Educational Leadership
May 2020
Learning and the Brain
Volume 77, Number 8
DESCRIPTION
The May 2020 issue of Educational Leadership explores the increasingly compelling connections between brain science and the classroom. With research in neuroscience shedding new light on how students learn best, the issue aims to help educators make the most of this information to promote whole child development—and determine how they can sort genuine scientific findings from myths and hearsay.
FEATURES
14 The Sciences of Teaching
Carol Ann Tomlinson and David A. Sousa
The fields of neuroscience and psychology, when paired, offer new insights on effective instruction.
22 Believing in the Brain
Marcus Conyers and Donna Wilson
Teaching students about brain plasticity can cultivate a growth mindset.
28 Educating the Whole Learner
Sara E. Rimm-Kaufman and Jacqueline Jodl
Mobilizing whole child advocates behind the neuroscience of learning and development.
36 Building Meaning Builds Teens’ Brains
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Douglas R. Knecht
Connecting schoolwork to big ideas can enhance adolescents’ neural networks.
44 The Creative Brain
Gayle T. Dow and Katie Kozlowski
Applying principles of neuroscience to teach creativity and collaboration.
52 Picturing the Brain
John Gabrieli
New brain-imaging methods are helping us better understand how children learn.
58 How Teens’ Brains Are Different
A visual look at the neurological “mismatch” that makes adolescents so—well—interesting.
60 Teaching to the Whole Brain
Liesl McConchie and Eric Jensen
Incorporate strategies into your teaching that will engage all areas of the brain.
66 Neuroscientists in Training
Steven Azeka, Steven Carter, and Ido Davidesco
A university-designed program gets high school students learning about learning.
70 Education’s Research Problem
Daniel T. Willingham and Andrew J. Rotherham
Educators and policymakers often ignore or distort scientific findings. Here’s why—and what we can do about it.
76 Retrieval Practice: A Power Tool for Lasting Learning
Pooja K. Agarwal
Research in cognitive psychology shows that getting students to pull information from their memory is key to long-term transfer.
COLUMNS
9 Reader's Guide/Shaping Minds in Challenging Times
Anthony Rebora
82 Research Matters/Elegant Simplicity in Brain Science
Bryan Goodwin and Darienne Dey
A six-phase model for learning and retaining information.
84 Show & Tell: A Video Column/For Complex Texts, the Brain Prefers Paper
Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey
When a text requires some struggle, print rules!
86 Leading Together/Retraining the Brain
Jill Harrison Berg
Leading for equity with the brain in mind.
88 Confronting Inequity/The Trauma We Don’t See
Dena Simmons
Too often, the trauma of high-achieving Black students goes unnoticed.
90 ASCD Policy Priorities/There’s No Place Like School
David Griffith
School closures connected to COVID-19 help us remember how central schools are to our common life.
DEPARTMENTS
6 Readers React
10 Advisory
91 Index to Advertisers
92 Whole Child Spotlight: On Mind-Body Connectedness
93 Tell Us About
Readers reflect on ways they incorporate principles of learning science in their classroom practice.
94 ASCD Community in Action
96 EL Takeaways/To Keep in Mind . . .
EL ONLINE EXCLUSIVES
Leveraging Neuroscience in Lesson Design
Allison Posey
Suggestions for planning instruction that aligns with how the brain learns.