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(Lia Commissar) Hi! This morning

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I'm going to talk about education and[br]neuroscience,

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both generally as a field [br]that's developing

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but also, the specific work [br]that we've been doing in this field.

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The Wellcome Trust -- OK --

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the Wellcome Trust, for those of you[br]who don't know,

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is the second largest charitable [br]foundation globally,

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with the aim of improving health.

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And it does that by funding lots of[br]bio-medical research, but also

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by funding work in the social science[br]and humanities,

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funding lots of education work,[br]doing lots of engagement work

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and also lots of policy work.

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So I'm going to talk through a few things[br]this morning.

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Firstly, what has neuroscience got to do[br]with education?

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What impact does it have on education[br]at the moment?

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The work that we've been doing and then,[br]thinking about the future.

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So, what has neuroscience got to do[br]with education?

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Well, if education is about [br]learning something,

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be it knowledge or a skill,

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and neuroscience is the study of [br]the nervous system and the brain,

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then they're pretty linked, in my opinion.

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And it's not new to kind of talk about[br]the brain, in relation to education.

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People have been discussing this, [br]critiquing it,

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debating it for lots of years.

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There is loads of research papers out there [br]with titles such as

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"A Bridge too far", [br]"Its a Prime time to build a bridge",

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"A two-way path is possible", [br]"Booting the bridge from by thence". (check)

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So lots of people have been talking [br]about this bridge

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but not many people have been building it.

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And, this is kind of understandable

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because its probably only really in [br]the last 10 years that neuroscience is,

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the understanding from neuroscience [br]has evolved significantly

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that we can start to think about how [br]it may have implications for the classroom.

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And this is really exciting [br]and there is lots of potential

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and its really understanding,

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you can understand why teachers, [br]why policy makers,

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why technologists want to start applying [br]some of these ideas to education.

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But my word of warning that will go [br]throughout this presentation

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really is about waiting and doing [br]the research and finding out

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whether these things are actually going [br]to be helpful and impactful

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in the classroom.

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And the other thing that I must say [br]just before i go on

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is that I am not saying in any way that [br]neuroscience alone is the answer

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and its going to solve all our problems

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or can tell us everything [br]about the classroom,:

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that's a very complex ecosystem.

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But, neuroscience is [br]a kind of a new-ish field

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where we can start using that[br]alongside psychology,

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alongside educational research[br]and alongside teacher's knowledge

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to build something really good [br]for the future

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and see if we can start improving [br]learning in the class room. 2.51

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So, what impact does neuroscience[br]have on education?

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So, we're at an education conference --

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I thought I'd wait and see[br]what you guys think.

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So, I'm going to put a few statements[br]up on the board, as any good teacher does.

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And what I would like you to do is[br]just simply raise your hand

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if you agree with the statement, [br]if you think it's true.

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So: "We mostly only use 10% of our brain."

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Hands up if you agree.

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OK.[br]I will just show you this:

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These are some stats, I'll show you[br]the paper this comes from in a second.

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This was a survey of teachers [br]in five countries

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and those are the percentages [br]of the teachers that agree.

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Hum -- it's not really working, but[br]I can tell you that this is not true

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-- uh, there we go -- even sat there now,[br]you might think you're not doing very much

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but your brain is still in control[br]of your breathing,

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in control of your heart rate, keeping you[br]standing up, sitting upright,

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perhaps paying attention, maybe not,[br]maybe mind-wandering

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but it's all using your brain,[br]all parts of your brain.

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So that's one of these myths.

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Second one: "Individuals lean better [br]when they receive information

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"in their preferred learning style."

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So visually, by seeing, [br]auditory, by hearing,

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or kinesthetically, by doing things.

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Hands up if you agree with that statement.

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OK.

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You can see, across the board, teachers [br]in lots of countries agree with this.

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(Laughter)[br]Yes. So (she laughs)

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It is true that people have a preference.

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You might prefer to learn something[br]in a particular way,

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you might feel that you are[br]a visual learner,

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and that you learn better in that,[br]by using stuff visually:

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you do have a preference; but researches[br]show that you don't learn any better

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if you are showing the material[br]in that particular way, believe it or not.

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One last one:

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"Differences in hemispheric dominance,[br]left or right brain, can help to explain

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"individual differences amongst learners."

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Hands up if you agree.

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We might start to see a pattern,[br]I don't know.

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(Laughter)[br]So, here is some stats.

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Really high in the UK.

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Again, it's not true.

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If you hear things about integrating[br]the right or left brain,

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or if you hear things about[br]one side of your brain is the logical side

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and the other side is more mathsy --[br]sorry, creative, it's just not true.

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And I'm going to skip the next one.

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["Regular drinking of caffeinated drinks[br]reduces alertness."]

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But this one is true.[br](Laughter)

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OK, I can tell you a little more about that.

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If you want to see more [br]about these neuromyths,

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This is a really good paper written by[br]Paul Howard Jones last year.

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It got a lot of interest on social media

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and it goes through lots of what[br]these common neuromyths are.

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So, neuromyths:[br]Where do they come from?

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Are they a problem?[br]And what to do about them?

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So, generally they often come from[br]some kind of science

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that's been over- or misinterpreted,[br]and they tend to stick around (excuse me)

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because they are easy to understand or

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easy to kind of implement [br]in the classroom.

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Are they a problem?

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Well, if you think you only use [br]10% of your brain, is that a problem?

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Possibly not, it's not accurate,

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but when I first started teaching[br]about nine years ago,

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and this was common in lots of schools[br]across the UK,

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I'm not sure about in other countries,

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students were asked to fill [br]a questionnaire about how they learned,

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and did they like learning in this way.

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And teachers were given a spreadsheet[br]with students

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and which were their preferred[br]learning styles.

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And teachers were encouraged to make sure[br]that they were providing

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information for those students [br]in that particular way.

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And I'd say that is a bit of a problem,

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because teachers were potentially [br]wasting time

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or feeling that they should be doing[br]something

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that was not actually benefiting [br]the students.

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A positive outcome was that lessons[br]became more diverse,

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............... (check) about a range of[br]activities

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but at the same time, students would say[br]things like:

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"Miss, I'm not doing this activity[br]because I'm a kinesthetic learner."

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And so students were themselves[br]limiting themselves

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and not getting the benefit of learning[br]in multiple modalities,

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which is the way you learn best,

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by using different ways of learning [br]the same information. 7:19

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So, what to do about them?

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Well, I might come on to that a bit later[br]in what we're going to do.

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So, the research is carrying on, but [br]lots of research in this area

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is still at the stage of it's [br]about cells in a Petri dish

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It might be about finding out about [br]what's going on in animals,

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or very small-scale trials of humans, [br]but maybe in a lab.

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Not much is going on in the classroom.

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And so we set p this initiative, [br]Education Neuroscience Initiative

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with the Education Endowment Foundation,

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who are the What Works Centre of [br]Education in the UK.

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And we did it for two reasons:

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we wanted to build the evidence of [br]what works in education,

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informed by neuroscience,

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and we also wanted to help support [br]teachers and general educators

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with what we do and don't know. (check)

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So, we firstly launched a funding round,

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to get people to apply for money [br]to do research in the space,

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and all the projects had to have some [br]evidence that they will -- that they work,

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some pilot data.

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But they also had to be scalable [br]and affordable,

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so that if we find that [br]these things worked,

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that they could be rolled out, [br]that they could lead to policy changes,

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that they could be available to everybody.

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And there is particular emphasis as well [br]around disadvantaged students.

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We want to do something [br]that would benefit all,

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and try and close the socioeconomic gap.

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And all of our projects are also paired [br]with an independent evaluator.

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So, you have your project team [br]and you also have an evaluation team.

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And that evaluation team helps to shape [br]the methodology that's used,

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make sure it's robust, educationally.

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They also collect some of the first data [br]and they also report on that data first.

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So there is no chance for the project team[br]to maybe overstate claims

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about what they found.

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So we funded these projects [br]and these are all taking place

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in around 50 to 100 schools, [br]each in the UK.

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I won't talk about all of them, [br]but I'll just whiz through a couple.

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Fit to Study is looking at great research [br]around how more vigorous activity

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can influence learning, [br]short- and long-term.

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We know this from lots of research [br]in animals and from small-group studies,

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but nobody has done anything in the UK [br]on this scale.

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And so we're looking at changing [br]what happens in P.E. lessons,

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and then measuring the short- and [br]long-term outcomes of those students.

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Teen Sleep has had a certain media coverage.

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And that's looking at we know, [br]researchers know,

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neuroscientists will tell you,

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we know that teens have [br]a different sleep-wake cycle,

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their circadian rhythm is altered [br]by a couple of hours.

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So they don't feel tired in the evenings,

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it's really hard to get them up [br]in the morning,

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they are not fit and ready [br]to start learning early in the morning.

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So we're studying, at a late school start [br]time against a sleep education program,

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where we just teach them about [br]the importance of their sleep,

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how to get good sleep, about [br]using technology just before bed

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and about how that might affect [br]their sleep -- not in a positive way --

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and looking again [br]at their academic outcomes. 10:25