Education and the Brain: A Bridge Too Far John T. Bruer - Fordham ...

He reviewed:• Literature on whatis known about thehuman braindevelopmentthrough researchdone onneurologicaldevelopment of thebrain from infancy-adulthood.

Fascination with brain science:• Unfortunately, neuroscience has little tooffer teachers in terms of informingclassroom practices• However, science of the mind, cognitivescience, serves as a basis for thedevelopment towards applied science oflearning and instruction.• Over the past year, numerous books,journal articles, studies, and stories havebrought light to our understanding ofbrain development and neural functionwhich could revolutionize educationalpractices.

About this article:• Examines the results, interpretations, andconclusions: neuroscience vs. educationargument- failed.• Two shorter bridges that indirectly linkbrain function with educational practices:between education & cognitive psychologyand between cognitive psychology andneuroscience.• Newer bridge: seeing how mentalfunctions map onto brain structures.• Cognitive psychology provides the onlyfirm ground to anchor these bridges!

In depth Neuroscience andEducational argument:• First- infancy continuing into childhood:dramatic increase in the # of synapsesthat connect neurons in the brain.• This proliferation(synaptogenesis) isfollowed by synaptic elimination• Second- experience-dependent criticalperiods in the development of sensory andmotor systems.• Third- environments cause new synapsesto form.(tested in rats)

Argument is as follows….• Up to age 10, a child's brain containsmore synapses than at any other time intheir lives!• Childhood experiences reinforce andmaintain used synapses while unusedones are snipped away.• Therefore, this period is critical in a child’scognitive development.• “With the right input at the right timealmost anything is possible!”

“Is the earlier really the better?”• The claim that children are capable oflearning more at a very early age, whenthey have excess synapses and peak brainactivity• Other articles state that children begin thestudy of language, music, logic andadvanced mathematics as early aspossible.(3-4)• “Golden opportunity to mold a child’sbrain”- when brain activity is high,excellent time to foster a love of learning

Head start programs and CarnegieTask Force evidence:• Head Start programs fail to improvechildren’s s IQ because they begin too latein their critical learning period.• The Carnegie Task Force report, Years ofPromise, identified the years 3-103as acritical period in child development…notnotmany references for the hundreds ofcitations…• Results: We cannot look to neuroscienceas a guide to improved educationalpractice and policy.

Synaptogenesis• The process of synaptic proliferation• Neonates (infant) brains begin to formsynapses far in excess to adult levels.• The mature nervous system has fewersynaptic connections than were presentduring the developmental peak.• Most of what we know of synaptogenesisand synaptic pruning comes from animalresearch.

Unlike in animals….• Changes in the number of synapses per neuronor changes in synaptic density in our speciesoccurs in various areas of the brain.• Occurs very early in human visual cortex• In frontal cortex, synaptic densities do notstabilize until mid-to late adolescence. Brain arearesponsible for planning, integrating info, andmaintaining executive control of cognitivefunctions.• Therefore, what neuroscientist know aboutsynaptogenesis does not support a claim that 0-30is a critical period for humans.

Developmental Milestones ofSynaptogenesis:• 2 months- human infants start to losetheir innate, infantile reflexes• 3 months- infants can reach for an objectwhile visually fixating on it (visual cortex)• 4-55 months- visual capacities increase• 8 months- perform working memory tasks• 18-24 months- synaptogenesis haspeaked in the visual cortex, children startuse symbols, speak in sentences, andshow spurts in acquiring vocab.

Educators should know…• Increases in synaptic density are correlated withthe initial emergence of skills and capacities• Some other form of brain maturation or changemust contribute to this ongoing development• The development of these capacities supportfuture learning yet give little support about whatkinds of early childhood, preschool, or learningexperiences might enhance children’s s cognitivecapabilities or educational outcomes.• “We simply do not know enough about how thebrain works to draw educational implications fromchanges in synaptic morphology”~ Bruer

How brain structure supportscognitive function:• 1:Connection of educational practicewith cognitive psychology 2:cognitivepsychology with brain science.• Cognitive psychology- study of mindand mental function that underlieobserved behavior; the basic scienceof learning and teaching.• Examples: word recognition &grammatical processing

Brain imaging technologies:• Positron Emission Tomography(PET)- measureschanges in cerebral blood flow, oxygenutilization, and glucose utilization linked to neuralactivity.• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI(fMRI)-measures changes in the ratio of oxygenated anddeoxygenated hemoglobin• These methods allow us to see cognitive taskchange brain activity• Therefore, help us localize areas of brain activitythat underlie the various cognitive components

2 examples on how cognitive psychology linkeducational questions with cognitive neuroscience:• Educational problem: learning elementary schoolarithmetic- ability to do numerical comparisons isan acquired skill• Field of cognitive neuroscience: conducted aseries of brain-recording recording experiments to traceneural circuitry involved in making suchcomparisons• These examples show: there is no way we couldunderstand how the brain processes numbers bylooking at children’s s classroom or math curriculaand be able to design a math curricula based onthe results.

What it does show:• Possibilities of being able to see howlearning and instruction alter brainactivity, and compare these learningrelated changes in normal versusspecial learning populations.• Also, help us to develop betterinstructional interventions to addressspecific learning problems

In conclusion…..• Though neuroscience has discovereda great deal of info. about neuronsand synapses, it is still not enough toguide educational practices.• Cognitive psychology is a better betin regards to basic science help toguide educational practice & policy.