Reflections on Learning and the Brain: "Educating for Creative Minds: Using Brain Science to Ignite Innovation and Imagination"-Part I

This year's Learning and the Brain Conference took place in San Francisco, from February 14-16, 2013.  The theme: "Educating for Creative Minds: Using Brain Science to Ignite Innovation and Imagination." 

Generally, speakers simply presented data, leaving conference attendees to extrapolate on the findings and consider ways to apply the information to instructional practice.  I also would've liked presenters to have defined their terms better--a lot of them conflated innovation with creativity, although the two terms are not synonymous to me.  The etymology of "innovation" derives from the Latin innovare, "to make new". The word suggests the creation of something new and novel, emphasizing an end product.  In contrast, "creativity", derived from the Latin creare, or "beget" seems more process-oriented: the ability to flexibly problem-solve, approach a topic from several angles, and give birth to ideas.  One can be creative without necessarily being innovative.

Overall, the conference was valuable for my professional development as both teacher and parent, providing intellectual grist for the pedagogical mill.  My husband and I attended the same keynote and break-out sessions in order to have common ground for discussion and collaboration.  The following are some key points we gleaned from the conference:

• Neuroscience supports progressive, collaborative, compassionate learning that is hands-on and project-based.  
• Neural wiring connecting the left and right brain develops strongly from ages 8-12.
• Arts allows the whole body and all intelligences to learn: everything's activated.
• From Stanford University psychologist, Carol Dweck: It's crucial for students to cultivate a "growth mindset": basic abilities such as talent or intelligence can be developed by hard work, perseverance, and resilience, creating greater motivation and productivity.  Parents and teachers should praise qualities that are controllable, like effort.   
• In the future, routine work can be increasingly mechanized--what isn't easily replaceable is the human capacity for critical thinking, conducting research and development, problem-solving, entrepreneurship, and creativity--a sophisticated set of skills that can't be automatized.  If we foster that capacity, humans are less likely to be displaced by technology, although they may require periodic "upskilling" to advance their skill set. 
• The role of teachers in the era of ubiquitous search and artificial intelligence that can provide answers instantaneously?: To foster wisdom, ethics, fluidity with technology, adaptability, resilience, curiosity, synthesis of meaning, and creativity.
• From Milton Chen, senior fellow at the George Lucas Educational Foundation, which spearheads Edutopia.com, amongst other projects: Responding to the prompt, "What's your definition of a great school?  Make it short and measureable," Chen replied, "Do the students run in (to the classroom), as fast as they run out?"
• "Not everything that counts can be counted.  And not everything that can be counted counts."  --Albert Einstein.  Passion for learning is essential, though arguably not as easy to quantify or assess as say, test scores.

Stay tuned for further installments on this conference!

Eric Jensen, _Teaching With the Brain In Mind_ (1998)

In his ASCD book Teaching with the Brain in Mind, educator Eric Jensen reviews research on the arts.  He asserts that "...today's biology suggests that it's the arts that lay the foundation for later academic and career success.  A strong art foundation builds creativity, concentration, problem solving, self-efficacy, coordination, and values attention and self-discipline" (36).

Jensen reviews research on music, summarizing the key findings:

1. Music arouses emotional states by increasing or decreasing attentional transmitters.  I take issue however, with Jensen's citation of a study (Giles 1991) of 8th and 9th graders in Principal magazine, where "students' reading comprehension substantially improved with background music" (37).  In more recent findings since the early 90s--the era of the infamous Mozart Effect (Rauscher et al 1993)--research has disproved any beneficial effect, either in regard to IQ increases or academic performance/learning, via listening to music, even if it's classical and instrumental.  If anything, research has indicated that listening to music is a cognitively demanding activity which competes for the learners' attention, especially if the task is verbal, rather than spatial-mathematical.  The deleterious effects increase if the music is vocal, rather than instrumental, or is non-classical.
2. Music acts as a carrier, e.g. learning the alphabet via the Alphabet Song, as information: content and music are linked together.
3. Music can prime the brain's neural pathways, affecting the speed, sequence, and strength of neuronal firing. "Neural firing patterns are basically the same for music appreciation and abstract reasoning" (Rauscher, cited in Mandelblatt, 1993, 13).  "An increasing amount of research findings support the theory that the brain is specialized for the building blocks of music" (Weinberger 1995).  Also, the auditory cortex responds to pitch and tones, rather than raw sound frequencies, and individual brain cells process melodic contour (37). 

A few provocative findings from the studies reviewed by Jensen:

• High correlation between pitch discrimination and reading skills (Lamb and Gregory 1993)
• Musical dance training boosted scores on the Torrance Test of Creativity (Mohanty and Hejmadi 1992).
• Music activates procedural (body) memory and therefore is learning that lasts (Dowling 1993).
• Arts education facilitates language development, enhances creativity, boosts reading readiness, helps social development, and fosters positive attitudes towards school (Hanschumacher 1980, reviewing 36 studies).
• Art is not a right-brained activity, but a whole-brain activity.  Musicians process melodies in the left hemisphere, and PET scans of problem solvers show activations in not just the left frontal lobes, but areas used to store music, art, and movement (Kearney 1996).

John Medina, _Brain Rules_ (2008)and Connections to the Arts

In his 2008 book, Brain Rules, developmental molecular biologist and researcher, John Medina, mentions 12 rules that govern the brain.  These are

1. Exercise: Exercise boosts brain power
2. Survival: The human brain evolved, too.
3. Wiring: Every brain is wired differently.
4. Attention: We don't pay attention to boring things.
5. Short-Term Memory: Repeat to remember.
6. Long-Term Memory: Remember to repeat.
7. Sleep: Sleep well, think well.
8. Stress: Stressed brains don't learn the same way.
9. Sensory Integration: Stimulate more of the senses.
10. Vision: Vision trumps all other senses.
11. Gender: Male and female brains are different.
12. Exploration: We are powerful and natural explorers.

What might Medina's rules suggest, when it comes to the value of the arts in education?  My thoughts:

• Exercise has a beneficial effect on cognition, as it increases blood flow, thus creating new blood vessels.  More exercise improves the body's ability to feed tissues and remove toxic waste, promoting health.  Exercise also stimulates BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor), which acts as fertilizer for brain neurons.  It keeps existing neuons healthy and also encourages neurogenesis: the formation of new cells in the brain, particularly in the hippocampus, a region involved in cognition. Drama, as it incorporates movement, might tap into the salutory nature of exercise.
• Integration of the arts, both visual and performing, acknowledges the human inclination for novelty, potentially arousing attention and interest regarding instructional content. 
• Studies of synesthesia show that sensory processes are wired to work together.  Medina hypothesizes that learning abilities are increasingly optimized the more multisensory the environment becomes.  Arts integration enriches curricular instruction.  We also know that counter-intuitively, extra information ("elaboration" in scientific jargon) provided at the moment of learning makes learning better.  Medina suggests that if repeating information in timed intervals stabilizes memory, then the stabilizing effect might be further enhanced through encoding key information via diverse modes of presentation, thereby increasing retention.
• Richard Mayer, cognitive psychologist has noted three important principles in regard to multimedia presentations, working memory, and learning:
• Multimedia principle: Students learn better from words and pictures than words alone.
• Temporal contiguity principle: Learning's better when corresponding words and pictures are presented simultaneously, not successively.
• Modality principle: Students learn better from animation and narration than from animation and on-screen text.
• Emotion affects motivation, also can highlight particular inputs for closer inspection.  Emotionally-charged events are better remembered than neutral ones; also, the brain remembers the emotional components of an experience more than any other aspect.  Might arts integration provide that emotional impetus to aid retention?
• We learn and remember best through pictures, not written or spoken words.

Elliot Eisner, _The Arts and the Creation of Mind_ (2002)

Elliot Eisner, Professor of both Art and Education at Stanford University, asserts that "Work in the arts is not only a way of creating performances and products; it is a way of creating our lives by expanding our consciousness, shaping our dispositions, satisfying our quest for meaning, establishing contact with others, and sharing a culture" (3).  Though this book is pedantic and academic in tone, I did glean some useful points.

Eisner cogently summarizes the various visions of arts education.  These are

1. Discipline-based art education: intended to help students gain the skills and imagination required for high-quality art performance; foster the ability to see and talk re: qualities of art; provide historical and cultural context for arts creation; and to consider questions regarding the values provided by art.
2. Visual culture: using art to help students learn to decode the values and ideas embedded in pop culture, as well as the fine arts.  Students read images as texts; also arts serve as a springboard for understanding diverse values and life conditions.  
3. Creative problem solving: the German Bauhaus, which operated from 1919 until 1932, exemplifies this approach: addressing social problems in technically efficient, as well as aesthetically-pleasing ways, marrying form and function.
4. Creative self-expression: the arts are a creative outlet for personal expression and development.
5. Arts education as preparation for the workplace: art facilitates the development of higher-level skills necessary in any field, including allocating resources; collaboration with others; finding, analyzing, and communicating information; operating complex systems of seemingly unrelated parts; and using technology.
6. The arts and cognitive development: "work in the arts contributes to the development of complex and subtle forms of thinking".  The arts can foster flexibility, promote tolerance for ambiguity, encourage risk-taking, and help people exercise judgment outside the sphere of rules (35). 
7. Using the arts to promote academic performance: the arts may boost academic performance in the so-called "basics".  Eisner seems to cast a critical eye on this vision, noting that other approaches could potentially result in equal, if not superior outcomes, and the danger such a vision poses to the role of arts in schools, if studies don't show either a clear or strong connection between the arts and academic performance.
8. Integrated arts: the arts are blended with other arts and non-arts curricula, usually for four reasons: providing insight into a particular time frame or culture; identifying similarities and differences between the arts; finding a common theme or idea that can be explored via the arts and other fields; and problemsolving, addressing a problem via several disciplines, including the arts. 

Eisner also notes what the arts teach, namely

• Attention to relationships between parts and the whole
• Flexible purposing: the ability to shift direction and potentially redefine one's aims when better options emerge.
• Using materials and a medium: materials mediate the aims and choices that individuals make.  Students need to learn techniques for working with the material and to understand the possibilities and limitations of that medium.
• Shaping form to create expressive content.
• Exercising imagination.
• Framing the world from an aesthetic perspective.
• Transforming qualities of experience into speech and text.

Finally, Eisner articulates art's lessons for educators:

• There can be more than one answer to a question and more than one solution to a problem; variability is okay.
• Form and content are intertwined.  
• The importance of imagination.
• Attending to relationships in one's work.
• Intrinsic satisfaction matters.
• Literal lnaguage and quantification are not the sole means by which human understanding is gained or represented.
• Gaining flexible purposefulness in one's work.