How Many Harvard / MIT Students Does It Take To Light A Light Bulb? - Science Misconceptions

"The interesting part about the batteries and bulbs question is that people always predict that they can do it..." - Philip Sadler

After a wonderful interview with dyslexic astrophysicist Matt Schneps last week, we watched his now-classic documentary for science education Minds of Our Own with our kids. You can watch it free online here.

When Schneps and Sadler asked graduating seniors at Harvard and MIT whether they could light a lightbulb with a battery and a wire, they all said "Yes!" or "Definitely yes!" - but in reality only very few could actually do it. The scenario highlighted of the challenges that teachers face when trying to learn. It's not sufficient just to teach; if we want 'deep learning' then we also need to attack pre-existing misconceptions.

We are watching the 3 hrs series with our kids - and heartily recommend it for stimulating family discussions.

The show also jogged a memory of something the famous dyslexic architect Richard Rogers had said, "If you’re forced to question everything, you’re actually likely to make less mistakes…The things that don’t work in my experience, are never, at least practically never, the new things. They’re the old things that you forget to question.”

With the brain's economy, it's much easier to sneak in a wrong idea that fits with a pre-existing schema (plausible) than a new idea that might be true, but is unexpected (implausible).

If all this sounds sinister, it can be - this laziness of learning means that the propaganda technique of misinformation is so effective (for more reading, check here.

So what's a teacher to do? It seems as if one way to overcome misconceptions is to use effective analogies. An isolated fact won't stick, but if you can find something to hang a new fact on, then maybe long-term learning will take place.

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Why it's hard to get rid of old ideas
Cautions of bad analogies.
More analogies to overcome misinformation
Bridging analogies

Take a Brain Break or Nap to Boost Your Memory & learning

Researchers at UC Berkeley found that taking a short nap, improved learning by 10%. NYU researchers at right found that providing a 'rest' period before a memory task improved learning efficiency and blood flow in to the hippocampus.

All this makes great sense, but for most of us, naptime is over in Kindergarten.

Well, at least most places. Google seems to have recognized the importance of taking a rest for boosting general brain efficiency. At left is a nap pod that blocks light and sound at Google headquarters in Mountain View.

The importance of taking a break shouldn't be lost on classroom (or home-based) teachers. Instead of grinding it out lessons, reinforcing points, and trying to cover as much as possible, our students will remember more if we interrupt our lectures with little pauses or diversions and take more breaks!

Brain Break to Boost Associative Memory pdf

Brain Fitness: If You Don't Use It, Will You Lose It?

Thanks, Dr. Trevor Tebbs for this week's question about whether failure to use one's mind results in the cognitive deterioration. What's the answer to this question? YES. There is good evidence that the brain needs ongoing stimulation to preserve its function and to protect against injury. During development, the principle is also true; early deprivation affects intellectual development for years.

Dr. Marian Diamond conducted pioneering work showing that increases in cortical dendritic growth was at its greatest in the first 10 years of life - a big reason for why childhood intellectual development is so important.

From the Carolina Abecedarian project of preschool educational intervention for poor children, long-lasting benefits were noted into the young adult years in terms of reading and math achievement and admission to college.

More recent research has been even more encouraging about the importance of intellectual stimulation: enriched environments were seen to have protective or beneficial recovery effects on such diverse conditions as Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's Disease, Epilepsy, Stroke, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Fragile X.

The data are also encouraging for all of us adults with aging brains. If you look at the figure at right, it really is alarming. From Intellectual Development in Adulthood:

"Substantial intellectual changes within individuals occur only late in life and tend to occur for abilities that were less central to the individuals' life experiences and thus perhaps less practiced."

Fortunately, even in the area of aging, keeping one's mind active does seem to build up 'cognitive reserve' that will make it more resistant to cognitive decline with aging.

If you are over the age of 65, you can take the LEQ questionnaire for free here for free. It estimates complex mental activity over the lifespan (reading, writing, social activities, travel, occupation, etc.).

In the figure below, see how higher lifetime complex mental activities slowed the rate of hippocampal atrophy over three years (good thing you're reading this blog!)





Lifespan Mental activity predicts slower atrophy:

Gifted Big Picture / High Conceptual Thinkers

We've talked about conceptual thinking before on this blog, but after seeing a number of pint-sized big picture thinkers in our clinic these past months, we thought to post on this thinking profile in kids.

Perhaps because of our interest in gifted dyslexics, we seem to see this pattern quite a lot. Gifted high conceptual thinkers are not limited to the dyslexic population though, of course.

One educational authority defined conceptual thinking is an "ability to identify patterns or connections between situations that are not obviously related, and to identify key or underlying issues in complex situations. It includes using creative, conceptual or inductive reasoning." Wikipedia adds that conceptual thinking is a problem solving style that involves a "creative search for new ideas or solutions".

We see young gifted HCTs as kids really driven by new and different ideas. Their interests are often quite broad, but what really gets them going is discovering something new, seeing something familiar from a unfamiliar viewpoint, or applying something conventional to an unconventional use. The HCT label may seem to capture them better than any conventional learning style like visual or verbal learner.

High Conceptual Thinkers are often...

- Omnivorous Learners: The world may be their oyster. Because of their quest for the "interesting", they may love the Internet, read entire encyclopedias, or incessantly question adults about the real world, and so learn a little bit about everything. They may not hit ceiling scores on the conceptual knowledge IQ subtests because their omnivorous approach to figuring out the world around them.

- New is the Thing: HCTs prefer novelty (this is how they develop new conceptual categories) and are tickled by unconventional viewpoints or discoveries.

- Big Picture, Not Little Details: HCTs don't always transition well to the "precision years" of late elementary, middle school, or beyond.

- Boredom is Death: Although using the 'b' word is notoriously a "no-no" word when talking to teachers, these kids rebel against what they see as boredom. Boredom may really seem like death to young HCTs. If young HCTs seem "driven by a motor", it's intellectual restlessness and it can be a blessing as well as a burden.

Not surprisingly, these kids often find classroom learning unsatisfying. After all, much of early education is focused on mastering basic skills or established facts, this is not what these kids are about. They'd rather be finding new worlds to conquer.

Although these kids are challenging to teach and parent, they are also a delight, and Dan Pink and others have suggested that the Conceptual Age is upon us and this pattern of thinking should be what we should be encouraging.

Teaching Big Picture / High Conceptual Thinkers

- Sky's the Limit: If an idea or a lesson would be interesting to a wonky tech-y post-college 20-something, then it's fine for the HCT. If a story or thing could be written about in Wired, Fast Company, or Mental Floss, then you're probably on the right track. Sky should be the limit. Even some generally excellent gifted programs we've seen may grossly underestimate an HCT's ability to think about advanced concepts. Also because HCTs develop their ideas through pattern recognition, they may want to see many examples and permutations, and complex presentations in order to help organize their ideas into simpler concepts.

- Play with Ideas: Conceptual thinkers like and need to play with ideas. Play expands ideas, creating a new opening for associations. Play means not micromanaging learning experiences - allowing some dabbling, and taking away some of the "high stakes every time" routine (e.g. not everything should be graded).

- Argue with Ideas We think many educational curricula wait way to long before they allow young HCTs to consider different viewpoints, learn how to frame arguments or actually debate, but this is often what HCTs love. If they don't get it at school, make sure they get it home...maybe at the dinner table? Half of the 400 eminent men and women profiled in the Goertzels' Cradles of Eminence came from "opinionated" families: "It is these homes that produce most of the scientists, humanitarians, and reformers."


More Misc. Facts about High Conceptual Thinkers: some HCTs may get into their ideas so much that they forget the physical world (forget to eat, can be unkempt, messy spaces). Finally, it's useful to recognize that HCTs have a different motivational structure than non-HCTs. For instance, an HCT may easily pass the marshmellow experiment of delayed gratification, for instance, but miserably if rather than a marshmellow it's really cool game, puzzle, book, kit, gizmo...