Building a Bridge from Science to the Classroom
Knowledge of the underlying science, Ms. Willis argues,
will enable educators to make good use of all that
neuroscientists are learning about our brains, young and
old. It is also the best defense against misleading assertions
put forth by opportunists.
By Judy Willis, M.D. NEUROSCIENCE and cognitive science
relating to education are hot
topics. They receive extensive but
simplified coverage in the mass media,
and there is a booming business
in “brain-booster” books and products,
which claim to be based on the
research.
Eric Jensen advocates more collaboration among
scientists from the full variety of disciplines engaged
in brain research. This collaboration, with corresponding
evaluations using cognitive and classroom research,
can offer educators more coherent knowledge
that they can use in teaching. And educators want this
knowledge, as shown by a communication I received
from Lisa Nimz, a fifth-grade teacher in the Chicago
suburb of Skokie, in response to my May 2007 Kappan
article:

We know how important it is for relevant research from
the scientific community to be shared with and used in
the education community. We are anxious for neurological
research to become more a part of educators’ thinking
and wonder how to make it so. There seem to be only a
few people in the unique position of being able to understand
the research, figure out its implications for the classroom,
and use those implications to direct their teaching.
We are actively pondering how a sturdy and wide enough
bridge can be built between the scientific community and
the education community.
There are many obstacles to building such a construct.
Reading the primary sources of neurological research can
be challenging even for the brightest of us. And even if
someone can comprehend these primary sources, there are
many highly educated people who don’t seem to approach
scientific evidence with the caution and skepticism necessary
to make fair judgments about the implications of that
evidence. There are also many members of the scientific
community and academia who haven’t studied pedagogy.
We are thankful for books, articles, and presentations that
mitigate some of that disconnect.

Ms. Nimz’ quandary reflects educators’ increasing
concern about how to keep up with the exponential
growth of the body of information coming from the
varied scientific specialties about the structure and
function of the brain with regard to learning and
memory. Of equal concern is how to interpret the
multitude of claims, usually by nonscientists, that the
effectiveness of various “brain-based strategies” has
been “proven by brain research.”
The interdisciplinary collaboration of neuroscientists,
molecular geneticists, cellular biologists, cognitive
scientists, and education professionals can be the
“wide, sturdy bridge” Ms. Nimz seeks to connect scientific
knowledge of the human brain to applications
of that research in the classroom. But before that
bridge is completed, we need to allow some flexibility.
In order to help educators make sense of the massive
amounts of information, I propose a two-tiered
structure in which factual, collaborative brain research
is designated as such and educational strategies
strongly suggested by neuroscientific data are identified
as interpretations of that research. The resulting
structure will change with time because the interpretive
tier will become more concrete as initial interpretations
are supported or contradicted by subsequent
neuroscience.
The first step is to debunk the neuromyths. Even
some of the purest, most accurately reported neuroscience
research has been misinterpreted. People trying
to capitalize on research with their elixirs, books,
cure-all learning theories, and curriculum packages
have perpetrated much of the damage. Other folks
have unintentionally made errors of interpretation
when they have been unfairly asked for scientific evidence
to support the strategies they have been using
successfully for years.
But it is important to understand that some research
findings can be applied to education now. For
example, a review of neuroplasticity research shows
how collaboration across fields, with certain checks
and balances, can lead to classroom strategies that can
add to teaching success.

Brain research has not yet provided a direct connection
between classroom interventions and brain
function or structure, but that does not mean it is irrelevant.
Its use is akin to the “off-label” uses of medications
by doctors. While Food and Drug Administration
regulations require that the label information
and advertising of a medication indicate the drug’s
use only for specific, approved conditions, physicians,
based on their knowledge and available current information,
may prescribe a medication for a use not indicated
in the approved labeling. In the same way, educators
should use their understanding of brainlearning
research to evaluate, develop, and use strategies
that are neuro-logical, based on knowledge and
available current information.

NEUROMYTHS

We study history, in part, so that we can learn from
the mistakes of the past. Analyzing the errors in interpretation
that led to brain-learning myths helps us
evaluate the interpretive strengths and limitations of
neuroimaging and other current neuroscientific research
and avoid misinterpretation.
I go through the research in my fields of neuroscience
and education with the goal of finding scientific
studies that relate to learning and that adhere to
the medical model of limiting the variables and confining
interpretation to objective data. Then I seek
cognitive testing of the conclusions neuroscientists
make from their data. Do the study’s data about how
the brain responds to a specific input or stimulus correlate
with the cognitive test? When I find a valid fit
between the neuroscience and the cognitive testing, I
go in search of the holy grail: objective evaluation of
the effect of the intervention on statistically appropriate
numbers of students in their classrooms. To my
knowledge, there has not yet been a strategy or intervention
that has made it through all three of these filters.
Misinterpreted neuroscientific data have led to beliefs
that some people cling to despite objective evidence
to the contrary. For example, it has taken more
than a decade to debunk the left brain/right brain
oversimplification of learning styles, even though
neuroimaging studies have, for more than a decade,
demonstrated that human cognition is far too complex
to be controlled by a single hemisphere. We now
know that although parts of the brain are particularly
active during