Dear Commons Community,

I spent the day attending sessions at the 2014 EDUCAUSE – ELI Meeting here in New Orleans.  All the sessions I attended were very good.

The most provocative session was the keynote on The Learning Brain delivered by John Medina, Developmental Molecular Biologist and Researcher at the University of Washington.  His delivery was most entertaining and kept the audience fully engaged with what he was saying.  He described the collaboration of brain science and education as “the professional equivalent of a blind date, yet there are exciting reasons for them to grab a dinner and a movie”.

I have attended other symposia and meetings on brain research over the years and while I greatly respect the work being done by the brain scientists, I do not have confidence that it will lead to a major integration with pedagogical practice in the near future.  Medina expressed similar concerns in his presentation while also providing excellent information on  crystallized intelligence, fluid intelligence, memory, and adaptability.  However, while it is beneficial for educators to be familiar with the basics of brain science research, I still believe we have a long way to go and we need to know a good deal more about how the brain functions before trying to integrate the research in this area with education practice.

If you are at the conference, I have several presentations today.  Please stop by.

Tony