Vrain Waves: Teaching Conversations with Minds Shaping Education

Connect with Zaretta Hammond

Twitter: @Ready4Rigor | Website: crtandthebrain.com | Book: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

• Intro
  • Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key, Stoicism, Blog post about habits
• Zaretta’s Current Conversations (05:05)
  • Covid webinars
  • Apollo 13 (09:47)
• Family / Parent Relationships (11:13)
  • Trust Generators (other resources from the book here!)
• Only learners learn (19:42)
  • Ron Ritchhart, Project Zero, Making Thinking Visible
  • Ready for Rigor Framework
  • School of Rock movie
• The achievement gap (28:11)
• Minimize threat, maximize connection (32:57)
  • Standing, Certainty, Control, Connection, Equity
  • Collectivist culture / Individualistic culture
• Relationship-building (39:02)
• Jim Knight - Zaretta Hammond webinar on Facebook

Episode 048: Knowledge Party with Natalie Wexler

Today on Vrain Waves we have an exciting and somewhat earth shaking interview from Natalie Wexler, education journalist and author of The Knowledge Gap. She walks us through the contributing research and education history that led her to write the book, and some strategies for schools to set the foundation for student success. From her website: “Education journalist Natalie Wexler focuses on two ideas that have solid evidence behind them but have been mostly overlooked by schools and reformers: immersing children from less-educated families in knowledge about the world, and linking that knowledge to writing instruction.”

Connect with Natalie Wexler

Website: nataliewexler.com | Twitter: @natwexler | Books: The Knowledge Gap, The Writing Revolution

Connect with Vrain Waves

Website: vrainwaves.com | Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

• Intro (00:58)
  • 4 times less likely to graduate if not reading on grade level by 3rd grade
  • NYT Article: Reading Scores on National Exam Decline in Half the States
  • Typical time spent in 3rd grade on reading: 2 hours; 16 min on social studies, 19 min on science (2012)
  • Reading comprehension cannot be broken down into discrete skills
  • Daisy Christodoulou - Books; (bonus: Check out her stuff on Comparative Judgment for assessment!)
• Natalie Wexler’s view on the Promise of Public Education (5:25)
  • Functioning democracy needs a citizenry that can understand events and how to edit and fact check the information that they’re exposed to
• What is The Knowledge Gap (06:55)
  • We’ve treated reading like it’s a set of discrete skills while letting content knowledge take a back seat
  • Most important factor for successful reading comprehension: how much background knowledge and vocabulary you already have
• The Baseball Study and reading comprehension (09:42)
• 2 Parts of Reading: Decoding and Comprehension (11:27)
  • Cognitive Scientists and Teachers have come to opposite conclusions - decoding needs direct and explicit instruction and comprehension will come along with more exposure to content
  • Language at the Speed of Sight, 271–274
  • Dan Willingham (Vrain Waves Episode with Dr. Willingham)
• Whose knowledge? (16:13)
  • Common core history and content knowledge (18:32)
  • Supplemental materials language on content in common core
• Underestimating student ability and having high expectations (22:10)
• Student choice (24:13)
  • Behavior and content knowledge (26:01)
  • The Matthew Effect in Reading
  • Cognitive Load theory - novices and experts - Slides from Daniel Braithwaite
  • “Leveled texts lead to leveled lives.” - Alfred Tatum
• History of the role of content in reading instruction (28:35)
• Alternatives to leveled groupings (31:08)
  • Listening comprehension exceeds reading comprehension
  • Written language is more complex than spoken language
• The importance of exposing struggling readers to grade level texts (34:07)
• The importance of facts and knowledge in the age of Google (36:42)
  • Burden on working memory (see cognitive...

Episode 008: Glenn Whitman, NeuroTeach
Today we talk with one of the authors of NeuroTeach: Brain Science and the Future of Education, Mr. Glenn Whitman. His dedication to understanding neuroscience and learning in order to effect change at the school building level permeates policy at the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland. Glenn speaks to us about the ways in which learning about the brain can enhance our instruction.

Connect with Glenn Whitman
Twitter: @gwhitmancttl | Website: thecttl.org | Book: NeuroTeach: Brain Science and the Future of Education

Links & Show Notes

• Out of our heads and into the classroom
• Memory Palace / Memory Journey (1:35)
  ..* Kevin Horsley, International Grandmaster of Memory
  ..* Priming (2:55)
  ..* Spacing (3:25)
  ..* Hidden Brain (3:49)
  ..* Thinking Fast & Slow / You are Not So Smart (4:11)
  ..* “The more you know, the easier it is to know more.”
  ..* Science of Success episode with Kevin Horsley
  ..* Storytelling (5:00)
  ..* Dreams as a story to create narrative from chaos
  ..* Broca’s Area (5:37)
  ..* Brain lighting up when hearing stories same as if action was happening to you (fMRI)
  ..* Stillmotion: touch the heart to move the mind
• Intro to Glenn Whitman (6:50)
  ..* NeuroTeach
  ..* CTTL
  ..* Think Differently & Deeply
• One educational truth: Every day every kid will bring his or her brain to class (7:54)
• How do kids actually learn, never trained (8:37)
• In 2007 - asked ourselves ‘What makes an Expert Teacher?’ (9:02)
  ..* Do we know enough about the organ of learning, the brain? Only 20% of teachers have been exposed to that sort of training, per Glenn’s experience
• Mind Brain Education - train St Andrews Teachers in the Learning Brain + ongoing PD in Educational Neuroscience (10:17)
  ..* Denise Pope at Stanford
  ..* Dan Willingham at UVA
  ..* Rob Coe at University of Durham in UK
• Mission-driven (12:55)
• Teacher enthusiasm for working with research (13:41)
• “Can you change the culture of a school through research?” (14:22)
  ..* We don’t intentionally use research enough in the learning space to improve instruction.
  ..* Teacher as researcher
  ..* Ready-made research (15:25)
  ..* E.g. Memory (16:00)
  ..* Spacing effect, active retrieval, dual coding, flashcards being misused
  ..* Action Research (17:01)
  ..* Original Research studies (17:25)
• Unconscionable List (18:12) - “detrimental pedagogy”
  ..* Labeling students (19:15)
  ..* Surprise quizzes that count for substantial points (19:51)
  ..* Wasting the beginning and the end of class (20:34)
  ..* Ebbinghaus Curve of Forgetting (21:55)
  ..* Exclusive Content: add 2 more to the list
  ..* No high school should start before 830 am<...