BrainWare News Letter

From: Roger Stark Betsy Hill.

As election day nears for those of us in the U.S. ... and I think many of us are ready for it to be an event in the past ... I am reminded of a book I learned of recently ...Every Day is Election Day, by Rebecca Sive. 

It's what I have been saying for years.

Well, to be precise, what I have been saying for years is that we are all elected to our office (job/role) every day. Every day, the people around us decide whether to listen to us, to follow us, to imitate us or to ignore us. They decide whether to step up and join us in championing what we want to accomplish, or to join the opposition, or to just “sit this one out.”

I've seen this so many times. Someone is appointed to a management position, but the rest of the organization behaves in a different way. There's someone else they seek out for direction and advice.

Titles don't always confer authority. We have to earn authority. How? By running for office every day. By working to build trust with colleagues. By having a vision and working hard to get buy-in. By not taking our role for granted and never asking anyone to do anything you wouldn't do (and having them see you do it). 

The application to the workplace is so obvious that I started to consider another environment I spend a lot of time in – a classroom.  What does it mean to think about every day as election day? Are students voters? You bet!

One piece of advice in Sive’s book is “you can’t care too much.” That reminded me of another true statement I heard from a school district superintendent several years ago: “Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Caring builds trust and trust is critical to an environment in which students choose to learn. In fact, students vote (decide) every day, in every class, whether to engage, whether to strive, whether there is anything of value to pay attention to.

Teachers, of course, do have some authority from the outset; that much does come with the title. But our ability to create a vision, to engage students’ minds and hearts, to inspire trust, and to show how much we care, are what keeps us in the role of teacher, not just somebody at the front of the classroom.

I’m running for election again today. How about you?

Betsy Hill

'Candidate for Caring Teacher'

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In this issue:

• What Makes Brain Training Works: Points of Controversy
• What Neuroscience Research Can Contribute to Teaching and Learning
• Cognitive Skills Training as a Supplement to Vision Therapy

What Makes Brain Training Works: Points of Controversy

The topic of brain training has become controversial. Criticism that it has not been shown to be effective abounds these days. And then there are responses, like a new book on the value of brain training claims that there are 5 conditions that make it effective. Here is what our experience tells us about those 5 conditions: 

Condition 1:  It must engage and exercise a core brain-based capacity or neural circuit identified to be relevant to real-life outcomes.

We say:  First of all, if there is a brain-based capacity or neural circuit that hasn’t been identified as relevant to real-life outcomes, then it probably doesn’t exist. The purpose of our brain is survival, so all mental capacities are arguably relevant to real-life outcomes. But more importantly, it is insufficient to say that training must target a mental process shown in research to be relevant for real-life performance. The training should actually be able to demonstrate improvement in whatever that real-life performance is.  This is actually where much brain training falls down. It’s not that the training doesn’t connect the exercise to a specific neural process, but that it can’t demonstrate actual change in real life application.

Condition 2:  It must target a performance bottleneck.

We say:  The issue here is the model of brain functioning that underlies the statement. A bottleneck is relevant for a linear process. If step 3 of 10 in a manufacturing plant is slow, then that produces a “bottleneck.” Speeding up step 3 will speed up the whole manufacturing process. But our brains are not manufacturing processes. Rather, they are complex systems with multiple processes occurring simultaneously (and hopefully in coordination). In fact, recent research supports the idea that multiple mental processes are involved in just about everything we do and they have to work together. While there is some truth to targeting weaker functions, it is at least as true that brain training, to be effective, is about integrating multiple systems.

Condition 3.  It requires a minimum “dose” of 15 hours total per targeted brain function performed over 8 weeks or less.

We say:  It’s refreshing, actually, to see a consensus emerging that a few minutes or hours of training here and there won’t do much for cognitive fitness. But there is a fundamental flaw in the implication that each brain function must be trained independently. If that were the case, then a training regimen of 150 hours would be required to address 10 targeted brain functions. In our research, we have found that a dramatic impact on multiple brain functions is achieved in 35 to 50 hours of training multiple cognitive skill areas in an integrated fashion. We can agree that noticeable differences start to appear at the 6-8 week mark, but much more can be accomplished and the "less than 8 weeks" stipulation disregards that.

Condition 4:  Training must adapt to performance, require effortful attention, and increase in difficulty.

We say:  This is all true, but it neglects what we know about what actually motivates effortful attention and persistence in training. Parents and clinicians we talk to tell us, over and over, that most brain training programs they have experienced are BORING. Even when they are adaptive, increase in difficulty, and require focus (effortful attention). Human beings don’t expend effortful attention when things are not engaging. Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. The design of the training program needs to be motivational, engaging and reward, not just demand, persistence.

Condition 5: Continued practice is required for continued benefits.

We say:  This condition suggests that one needs to continue training essentially forever. First, we want to say, “Wrong,” but then we want to relent and acknowledge that, “It depends.” It also requires that we consider what “practice” means.

When children complete a brain training program (which we think is better termed cognitive training), they bring their improved attention skills, working memory, or visual-spatial processing to an educational environment that, in most cases, continues to put demands on those very cognitive skills. In other words, they are using and practicing those enhanced cognitive skills every day.

If you are an adult in the workplace, the same would be true, by and large. You are in an environment where you “practice” your improved skills constantly. After all, if they haven’t transferred to real life, what’s the point? If your goal, as an adult, is not to perform better, but to be a “high functioning couch potato,” then that is another story altogether.

One situation where continued benefits may require ongoing training is for those who want to build cognitive reserve and/or mitigate the effects of the declining demands of everyday life as they age. For many individuals who are not as active as they used to be in intellectually demanding activities, ongoing training makes sense.

We welcome the opportunity to explore the fascinating topic of brain training (cognitive training)– and everything we know and don’t know – with you. Please feel free to email us at [email protected] or [email protected].

What Neuroscience Research Can Contribute to Teaching and Learning

It has become popular lately for neuroscience experts to disparage the efforts of educators to understand and apply what neuroscientists have been learning about the brain (as a recent article published by PBS does). Sometimes they even seem to wonder why we would be interested.

• We’reinterested because that is where learning happens. Learning doesn’t happen in our big toes or left elbows. It happens where neurons connect and form neural networks … in our brains.
• We’re interested because our brains develop in interaction with our environment. We don’t develop knowledge and skills that our environment doesn’t expose us to and convince us are important. So, to the extent that we can find ways to make the environment we provide for our students more conducive to having learning take place, the more effective we can be – which is our job as professional educators.
• We are aware of the dangers of neuromyths, such as believing that some people are right-brained and some are left-brained. But telling a teacher that that belief is wrong is like telling a child that ice cream is not good for them. When we have come to believe something (which we can also refer to as having a mental model) and behave accordingly, we need a replacement explanation and practice to change our behavior. We should understand why that neuromyth became popular and what the consequences are. That, too, would seem to be our job as professional educators.

Another complaint seems to be that what we present as new and grounded in neuroscience is just what teachers already knew. That is certainly true of great teachers. And I find that great teachers are invariably very excited to learn something about why the things that they know work actually work. But more importantly, it can help convince misguided teachers and administrators to change ineffective practices that are all too common and to adopt practices that are brain friendly.

It seems an odd position to us to suggest that educators “eschew neuroscience” rather than becoming better consumers of neuroscience research and understanding what does and doesn’t translate.  There are some wonderful resources for teachers that are careful to examine what neuroscience can and can’t contribute to teachers. One such resource is the book Brain Matters, written by Dr. Patricia Wolfe. When widely respected neuroscientists come to present to the annual gathering of those who have been trained by Dr. Wolfe, they invariably comment on how knowledgeable and competent the group is.

We have enough “we" and ”they" in our world today. There is too much good that can come from the solid application of neuroscience to teaching and to run away from it when we encounter a bump in the road.

Cognitive Training as a Supplement to Vision Therapy

"I am a graduate of vision therapy myself," says Betsy Hill, president of The BrainWare Company, "and I will never forget the moment when my vision, which had been blurry my entire life, suddenly became clear, following many months of hard work with a vision therapist. At the time, I thought it was a miracle."

Today, we know that the "miracle" is the ability of our brains to "rewire" themselves with the right kind of training. When our eyes work together, or when visual focus improves, it transforms our ability to function in the world.

For some individuals, vision therapy is a vital first step, but there may still be more work to be done to integrate stronger visual skills with other mental processes, such as selective attention, working memory, sequential processing, directionality and other foundational cognitive skills and executive functions. That integration is what enables the stronger visual skills to be used directly in reading and math and other academic and life tasks.

Many vision developmental clinicians are adding comprehensive cognitive skills training to their repertoire. Once someone has completed (or has made sufficient progress in) a course of vision therapy and it is time to integrate their stronger visual processing with other cognitive processes, cognitive skills training, such as that provided by BrainWare SAFARI, can provide that additional boost towards strong academic performance and success with everyday tasks.

Clinicians have found a variety of ways to work with clients using BrainWare SAFARI. While the recommended protocol is 3 to 5 times a week, that doesn’t mean 3 to 5 office visits. Because it is a software program, clients can use the program from any computer that has the program installed. BrainWare captures and reports real-time data on progress in the program, to help clinicians check on compliance with the recommended protocol, and weekly or biweekly visits can assess and reinforce progress and the application of newly developing skills.

Clinicians can learn more about using BrainWare SAFARI in conjunction with vision therapy Cognitive Skills Training Webinar.