Based on an original idea by Cath Tate Cards
In June 2004 I wrote in Fortnightly Mailing about Frank Coffield's soon-to-be influential demolition job on learning styles inventories and their widespread, baseless use in UK FHE. "Come dance with me" [20 Feb 2011 - link broken - here is a report from the meeting - PDF] is Coffield's slightly inconclusive reflection from a 2005 meeting in Japan on the contribution of neuroscience to our understanding of teaching and learning. Here is an extract from its seductive introduction:
Education is apparently about to be swept off her feet by the omniscient new god of neuroscience, who will answer all her questions and solve all her problems. When? How long shall education have to wait? Five, ten, twenty years? I returned from Japan refreshed and invigorated by the Network meeting, but with a number of growing concerns: for example, if brain science does not learn from the past failures of psychologists, who promised teachers the moon and gave them instead such shoddy goods as intelligence tests, programmed learning and learning styles, then it may suffer the same fate of being ignored. If teachers are turned off by premature claims that prove to be overblown and inaccurate, brain science is likely from then on to be overlooked, no matter what advances it continues to make. The first pitch, the first chat-up line, the invitation to the dance is all important; finding out what the main stresses are on teachers and how neuroscience can help may be a better starting point.
The piece is organised in five sections:
- findings from brain science;
- gaps in our knowledge base;
- general concerns;
- hopes for the future;
- suggestions for policy.
One point I strongly agree with is Coffield's call for some public statement from brain science
"about what is common ground among neuroscientists, what is currently disputed territory, what are the controversial claims of eccentric individuals or ‘rogue’ teams, and what can be safely dismissed as ‘neuromyths’."
It would be particularly useful for such a statement to deal with neuroplasticity, since reference to this term is now so frequent in discourse about the impact on computer games playing on learners' capabilities and preferences and in the (false, I think) debate about digital natives and digital immigrants.
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