Professional Learning for Busy Educators

For the past six years, I have done a radio show and podcast called Two Guys on Your Head, produced by our local NPR affiliate, KUT. The show airs on Friday mornings. It is great fun to do, and we get lots of positive feedback from listeners around town. But, as with all things, not everybody likes it. We get some emails from listeners taking exception to things we’ve talked about, and we also get some snarky comments on social media.

As you might expect, no matter how many people say nice things, it’s the negative comments that really stick with me. I will find myself chewing over complaints people have made for days. Those negative thoughts bring down my mood and make me feel worse about what I’m working on.

I’m guessing you’ve had a similar experience, where you noticed that even one negative comment about you or your performance can outweigh a huge volume of positive feedback. There are several reasons why these sorts of comments have such an outsized impact on your psyche.

Research around the way humans learn is booming these days. Consider viral brain-based teaching trends and explorations of how the act of teaching shapes kids’ brains.


Mariale Hardiman, vice dean of academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Education and and director of Johns Hopkins’ Neuro-Education Initiative.
But studying how the brain learns doesn’t necessarily mean memorizing proteins and brain chemistry. Sometimes it’s about empathy—or in the case of some of the latest research coming out of Johns Hopkins, it’s about understanding how art plays a role in learning.

One person who has closely watched, and even shaped, the coevolution of neurosciences with education is Mariale Hardiman, vice dean of academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. The education professor is also the co-founder and director of Johns Hopkins’ Neuro-Education Initiative, a center that aims to bring together research on learning and neuroscience, teaching and education.

EdSurge sat down with Hardiman recently to learn about the Initiative’ recent findings around how injecting art into lessons across disciplines can boost memory and retention. (This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)

When you’re standing in front of a classroom of students who’re not quite sure they even want to be in your class, much less pay attention to what’s being said, things like neuroscience, research studies, and teaching the way the brain learns are an abstraction.

Yet, brain-targeted teaching can engage and excite students because it taps into factors that stimulate the brain, grab the attention, and set the stage for learning.

Students asking questions and then exploring the answers. That’s something any good teacher lives for. And at the heart of it all is curiosity.

Blackwell, like many others teachers, understands that when kids are curious, they’re much more likely to stay engaged.

But why? What, exactly, is curiosity and how does it work? A study published in the October issue of the journal Neuron, suggests that the brain’s chemistry changes when we become curious, helping us better learn and retain information.

Mindful meditation is becoming an increasingly popular tool, one that people use to manage both their emotional and mental health. The practice is, in essence, the art of not reacting—the art of finding inner stillness through the use of external stillness. It’s taking the time to close your eyes, turn your focus inward, and put all of your energy into just breathing.

Exercise stimulates the growth of new neurons, Suzuki explains, in a process called neurogenesis. In addition, it increases the neurochemical BDNF, which acts as a fertilizer, strengthening neurons and making them less susceptible to breaking down. Physical activity also increases levels of serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine and endorphins that support emotional well-being, motivation and response to stress. As we age, exercise has a protective effect on the brain, says Suzuki, making it less susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases and normal cognitive decline. With exercise, “you are making synaptic connections, and you are making more synapses grow. Movement will help your brain today and protect you against neurological decay in the future

Brain maps offer evidence that podcasts, audiobooks, and reading fire up our brains in very similar ways.

Yes, diet and exercise matter, but so do these other simple interventions you can start doing today.

In today’s information-obsessed world, our minds are in constant overdrive.

Your brain is a living, inventive, and rapidly renewing organ that needs all the care and maintenance it needs to function well and deliver everyday.

Brain recharge can help you recalibrate your energy for better focus, creativity and resilience.

Harold Kushener once said, “Think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.”

We can adapt this to making the most of our brains; the further we get into understanding and recharging our brains, the more it works better, and thus comes our creativity.

Change your brain, change your life. If you want to be in control of your life, control the command center of your body.

A slowly growing body of research suggests that our common aversion to failure is itself a failed strategy. Being curious about our mistakes is the royal road to learning. And mindful techniques can help.

For years, common experience and studies have prescribed that humans learn best in their earliest years of life – when the brain is developing at its fastest. Recently, though, research has suggested that the period of optimal learning extends well into adolescence.

The flurry of new findings may force a total rethinking of how educators and parents nurture this vulnerable age group, turning moments of frustration into previously unseen opportunities for learning and academic excitement.

New evidence shows that the window for formative brain development continues into the onset of puberty, between ages 9 and 13, and likely through the teenage years, according to Ronald Dahl, professor of community health and human development at the University of California, Berkeley. Dahl spoke at a recent Education Writers Association seminar on motivation and engagement.