Group items tagged

"Kids between the ages of 8 and 18 spend 11.5 hours a day using technology - whether that's computers, television, mobile phones, or video games - and usually more than one at a time. That's a big chunk of their 15 or 16 waking hours. But does that spell doom for the next generation? Not necessarily, according to Dr. Gary Small, a neuroscientist and professor at UCLA, who spoke at the Learning & the Brain Conference last week. "Young people are born into technology, and they're used to using it 24/7," Small said. "Their brains are wired to use it elegantly.""

Is technology changing our brains? A new study by UCLA neuroscientist Gary Small adds to a growing body of research that says it is. And according to Small's new book, "iBRAIN: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind," a dramatic shift in how we gather information and communicate with one another has touched off an era of rapid evolution that may ultimately change the human brain as we know it.

"In an era of email, text messages, Facebook and Twitter, we're all required to do several things at once. But this constant multitasking is taking its toll. Here neuroscientist Daniel J Levitin explains how our addiction to technology is making us less efficient"

"If the human mind is sometimes a puzzle. Then the teenage mind is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Lucky for us, one neuroscientist has just published a guide to that perplexing headspace. Dr. Frances Jensen who was once stumped by the behaviour of her own teens shares years of study on the teenage brain, that will warn you and give you hope."

"Could a recent study by neuroscientist Simone Kühn reveal new ways of stimulating early brain development as well as a cure for the aging brain in later life? A study conducted at Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Charité University Medicine in Berlin unveils the latest findings for video gaming."

"ome widely held ideas about the way children learn can lead educators and parents to adopt faulty teaching principles Jan 1, 2015 Credit: Kiyoshi Takahase segundo MYTH HUMANS USE ONLY 10 PERCENT OF THEIR BRAIN FACT The 10 percent myth (sometimes elevated to 20) is mere urban legend, one perpetrated by the plot of the 2011 movie Limitless, which pivoted around a wonder drug that endowed the protagonist with prodigious memory and analytical powers. In the classroom, teachers may entreat students to try harder, but doing so will not light up "unused" neural circuits; academic achievement does not improve by simply turning up a neural volume switch. MYTH "LEFT BRAIN" and "RIGHT BRAIN" PEOPLE DIFFER FACT The contention that we have a rational left brain and an intuitive, artistic right side is fable: humans use both hemispheres of the brain for all cognitive functions. The left brain/right brain notion originated from the realization that many (though not all) people process language more in the left hemisphere and spatial abilities and emotional expression more in the right. Psychologists have used the idea to explain distinctions between different personality types. In education, programs emerged that advocated less reliance on rational "left brain" activities. Brain-imaging studies show no evidence of the right hemisphere as a locus of creativity. And the brain recruits both left and right sides for both reading and math. MYTH YOU MUST SPEAK ONE LANGUAGE BEFORE LEARNING ANOTHER FACT Children who learn English at the same time as they learn French do not confuse one language with the other and so develop more slowly. This idea of interfering languages suggests that different areas of the brain compete for resources. In reality, young children who learn two languages, even at the same time, gain better generalized knowledge of language structure as a whole. MYTH BRAINS OF MALES AND FEMALES DIFFER IN WAYS THAT DICTATE LEARNING ABILITIES FACT Diffe

"There has been a large body of work in neuroscience, psychology, and related fields offering more and more insight into how we learn. Below are five of the top tips from Barbara Oakley, Professor of Engineering at Oakland University, who has faced her own learning challenges (failing middle and high school math and science classes), and has made a study of the latest research on learning. She is also offering a free online course, Learning How to Learn, which starts August 1 on the Coursera platform with co-instructor, Prof. Terrence Sejnowski, a computational neuroscientist at UC San Diego and the Salk Institute."

"Up late marking? Up early preparing for the day ahead? Did you know that after an average of four hours of sleep a night for four or five days, you will develop the same level of cognitive impairment as if you had been awake for 24 hours. This is the same level of impairment as having a blood alcohol level high enough to be considered legally drunk. Not only does this greatly lengthen reaction time, impede judgment, and interfere with problem solving, I think you will all agree, that it is no state to be teaching or learning in. So how important is sleep? Well, in his fascinating TED talk circadian neuroscientist Russell Foster discusses exactly why we need to sleep and talks about some of the concerning effects sleep deprivation can have."

"THE WHOLE WORLD is exhausted. And it's killing us. But particularly me. As I write this, I'm at TED 2019 in Vancouver, which is a weeklong marathon of talks and workshops and coffee meetings and experiences and demos and late-night trivia contests and networking, networking, networking. Meanwhile, I'm sick as a dog with a virus I caught from my 3-year-old, I'm on deadline for what feels like a bazillion stories, and I'm pregnant, which means I need coffee but can't have too much, and need sleep but can only lay on my left side, and can't breathe without sitting propped up with a pillow anyway, since I can't safely take any cold medication. According to neuroscientist Matthew Walker, I'm doing serious damage to my health-and life-by not sleeping enough."

"Teachers change brains. While we often don't think of ourselves as brain changers, when we teach we have an enormous impact on our students' cognitive development. Recent advances in educational neuroscience are helping educators understand the critical role we play in building brain capacities important to students' learning and self-control. To understand how teachers change the brain, we need to begin with a reasonably new understanding of the biology of learning. The human brain is an experience-dependent organ. Throughout our lives, the cerebrum-the largest portion of our brain-fine-tunes itself to adapt to the world around us. The scientific term used to describe this is "neuroplasticity, " which involves three processes."

"Research around the way humans learn is booming these days. Consider viral brain-based teaching trends and explorations of how the act of teaching shapes kids' brains. Mariale Hardiman, vice dean of academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Education and and director of Johns Hopkins' Neuro-Education Initiative. But studying how the brain learns doesn't necessarily mean memorizing proteins and brain chemistry. Sometimes it's about empathy-or in the case of some of the latest research coming out of Johns Hopkins, it's about understanding how art plays a role in learning. One person who has closely watched, and even shaped, the coevolution of neurosciences with education is Mariale Hardiman, vice dean of academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. The education professor is also the co-founder and director of Johns Hopkins' Neuro-Education Initiative, a center that aims to bring together research on learning and neuroscience, teaching and education. EdSurge sat down with Hardiman recently to learn about the Initiative' recent findings around how injecting art into lessons across disciplines can boost memory and retention. (This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)"

"While brain training games and apps may not live up to their hype, it is well established that certain other activities and lifestyle choices can have neurological benefits that promote overall brain health and may help to keep the mind sharp as we get older. One of these is musical training. Research shows that learning to play a musical instrument is beneficial for children and adults alike, and may even be helpful to patients recovering from brain injuries. Competition: tell us your innovative transport idea… and win an iPadPro Read more "Music probably does something unique," explains neuropsychologist Catherine Loveday of the University of Westminster. "It stimulates the brain in a very powerful way, because of our emotional connection with it." Playing a musical instrument is a rich and complex experience that involves integrating information from the senses of vision, hearing, and touch, as well as fine movements, and learning to do so can induce long-lasting changes in the brain. Professional musicians are highly skilled performers who spend years training, and they provide a natural laboratory in which neuroscientists can study how such changes - referred to as experience-dependent plasticity - occur across their lifespan."

"At the end of 2016, I found myself mentally exhausted and barely able to string together a coherent thought or formulate an original idea. As I swiped through my social media feeds for inspiration-or maybe procrastination-a nagging feeling hit. I needed a break from screen time. Pediatricians, psychologists, and neuroscientists warn of potential negative consequences associated with constant mental stimulation as a result of interacting with our devices. Without a screen-free space for my brain to relax, stop firing, and just think, I felt incapable of significant mental processing. I could blame the technology for thwarting my attempts at creative thought, or I could blame myself for taking the easy route and using my devices to constantly stimulate my brain. Though I chose to blame myself, I am finding a lot of support for the idea of blaming technology when discussing the idea of screen time. Get the best of Edutopia in your inbox each week. Mobile devices have the potential to provide amazing learning opportunities as well as great distractions. They can further social interactions to help us build stronger connections in our communities, or allow us to destroy relationships by hiding behind a screen. In the book The Triple Focus: A New Approach to Education, authors Daniel Goleman and Peter Senge describe three essential skills for surviving in a society increasingly dominated by internet-enabled devices: focusing on ourselves, tuning in to others, and understanding the larger world. While the authors apply these concepts to the broader field of social and emotional learning, these same foci also apply as we address the issue of screen time with our students and children."

"When it comes to optimizing learning, we don't value breaks enough, neuroscientists suggest in a new study."

"Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically "teenage" behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain."