Brain Based Teaching and Learning with Neuroteach Author Glenn Whitman

Episode 008: Glenn Whitman, NeuroTeach
Today we talk with one of the authors of NeuroTeach: Brain Science and the Future of Education, Mr. Glenn Whitman. His dedication to understanding neuroscience and learning in order to effect change at the school building level permeates policy at the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland. Glenn speaks to us about the ways in which learning about the brain can enhance our instruction.

Connect with Glenn Whitman
Twitter: @gwhitmancttl | Website: thecttl.org | Book: NeuroTeach: Brain Science and the Future of Education

Links & Show Notes

• Out of our heads and into the classroom
• Memory Palace / Memory Journey (1:35)
  ..* Kevin Horsley, International Grandmaster of Memory
  ..* Priming (2:55)
  ..* Spacing (3:25)
  ..* Hidden Brain (3:49)
  ..* Thinking Fast & Slow / You are Not So Smart (4:11)
  ..* “The more you know, the easier it is to know more.”
  ..* Science of Success episode with Kevin Horsley
  ..* Storytelling (5:00)
  ..* Dreams as a story to create narrative from chaos
  ..* Broca’s Area (5:37)
  ..* Brain lighting up when hearing stories same as if action was happening to you (fMRI)
  ..* Stillmotion: touch the heart to move the mind
• Intro to Glenn Whitman (6:50)
  ..* NeuroTeach
  ..* CTTL
  ..* Think Differently & Deeply
• One educational truth: Every day every kid will bring his or her brain to class (7:54)
• How do kids actually learn, never trained (8:37)
• In 2007 - asked ourselves ‘What makes an Expert Teacher?’ (9:02)
  ..* Do we know enough about the organ of learning, the brain? Only 20% of teachers have been exposed to that sort of training, per Glenn’s experience
• Mind Brain Education - train St Andrews Teachers in the Learning Brain + ongoing PD in Educational Neuroscience (10:17)
  ..* Denise Pope at Stanford
  ..* Dan Willingham at UVA
  ..* Rob Coe at University of Durham in UK
• Mission-driven (12:55)
• Teacher enthusiasm for working with research (13:41)
• “Can you change the culture of a school through research?” (14:22)
  ..* We don’t intentionally use research enough in the learning space to improve instruction.
  ..* Teacher as researcher
  ..* Ready-made research (15:25)
  ..* E.g. Memory (16:00)
  ..* Spacing effect, active retrieval, dual coding, flashcards being misused
  ..* Action Research (17:01)
  ..* Original Research studies (17:25)
• Unconscionable List (18:12) - “detrimental pedagogy”
  ..* Labeling students (19:15)
  ..* Surprise quizzes that count for substantial points (19:51)
  ..* Wasting the beginning and the end of class (20:34)
  ..* Ebbinghaus Curve of Forgetting (21:55)
  ..* Exclusive Content: add 2 more to the list
  ..* No high school should start before 830 am (22:42)
  ..* No more than 4 subjects a day (23:20)
  ..* Other unconscionable list items:
  ..* Balance between project-based learning and the content knowledge necessary to be successful in those projects (23:38)
  ..* The Myth of Learning styles (24:34)
  ..* Howard Gardner
• Start and end of class (25:31)
• 3 questions every Monday from one teacher - one thing you remember from last week, 1 thing you remember from last month, 1 thing you remember from September (28:19)
  ..* Primacy recency effect
• Labeling (29:09)
  ..* What labels do to our mindset (29:57)
  ..* Create a fixed mindset & a self-fulfilling prophecy
  ..* Neuroplasticity (31:09)
• The Mindset Scholars Network (31:40)
  ..* Belonging Mindset
  ..* Purpose & Relevance Mindset
• Study - Reminded participants of race before a math assessment (33:34)
  ..* Hardiman out of Johns Hopkins
  ..* Downshifting (33:55)
• 12 Things Teachers should do for every student every day (35:16)
  ..* Choice Final Exams (35:38)
  ..* Low stakes Formative Assessment (37:08)
  ..* Connection between emotion and learning (37:37)
  ..* Rick Wormeli “Fair is not always equal.”
  ..* Spacing / active retrieval / dual coding
  ..* Exclusive Content
  ..* Teaching students the neuroanatomy behind learning (39:37)
• Making the podcast better (40:03)
  ..* Think Differently & Deeply - authors podcast (40:25)
  ..* Acknowledging prior knowledge
• Teaching is a learning profession for the adult (42:03)
  ..* You should be better in June than you were in September
  ..* Project Zero’s Thinking Routines
  ..* Ron Ritchhart
  ..* CTTL - Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning
• Mind, Brain, Education (44:10)
  ..* Twitter is a great lifeline - the Learning Scientists - subscribe!
  ..* @gwhitmancttl
  ..* “NeuroTeach Global” being released in January 2019 (45:01)
• Multitasking (46:41) - think about the pace and the amount of activities we’re giving our students
• Self-testing is the million dollar strategy (49:00) - how much do you know without referencing anything, then build upon the gaps
• We want doctors that have studied the organs of the body; we want teachers that have studied the organ of learning (50:47)
  ..* Studying the learning brain should be the foundation in our professional learning for improving at other pedagogical techniques
• Takeaways (53:21)