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The Brain and Education

The links below supplement those on Serendip's Brain and Education Resources page.   They were compiled June 2010 by teal, jpfeiffer, and kgould for this summer's K-12 Institute on Brain, Science, Inquiry, and Education.  Additions to this resource list are welcome in the online forum below.


How Can Research On the Brain Inform Education?

This website constructs an interesting metaphor--the brain as a “jungle” of chaos.  The section on multiple intelligences and Howard Gardner’s theory of seven intelligences is very relevant to the  idea of plural selves residing within one person, and how the relationship between these selves affects outward behavior not just in the classroom, but in all aspects of daily life.  The chart at the end, “Implications for Teaching,” is also very helpful in putting this idea into the context of education.
[See this link for more information on Gardner’s theory of seven intelligences]

Fischer's Skill Theory

The first link (it’s a PDF) on Fischer’s Skill Theory deals with the organization and variation of the mind, as well as the activity within a personality in relation to the rest of the world.

News From the Neurosciences

This site contains an extensive list of articles regarding the issue of an “expanding brain” in education, one that has the ability to grow and change with each new topic learned. It is also concerned with differences in learning styles and environments, and how these differences account for diversity of mind. It asks a very important question: “How would it affect how we teach and how students learn if everyone believed that the kinds of environments we create for learning, how we teach, and the learning strategies we offer students could result in better mental equipment they will use throughout life? “

Brains.org

This site deals with approaches for teachers to use when thinking about the brain and education in the classroom including a “Layered Curriculum”; applies current neuroscience research to teaching.  (Layered Curriculum can be viewed here.)

Child Brain Research

An approach by Dr. Nobaru Kobayashi to integrate neuroscience and education; includes “child science,” resources, projects, and ongoing child research in Japan, as well as providing relevant links and a message board for discussion.

Learning and The Brain

A website that approaches learning through the lens of neuroscience.  The organization is also hosting a couple of Summer Institutes similar to the Summer Science Institute at Bryn Mawr.

Harvard Graduate School of Education: Mind, Brain and Education

Information about a Masters degree in education with connections to biology, particularly neuroscience.

International Mind, Brain and Education Society

Holds a conferences annually in Philadelphia, and is concerned with issues of neuroscience, psychology and development in education--on a global scale.