Informing Pedagogy Through the Brain-Targeted Teaching Model

Abstract

Improving teaching to foster creative thinking and problem-solving for students of all ages will require two essential changes in current educational practice. First, to allow more time for deeper engagement with material, it is critical to reduce the vast number of topics often required in many courses. Second, and perhaps more challenging, is the alignment of pedagogy with recent research on cognition and learning. With a growing focus on the use of research to inform teaching practices, educators need a pedagogical framework that helps them interpret and apply research findings. This article describes the Brain-Targeted Teaching Model, a scheme that relates six distinct aspects of instruction to research from the neuro- and cognitive sciences.

Full text

ORIGINAL PAPER
Neuroethics, Neuroeducation, and Classroom Teaching:
Where the Brain Sciences Meet Pedagogy
Mariale Hardiman &Luke Rinne &
Emma Gregory &Julia Yarmolinskaya
Received: 24 November 2010 /Accepted: 27 April 2011
#Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract The popularization of neuroscientific ideas
about learning—sometimes legitimate, sometimes
merely commercial—poses a real challenge for class-
room teachers who want to understand how children
learn. Until teacher preparation programs are recon-
ceived to incorporate relevant research from the neuro-
and cognitive sciences, teachers need translation and
guidance to effectively use information about the brain
and cognition. Absent such guidance, teachers, schools,
and school districts may waste time and money pursuing
so called “brain-based”interventions that lack a firm
basis in research. Meanwhile, the success of our schools
will continue to be narrowly defined by achievement
standards that ignore knowledge of the neural and
cognitive processes of learning. To achieve the goals of
neuroeducation, its proponents must address unique
ethical issues that neuroeducation raises for five
different groups of individuals: a) practicing teachers,
b) neuroscience researchers whose work could inform
education, c) publishers and the popular media, d)
educational policy-makers, and e) university-level
teacher educators. We suggest ways in which these
ethical challenges can be met and provide a model for
teacher preparation that will enable teachers themselves
to translate findings from the neuro-and cognitive
sciences and use legitimate research to inform how they
design and deliver effective instruction.
Keyword Educational neuroethics .Neuroeducation .
Pedagogy .Classroom instruction
Researchers from the neuro- and cognitive sciences
have made rapid strides in the last two decades,
producing findings that are highly relevant to the
work of practitioners from various disciplines. In
response to the ethical issues and challenges posed by
the use of this emerging research, a new area of study
has arisen—the field of neuroethics. Neuroethics is
described as including not only the ethics of conducting
neuroscientific studies, but also “evaluation of the
ethical and social impact that the results of those studies
might have, or ought to have, on existing social, ethical,
and legal structures”([1], p. 21). Racine [2]further
expands the definition of neuroethics to what he calls
“pragmatic neuroethics,”which promotes an interdis-
ciplinary approach to the discovery and application of
neuroscientific findings that benefit society).
In accordance with these views, Kurt Fischer and
colleagues have proposed that neuroethics must
consider the ethical issues involved in applying
neuroscience to educational practice [3]. This dimen-
sion of neuroethics might be termed educational
neuroethics—a new subdivision, perhaps not yet a
Neuroethics
DOI 10.1007/s12152-011-9116-6
M. Hardiman (*):L. Rinne :E. Gregory :
J. Yarmolinskaya
School of Education, Johns Hopkins University,
2800 N. Charles St.,
Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
e-mail: mmhardiman@jhu.edu

discipline, that involves understanding the issues and
inferences that hover between brain science and
education. Overall, we take “ethical”in the context of
neuroeducation to represent a state of affairs in which: a)
relevant research findings from the neurosciences are
conveyed to the educational community, and b) educa-
tors ensure that research findings are interpreted and
applied in an objective and proper manner. The purpose
of this paper will be to describe and address the ethical
challenges of properly bringing neuroscience findings
to bear in the classroom. The paper first describes the
background of the field of neuroeducation and the
current need for “translators”of neuro- and cognitive
science research. The discussion then moves to ethical
challenges facing five distinct groups: practicing teach-
ers, neuroscience researchers, publishers and the popu-
lar media, educational policy-makers, and teacher
educators. Ultimately, we argue that the success of
neuroeducation in the long run cannot be sustained
merely through the use of go-between “translators.”
Accordingly, we provide examples of how teacher
preparation and professional development programs
can help teachers themselves become competent con-
sumers of neuro- and cognitive science research that
informs their practice.
Still a Bridge Too Far?
In 1997, Bruer published an article entitled “Education
and the Brain: A Bridge Too Far,”[4] which argued
that while cognitive science research (the study of
mental processes) has much to offer educators, findings
from neuroscience (the study of the brain) say little that
is directly relevant to teaching practices. Since that
time, much has changed, in large part due to recent
advances in neuroimaging techniques like magnetic
encephalography and various types of functional and
structural magnetic resonance imaging. These imaging
tools allow for the previously impossible feat of
non-invasively observing brain activity during the
performance of various cognitive tasks. In the last
two decades, work in neuroscience has corroborated a
number of findings from behavioral studies that
previously could not be explained mechanistically
[5,6]. Research during the past 10 years, for example,
has shed light on how regulation of attention affects
memory networks, as well as how attention can be
improved through deliberate training [7]. Although
applying research from the neuro- and cognitive
sciences to classroom practice certainly remains a
challenge, interdisciplinary collaboration has yielded
considerable educationally-relevant information about
learning mechanisms that could not have been acquired
solely through behavioral methods [8]. Educators now
have relevant information about the neural and
cognitive underpinnings of emotion, which affects
learning in important ways via its influence on higher
cognitive functions (e.g., [9]). In addition, much has
been learned about how the environment influences the
developing brain (e.g., [10]), as well as how symptoms
of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
may represent developmental delay rather than damage
in the brain [11].
Although such research is clearly educationally-
relevant, we have learned that teachers want more
from the field of neuroeducation. When we work with
educators in local schools and in our graduate
courses, we find that they understand the value of
the neuro- and cognitive sciences for informing
education, but are frustrated by the lack of research
intended for educational audiences. We hear com-
plaints that there are few channels through which
teachers can learn about relevant research, as well as
complaints that research may seem highly relevant
while being hard to apply in practice. These com-
plaints likely arise because teachers do not typically
possess the background knowledge that is necessary
to parse research articles and apply findings in
appropriate contexts. This background knowledge is
precisely what we aim to provide through our
graduate certificate program in Mind, Brain, and
Teaching here at Johns Hopkins University. By
bringing scientists and educators together through
graduate courses, conferences, and annual summits,
we can see that even though the exchange of
information and perspective is still at an early stage,
teachers are eager to learn more about neuroscience
research and its potential applications.
Moving Forward: Our Current Predicament
and the Goals of Neuroeducation
Much has been made of the fact that teachers often
latch on to oversimplified interpretations of fine-
grained neuroscientific research—“magic bullets”that
purport to explain away all difficulties and offer ways
M. Hardiman et al.

to immediately improve higher-level cognitive func-
tions (e.g., the belief that people are left- or right-
brained, the perceived advantage for girls in learning
and memory, or the notion that listening to Mozart
will make your baby smarter, [12]). Often referred to
as “neuromyths,”these naïve misinterpretations of
science have spread throughout the folk psychology
of educators in recent years. For the most part, it is
educators who have been blamed for expecting too
much too soon from the scientific community and for
extrapolating from incomplete understandings of
scientific data. On the other hand, however, there is
a scarcity of rigorous research from the neuroscience
community that is readily translatable [3]. According-
ly, teachers should generally be forgiven for climbing
on popular bandwagons that oversimplify research
findings.
Harsh criticism of educators has the potential to
stymie efforts toward building an interdisciplinary
field of neuroeducation, as it reinforces the belief that
teachers lack the general capacity (rather than just the
necessary knowledge) to understand and apply re-
search. In addition, researchers may be reticent to
investigate questions whose answers could translate
into recommended teaching practices for fear of how
these findings might be applied.
The problems facing scientists and teachers are
only exacerbated by the popular media, particularly
those who sensationalize the “bold new findings”of
scientists and exaggerate their immediate impact on
society [13]. The media have reported on findings
ranging from the physical and mental benefits of
listening to music [14], to the negative influence of
poverty on brain development [15], to the effects of
exercise on memory and cognitive processing speed
[16]. While the scientific research that is referenced
may have merit, subtle details and carefully stated
conclusions may be overshadowed or ignored in order
to generate attention-grabbing headlines.
Given all of these issues, it is no wonder that teachers
(perhaps overzealously) expect neuroscience research to
inform what they do as practitioners [17]. Teachers
should not be derided for mistakes they may make
when they take findings out of their proper context and
make sincere attempts to apply them. Rather, the field
of neuroeducation must make it possible for teachers to
appropriately apply neuroscientific findings.
An exchange of knowledge between neuro- and
cognitive scientists and educators will help generate a
better understanding of how learning takes place in
real-world contexts. This understanding will support
the development of research-based pedagogical prac-
tices that are applicable in both formal and informal
learning environments. Rather than remaining stuck
in the thinking of “a bridge too far,”we must be
committed to building a bridge from the middle
outwards; the emerging field of neuroeducation
represents the middle ground from which to start.
An important goal of neuroeducation is to
translate relevant research findings from the
neuro- and cognitive sciences and help educators
interpret and apply these findings in the classroom.
Given the rich potential of the science of learning
to inform educational practice and the desire of
educators to know more about how students learn,
educators have the right to ask why few are
currently doing this necessary translational work.
The need for translators and for greater collabora-
tion between educators and neuro- and cognitive
scientists has been previously described by a
number of researchers [18–22]. However, as will
be described in detail later, creating a permanent new
“profession”of neuroeducational translators seems
unfeasible; instead, we need to better prepare
teachers to be thoughtful and informed consumers
of research from the neuro- and cognitive sciences.
In the long-term, a more ideal state of affairs will be
one in which teachers themselves are able to
evaluate relevant findings and translate them to
inform practices in their own classrooms. In the next
section, we describe the series of ethical hurdles that
must be overcome in order to achieve this goal.
Ethical Challenges of Neuroeducation
Education is not the only discipline in which it has
recently become important to make sense of the
latest neuroscience research. New multidisciplinary
fields of study are proliferatinginavarietyof
domains. For example, specialists in neuroeconom-
ics have used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
techniques to investigate the way people make
decisions about their willingness to pay for goods
[23]. Specialists in neurolaw study the neural under-
pinnings of decision-makingbyjurors,whomust
assess responsibility and determine appropriate pun-
ishments [24]. And those studying neuroaesthetics
Neuroethics, Neuroeducation, and Classroom Teaching

investigate the brain’s response to the perception of
beauty (e.g. [25]).
While the number of “neuro-”fields like neuro-
education will likely continue to grow, educators will
face ethical hurdles that are arguably more intense
than those confronting other disciplines [20]. Howard
Gardner [26] points out that the field of neuro-
education will be challenged as it seeks to reconcile
the public’s notion of effective educational policies
(i.e., high stakes testing and accountability) with the
interests of neuroeducators: bench scientists, clini-
cians, teachers, and policy-makers who seek to
understand how children learn best.
As with other “neuro-disciplines,”practitioners on
the ground take new research, adapt it for their own
purposes, and establish their own standards for
pragmatic utility. So what are the ethical challenges
that make neuroeducation a special case? We believe
that educational neuroethics must address: a) what
teachers can expect from science and what their
responsibilities are when interpreting and applying
neuroscientific findings, b) what researchers who do
educationally relevant research should contribute to
translational work that is intended to inform
teaching and learning, c) how popular media and
publishers of educational products should portray
scientific findings, d) how educational policy-
makers should realign their priorities to focus on
the science of learning, and e) how universities can
play the crucial role of facilitating these changes by
providing educators with relevant information and
equipping them with the tools needed to apply that
information effectively through teacher preparation
programs and professional development.
Teachers’Expectations and the Responsibilities
That Come with Them
While educational policies and practices continue to
focus strongly on the product of learning (mainly
through standardized testing), our experience with
teachers demonstrates that they tend to be more
concerned with the process of learning. That is,
public attention is focused on external factors such
as content standards, school governance, age/grade
configurations, curricula, data-based decision making,
and accountability for student test scores, while
teachers are looking to the neuro- and cognitive
sciences to help them better understand the needs of
the learner.
We do not believe that teachers are asking
scientists to help them to create the “ultimate lesson
plan.”Rather, the teachers coming to our graduate
program in Mind, Brain, and Teaching simply seek to
understand the developing brain and how it processes
information—how knowledge is acquired, main-
tained, retrieved, and applied to solve problems.
Teachers want to know more about typically and
atypically-developing pathways for learning so that
they can serve the needs of students at all points along
the achievement spectrum. Teachers want to know
about topics they see as highly relevant to their work
as educators: the neural and cognitive mechanisms
underlying numeracy and literacy; the effects of stress
and emotion on learning; the influence of physical
factors such as sleep, nutrition, and exercise on
student performance; the consequences of social
issues like poverty, abuse, and neglect. Just as
teachers encourage their students to understand con-
cepts rather than simply memorizing facts, teachers
themselves want not only to learn facts about the
brain, but also to be able to understand more complex
neural and cognitive processes so that they can
evaluate relevant research on their own.
Teachers don’t want “dumbed-down”information;
they want to be able to understand research and
potential implications for practice. They want to be
aware of limitations regarding the applicability of
research, as sometimes it is not possible to draw
inferences about cognitive processes from neuro-
imaging data [27], and neuroscience tends to operates
at a fine-grained level of analysis that is out of sync
with the practical needs of classroom teachers [12].
Therefore, ethical responsibility rests with teachers to
become authentic consumers of research—that is, to
be scientifically literate enough with respect to brain
structure and function that they can evaluate research
findings and discriminate relevant information from
neuromyth. There needs to be an institutional obliga-
tion for teachers to possess this kind of knowledge;
right now, the process of discovery is driven by
purely by individual incentive. In later sections, we
will suggest how to create this institutional obligation,
and in addition we will recount the experiences of
teachers who have pursued knowledge of neurosci-
ence; they describe important enhancements to the
teaching and learning process.
M. Hardiman et al.

What Researchers Should Contribute
to Translational Science
Responsibility for the disconnect between neurosci-
ence and education has to be shared. Scientists follow
an agenda that is rarely related to classroom practice
or objectives. Findings in the neuro- and cognitive
sciences typically do not (and in many cases simply
cannot) take into account complex higher-order
cognitive processes, nor can they account for the
inherently relationship-based, situational practice of
teaching. Yet, at the same time, educators appeal to
the authority of objective science to legitimize many
of their decisions [28]. Neuroscientists should make
an effort to relate their work to the kind of behavioral
and cognitive research that is sometimes (though not
nearly often enough) presented to educators in teacher
preparation programs. For example, Shaywitz et al.
[29] link neuroscientific findings on dyslexia to the sort
of behavioral observations (e.g., disfluent reading) that
many teachers may have been trained to look for when
assessing the source of students’difficulties.
Neuro- and cognitive science researchers must
make a sufficient attempt to look from the lab to the
classroom whenever it’s clear their work is relevant to
education. Significant progress will be made if
scientific researchers are willing to step out of the
laboratory and collaborate with educators by working
in school settings with principals and teachers as co-
investigators. In particular, this partnership requires
identifying research questions that arise from the real
needs of teachers, determining the best ways to test
hypotheses, designing studies that allow for rigorous
experimentation, and disseminating findings through
a variety of print and electronic media in addition to
peer-refereed journals. In this way, the field of
neuroeducation can bring to education the “bench to
bedside”research approach that is common in
medicine but rare in educational practice.
In order to make a meaningful contribution to
neuroeducation, scientists and educators must have
regular opportunities to exchange points of view,
compare professional methodologies, and begin to
build mutually beneficial paths toward collaboration.
While large conferences provide a chance for teachers
to learn about research findings, smaller venues that
provide for more meaningful dialogue are important
as well. Recent events that aim to foster precisely this
sort of interdisciplinary dialogue have been organized
by Harvard University (Connecting the Mind, Brain, and
Education institutes) and the Society for Neuroscience
(National Science Teachers Association Conference
workshops). At Johns Hopkins, we hold annual neuro-
education “summits.”During our 2009 summit on
Learning, Arts, and the Brain, for example, researchers
shared findings related to the link between regular study
in the arts and improved cognition and attention [30].
Through roundtable discussions, educators and scientists
identified areas of interest for future research. These
discussions helped jumpstart collaborations with local
school principals to develop and conduct school-based
studies on the effectiveness of arts integration for
enhancing learning and memory. This event represents
an example of how researchers and educators can build
a collaborative process of discovery based on the real
needs of the classroom.
Popular Media and For-Profit Publishers
Educators are surely just as enamored as the general
public of images in popular magazines of brain scans
from functional MRI studies [31]. Weisberg, Keil,
Goodstein, Rawson, and Gray [32] note the “seduc-
tive allure”of neuroscience findings in general.
Teachers hope that cutting-edge research involving
these new technologies will shed light on students’
thinking and learning and help them make instructional
decisions. However, it is often the case that scientific
findings are misrepresented in the media (e.g. [33]. If
popular science articles are to serve a purpose in
educating teachers as well as the general public,
however, it is imperative that the media authentically
explain scientific findings rather than exploiting them
for sensational headlines. Illes et al. [34]propose
several ways in which communication of neuroscience
research may be improved.
Moreover, publishers of educational textbooks and
materials often use the term “brain-based”as a way to
add legitimacy to their product, even if there is little
to no scientific basis or rationale for how the proposed
activities are informed by research from the brain
sciences [35]. Commercial products like these—which
often encourage teachers to “teach to the right brain”
or the “left brain,”or to provide instruction based on
auditory or visual “learning styles”—waste teachers’
valuable time and fritter away precious resources. Even
worse, they have the potential to dupe teachers and
Neuroethics, Neuroeducation, and Classroom Teaching

administrators into believing that they are using
evidence-based practices in their schools and class-
rooms. Publishers of educational products who make
such claims have the ethical obligation to connect any
instructional strategy labeled as “brain-based”with
supporting research. If educators could become their
own translators of scientific research, district-based
textbook adoption committees would be much more
likely to hold publishers’feet to the fire by demanding
that legitimate research support recommended teaching
strategies.
Educational Policy-Makers
The burden of identifying, disseminating and promot-
ing the use of research-based best practices must also
be shared by educational policy-makers. Educational
leaders at all levels should promote legitimate trans-
lations of research, leveraging media outlets—the
Internet, as well as print and broadcast journalists—
to help the public distinguish “gee-whiz”ideas from
real, practical applications of sound research. And
efforts must be made to derive practical ideas not just
from research that focuses on fundamental learning
processes, but also that investigating important phys-
iological factors such as sleep, exercise, and nutrition.
Educational leaders should be open to utilizing new
research to inform policy, such as recent work on the
circadian rhythms of adolescents that could inform
school start times and schedules [36,37].
Those who craft educational policies must be
vigilant in seeking out and applying valid scientific
research in order to reconfigure school policies and
practices [38]. In addition, educational decision-
makers need to rely on research on cognitive
development to make decisions regarding curricula.
For example, we now know that some children may
not be developmentally ready for reading instruction
in kindergarten and that 12-year-olds may not possess
the conceptual or abstract thinking capacities neces-
sary to readily tackle algebraic concepts [39].
Universities and Teacher Preparation Programs
Currently, universities—including most schools of
education—need to do much more to bring to
teachers scientific evidence that can inform their
practice. Universities should be at the forefront of
the movement to organize, support, and manage
collaboration between researchers and teachers in
order to advance the field of neuroeducation. It has
been proposed that interdisciplinary programs are
needed to train “educational engineers,”translators
who can help bridge disciplines [3]. These translators,
trained in multidisciplinary programs tied to schools
of education, can return to schools and school districts
with sufficient background in the neuro- and cogni-
tive sciences to provide perspective and transmit
knowledge to their colleagues. However, while
specialized neuroeducational engineers are needed in
the short-term to start bridging the gap between
disciplines, intermediaries alone simply do not repre-
sent a comprehensive solution when it comes to
making the goals of neuroeducation a reality. Rather,
as the body of educationally-relevant knowledge in
the neuro- and cognitive sciences increases, so does
the need for teachers to have ready access to new
research findings that can inform their classroom
practices. Thus, in the long-term, teacher prepara-
tion programs must train teachers to be their own
translators.
Right now, schools of education need to seek out
and hire individuals who have training in areas such
as neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science,
as well as interest and experience in educational
settings. These multidisciplinary specialists—faculty,
postdoctoral fellows, and researchers—will a) craft
new programs like those at Johns Hopkins and
Harvard, whose graduates can serve as translators
for practicing educators, and b) work over the long-
term to overhaul teacher preparation and research
programs to include a focus on the intersection of
pedagogy and the neuro- and cognitive sciences. This
dual approach aims to ensure that all teachers and
educational policy-makers have a basic understanding
of neural and cognitive processes and the ability to
apply that knowledge in practice. In order to achieve
this, the character of instruction in schools of
education will need to change dramatically. We do
not advocate here that teachers and policy-makers
should become neuroscientists. Rather, like medical
doctors who may not conduct research themselves but
are nonetheless prepared by their training to be able to
interpret and apply research findings, teachers should
receive training that allows them to understand and
critically evaluate research relevant to education. This
M. Hardiman et al.

may mean that schools of education should require all
future educators to complete more core coursework in
the sciences. When given such training in the course
of teacher preparation, teachers will be in much less
danger of falling prey to the next popular neuromyth,
and in the long run they will have less of a need for
someone else to interpret new findings for them.
Creating degree programs to train translators is
not the only way to immediately disseminate
knowledge from the neuro- and cognitive sciences
to educators. Schools of education should also
expand their reach by providing ongoing profes-
sional development opportunities for the education-
al community at large. This is a role that is not
currently played by most schools of education. But
in order to counter the influence of highly com-
mercial professional development programs, which
often peddle strategies that lack a basis in sound
science, schools of education have an ethical
responsibility to provide these opportunities. Teach-
ers who participate in this kind of professional
development can work with schools of education to
disseminate knowledge to their peers through
mentorship and faculty training sessions in their
schools. Furthermore, armed with knowledge from
the neuro- and cognitive sciences and the capability
to apply it, these experienced educators will be an
invaluable resource for identifying research ques-
tions that are urgent and immediately applicable to
the field of education.
Our Experience
It has been several years since we began initiatives
outlined above at the Johns Hopkins University
School of Education. Having seen the first cohort of
teachers complete our graduate certificate in Mind,
Brain, and Teaching, and having finished our first
professional development series in Baltimore City
Public Schools, we can see more clearly than ever the
need for such programs. The popularity of our
certificate program and the number of requests we
have received for professional development demon-
strate the desire of both teachers and administrators to
understand the neural bases of learning and be able to
apply this understanding in their classrooms. Many of
these educators have been through commercial pro-
fessional development programs on “brain-based
learning.”These teachers in retrospect feel deceived
and dissatisfied at being handed a “bag of tricks”
without any truly scientific evidence to back them up.
In addition, oftentimes they become frustrated as each
new workshop they take contradicts earlier ones or
fails to make meaningful connections to practice. This
is what led many of these educators to look for
university neuroeducation programs through which
they could learn about cognitive science and neuro-
science research and translate findings for use in their
own classrooms. More important, these students of
neuroeducation want to learn how to read and
understand primary sources of scientific information
without needing an intermediary.
The content of our graduate certificate program
begins with a survey of current neuro- and cognitive
science research on attention, memory, learning, and
executive functions, and considers applications to
teaching via a translational model, the Brain-Targeted
Teaching (BTT) Model [40]. The BTT model is a
pedagogical framework that is designed to help
teachers interpret research and incorporate relevant
findings into their practice. In subsequent courses,
students learn more about cognitive development, as
well as learning differences and disabilities. In
addition, students are taught about the cognitive and
neural bases of literacy and numeracy. In the course
of their training, students are not only exposed to
prior and current research, but are also taught how to
read primary sources so that they can critically
evaluate what they read and think of ways to translate
findings to the field of education. The courses, taught
by an interdisciplinary team of faculty from the
School of Education as well as cognitive psycholo-
gists and neuropsychologists from other divisions of
the university, benefit both the students and the
faculty, as students learn about research first-hand
and researchers learn what issues are most pressing to
practitioners. This makes for a rigorous and challeng-
ing, but also extremely satisfying learning experience.
Through formal and informal feedback, we have
learned that these educators apply new knowledge in
their own classrooms and share it with others in
personal communications and in-service professional
development. They also tell us about the benefits they
see in student learning.
It is often at the recommendations of our current
and former students that school principals ask for
professional development for all of their teachers. In a
Neuroethics, Neuroeducation, and Classroom Teaching

series of lectures and hands-on sessions, we provide
educators with information from the neuro- and
cognitive sciences within the practical framework of
the Brain-Targeted Teaching Model. Even from this
truncated exposure (about 20 h of training), we
receive reports of its positive impact on teaching
and learning.
Of course, excited positive feedback from teachers
is not our main goal, and ultimately we want to know
if possessing knowledge of neural and cognitive bases
of learning actually makes a measurable difference in
teachers’instruction and students’learning. To this
end we are conducting studies in schools to evaluate
how providing teachers with knowledge from the
neuro- and cognitive sciences affects their approach to
the task of imparting lasting knowledge to their
students. At the same time, we are measuring how
this different kind of teaching impacts students’
learning and retention of material.
Conclusion
It is the duty of the academic community to provide a
high-quality alternative to purely commercial (and often
specious) applications of “brain-based”research. This is
what the public should expect of educators and schools.
It is also incumbent on those with the power to do so to
stop misinterpretations before they evolve into
widespread trends of thinking. In the past, both
educators and the public have made some bad
inferences about the brain and how students learn.
We thought the brain never changed. We knew
plasticity was important but couldn’tseeits
relevance to instructional interventions. And we thought
it was useful to categorize children according to their
individual “learning styles.”
Teachers who are adequately trained in both
pedagogy and the neuro- and cognitive sciences move
us beyond “a-bridge-too-far”thinking by steering a
clearer course between what people believe, what is
actually known, and what is likely to be useful in the
classroom. Without the help of translators in the
short-term and more rigorous teacher preparation in
the long-term, neuroscientists and cognitive scientists
will continue to work in a vacuum, and teachers and
the public may make false inferences about what
research actually means. And if schools and school
districts cannot identify and readily obtain legitimate
knowledge that helps children and teachers, they run
the risk of falling prey to commercial interests that are
strong on marketing and distribution but weak on
scientific content.
Finally, the most important ethical transgression in
education in recent memory has gone unaddressed. In
the last decade we have defined school success and
student learning more and more narrowly. As we have
chased the shortsighted goals of No Child Left
Behind, our focus has shifted away from children as
learners and toward school and teacher accountability
based on standardized testing. The neuroeducation
movement—which is sharply focused on how children
learn—works against this fixation on test scores [28].
The success of our schools ultimately depends on
having a scientific understanding of the specific issues
with which teachers and students must contend.
Through our academic and professional develop-
ment programs, we have demonstrated that neuro-
education has the potential to significantly influence
educational practice. Educational neuroethics pro-
vides a platform for bringing to light important social
and ethical issues, and therefore is perfectly posi-
tioned to move the larger educational community
toward the cognitive and neuroscientific conception
of learning that ought to be the primary focus.
Though it may not be possible (in the short-term at
least) to reach a national consensus regarding the
goals of our education system, the emerging field of
neuroeducation—with help from neuroethics—can
and should broaden everyone’s perspective of what
an effective school and an educated child truly are.
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Neuroethics, Neuroeducation, and Classroom Teaching