the Brain and Creativity Institute and Rossier SOE at the University of Southern California. 2012.

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ISBN: 1-57680-894-7

Sections

5.1 Dynamic Skill Development

Neuroscientist Kurt Fischer discovered how, each time students advance to the next stage of mastery, there is a surge of growth of new neural networks in the brain.

5.2 DiscoTests: A New Approach to Assessment

Kurt Fischer's developmental approach informs "DiscoTest:" a diagnostic way for assessing knowledge across grade levels.

5.3 Johanna and Her Mother

A baby, Johanna, demonstrates problem solving and communication skills, recruiting her mother's help to solve a simple problem.

5.4 Scaffolding: Johanna and Her Mother with Commentary

Using the video of Johanna and her mother as illustration, Prof. Kurt Fischer explains the role of scaffolding in learning.

Course Guide: Unit 5: Building New Neural Networks

Course Guide

Units

Unit 0 Introduction: The Art and Science of Teaching

The introduction lays out the goals of the course, defines a partnership between teachers and scientists, and suggests a method that teachers can use to apply research to classroom challenges.

unit 1 Different Brains

We all have different brains, different profiles of cognitive strengths and weaknesses that affect how we perceive and solve problems. Two dramatic success stories of boys missing half their brain provide insight into how all of us learn and suggest new ways to think about teaching.

unit 2 The Unity of Emotion, Thinking, and Learning

Emotion, thinking and learning are inseparable. Emotion is the rudder for thought and the key to memory. This unit explores the purposes of emotions by answering the questions, what is emotion, and why do we have it? The unit provides insight into motivation and the role of intuition in problem-solving.

unit 3 Seeing Others from the Self

We understand the goals of others by simulating their actions on our own neural systems. This unit looks at mirror neurons, empathy, and the social nature of learning. It also discusses the need to align teacher and student goals in the classroom and the importance of reflection, or inner-directed attention, in developing meaning and motivation.

unit 4 Different Learners, Different Minds

This unit challenges us to reconsider labels like "normal" and "disabled" by looking at the important connection between individual strengths and weaknesses and the context in which we must solve problems. Weakness in one context can be strength in another.

unit 5 Building New Neural Networks

Building new understandings or skills means building and rebuilding new neural networks. How that process occurs is the focus of this unit, which emphasizes the crucial link between performance and context and suggests that the traditional notion of learning as a linear development of isolated skills is misleading.

unit 6 Implications For Schools

This unit examines what some teachers have done to transform research principles into specific lessons and practices to improve student learning. Rather than suggesting that these illustrations are universally applicable to any school, the unit challenges educators to experiment by creating answers to their own questions.

unit 7 Conclusion: A Community of Educators

This unit discusses the Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) movement that brings researchers and educators together so that research informs education and so that teachers' actual experiences in classrooms inform research. It explores the attitudes and conditions that create productive partnerships for meaningful change to occur.

Complete Course Guide Neuroscience & the Classroom: Making Connections

Complete Course Guide

Course Overview Neuroscience & the Classroom: Making Connections

Course Overview