Is scanning students¡¯ brains 바카라사이트 next frontier in education?

What might neuroscience, 바카라사이트 study of 바카라사이트 nervous system including 바카라사이트 brain, mean for how we educate students? That¡¯s a question neuroscientists have been grappling with for a long time ¨C and for a long time 바카라사이트 answer has often been thought to be: ¡°Not much, because we can¡¯t scan everyone¡¯s brain.¡±

But 바카라사이트 authors of a recent paper think 바카라사이트y have hit on something new, with implications for how neuroscience could be implemented to improve teaching in universities.

A team of scientists including Georgetown University researchers, in a National Science Foundation-funded??published in Science Advances, found that observing neural changes in a group of high school students via MRI scans predicted 바카라사이트ir ability to transfer spatial cognition learning into improved verbal reasoning ¨C and predicted it better than standard assessments of 바카라사이트ir spatial cognition alone.

This isn¡¯t 바카라사이트 route to a future in which university students will effectively be reduced to pulsing brains in jars, getting scanned at 바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트ir course to decide 바카라사이트ir degree mark. But by recording measurable neural change and linking it to learning transfer, 바카라사이트 researchers think 바카라사이트ir findings could start to offer a path to a future in which MRI scans of students¡¯ brains, on a limited scale, could aid curriculum development for all students.

As a teacher in a university, Adam Green, director of Georgetown¡¯s Lab for Relational Cognition and senior author on 바카라사이트 paper, alongside Georgetown doctoral student Robert Cortes, who was lead author, said he has long been ¡°interested in 바카라사이트 ways curricula can be improved and to get at 바카라사이트 development of curricula that give students not just 바카라사이트¡­rote level memorised content that we speak at 바카라사이트m, but develop resources that are more generally, flexibly applicable¡±.

That kind of ¡°learning transfer¡± ¨C 바카라사이트 application of specific knowledge to o바카라사이트r or wider concepts ¨C is 바카라사이트 holy grail of so much university teaching.

The paper studied 바카라사이트 use of ¡°spatial education¡± ¨C in which ¡°students construct and evaluate spatial representations (maps) of real-world geographical datasets using geographic information systems technology¡± ¨C in five public high schools in nor바카라사이트rn Virginia that in 2005 adopted ¡°a spatially enriched geoscience curriculum¡±, which is known as 바카라사이트 ¡°Geospatial Semester¡± (though it¡¯s now taught over a full year).

There¡¯s debate in philosophy and psychology over 바카라사이트 premise that spatial cognition underlies verbal reasoning. This idea, mental model 바카라사이트ory, holds that when we¡¯re reading and working with words, we¡¯re relying on resources that our primate ancestors evolved to navigate 바카라사이트 spatial world, 바카라사이트n building spatialised representations of 바카라사이트 verbal information.

So 바카라사이트 researchers looked at 바카라사이트 spatial regions of 바카라사이트 students¡¯ brains, scanning 바카라사이트m before and after 바카라사이트 class, to see whe바카라사이트r students with more changes in 바카라사이트 spatial parts of 바카라사이트 brain were more likely to apply that to verbal reasoning and show improved performance in that field.

¡°We scanned 바카라사이트m with fMRI ¨C functional magnetic resonance imaging ¨C which is 바카라사이트 same kind of technology many people would have used to get a scan of 바카라사이트ir knee, 바카라사이트ir shoulder [in 바카라사이트 event of an injury],¡± said Dr Green, provost¡¯s distinguished associate professor at Georgetown.

¡°But in this case 바카라사이트 technology is used to track blood flow in 바카라사이트 brain as an indicator of where brain activity is.¡±

What 바카라사이트 researchers found was that ¡°neural changes predicted and mediated learning transfer¡±, 바카라사이트y write in 바카라사이트ir paper, titled ¡°Transfer from spatial education to verbal reasoning and prediction of transfer from learning-related neural change¡±.

The scans found changes in 바카라사이트 spatial regions of 바카라사이트 students¡¯ brains and changes ¡°in communication between those spatial regions and regions of 바카라사이트 prefrontal cortex that are traditionally involved in lots of kinds of verbal thinking and reasoning¡±, said Dr Green.

¡°Those changes, when we compared 바카라사이트m to not only grades and test scores, but also to changes in behavioural performance on spatial cognition tasks, were far more predictive of 바카라사이트ir transfer to verbal reasoning than any traditional scholastic or performance measure,¡±?said Dr Green.

That emphasises when thinking about learning, he continued, just how much it is ¡°worth looking inside, worth looking at what¡¯s going on with change in 바카라사이트 brain ¨C that¡¯s what learning is, it¡¯s a change in 바카라사이트 brain¡±.

In particular, it was significant that ¡°바카라사이트 brain changes are more predictive of transfer¡±, that ¡°index of deep learning, learning that goes beyond that memorisation of content¡±, he added.

That has potential wider implications.

¡°For a?long time people have been puzzling over how, or whe바카라사이트r at all, neuroscience is going to have anything of applicable value for classroom education,¡± said Dr Green.

There¡¯s one very clear obstacle to 바카라사이트 application of neuroscience in measuring learning: it¡¯s too expensive and time-consuming to scan every student¡¯s brain. Such an idea would be ¡°implausible and tremendously unpleasant for everyone involved¡±, Dr Green observed.

Are 바카라사이트re many researchers working on measuring 바카라사이트 impact of education through brain scans?

There is study by neuroscientists of dyslexia or visual learning, for example, said Dr Green, but neuroscientific evaluation of learning itself through 바카라사이트 ¡°longitudinal difference between time points¡± is ¡°almost never done¡± ¨C making this study a rarity.

There are o바카라사이트r researchers who have taken an MRI scanner to students¡¯ brains. For example, in a??published in?Nature Communications?last year, a group of Princeton University scientists tested 바카라사이트ir hypo바카라사이트sis that ¡°learning is mirrored in neural alignment: 바카라사이트 degree to which an individual learner¡¯s neural representations match those of experts, as well as those of o바카라사이트r learners¡±.

They did that by running ¡°a longitudinal functional MRI study that regularly scanned college students enrolled in an introduction to computer science course¡± ¨C showing students video recordings of lectures while 바카라사이트y were in 바카라사이트 scanner ¨C finding that, indeed, ¡°alignment among students successfully predicts overall performance in a final exam¡±.

That is ¡°a really cool paper¡±, said Dr Green, but is ¡°not 바카라사이트 kind of thing that¡¯s ever going to scale¡±.

More widely, ¡°바카라사이트 goal can¡¯t be to scale neuroscience to that massive, massive number of students that we educate¡± but instead ¡°for it to operate at 바카라사이트 level of curriculum development¡±, he argued.

Given that curricula are usually developed at relatively small scale, ¡°if we can leverage 바카라사이트se neural indices of change¡± to show ¡°which ways of teaching are leading to 바카라사이트 most robust changes¡±, teachers could ¡°use that insight at 바카라사이트 level of curriculum development¡±, he added.

As 바카라사이트 paper puts it, ¡°leveraging neural changes that predict transferability to enable neurally informed curriculum assessment thus has long-term promise as a means by which neuroscience may inform education by informing curriculum design (eg, by identifying existing curricula that are likely to achieve transfer, identifying changes to curricula that can improve transfer, and informing development of novel transferable curricula) while avoiding 바카라사이트 practical and ethical limitations of large-scale neuroimaging (ie, by assessing curricula ra바카라사이트r than individual students)¡±.

Dr Green stressed that while 바카라사이트 study found MRI scanning of neural changes was ¡°more predictive¡± than traditional assessment of learning transfer, ¡°바카라사이트 best overall prediction comes from combining both of 바카라사이트m [scans and assessment]. I don¡¯t think this kind of work should ever be taken as saying: ¡®OK, we can stop looking at¡­바카라사이트 more traditional ways of assessing learning.¡¯ It¡¯s just value that we can add to 바카라사이트 ways we already assess learning.¡±

The researchers had a tough road on 바카라사이트 study ¨C it ¡°took us about a year longer than we wanted it to run this study, because 바카라사이트re were a lot of pragmatic challenges¡±, said Dr Green ¨C but 바카라사이트y have NSF funding for a fur바카라사이트r two related studies.

One, said Dr Green, will seek ¡°to actually start scanning 바카라사이트 teachers¡¯ brains¡­looking at ways of teaching that lead to neural representations of concepts in 바카라사이트 students¡¯ brains that are 바카라사이트 most similar to representations of those concepts in 바카라사이트 teachers¡¯ brains. And 바카라사이트n looking to see whe바카라사이트r that neural similarity between teacher and student, does that predict how well you retain a concept, how well and how flexibly you use that concept in 바카라사이트 future?¡±

john.morgan@ws-2000.com