Brain scans predict students' learning better than exam results and show the underlying structure of thinking. According to recent research published in Science Advances, the conventional exams and grades that schools have long employed may evaluate learning less accurately than brain scans. The st
Brain scans predict students’ learning better than exam results and show the underlying structure of thinking., the conventional exams and grades that schools have long employed may evaluate learning less accurately than brain scans. The study, which was conducted by a group of researchers from seven institutions under the direction ofneuroscientists, may not only change how educators design curricula but reveals a hidden link in the human mind.
The brain changes were far more accurate predictors of learning, particularly a kind of learning known as “far transfer” that is so deep that it helps students in completing tasks that they weren’t even taught how to do. For educators, far transfer is a kind of holy grail that is notoriously hard to measure with traditional exams.Making Models in the Mind
“These findings demonstrate that mental modeling could be an important basis for far transfer in real-world education, taking skills from the classroom and applying them more generally,” says lead author and Psychology Ph.D. student Robert Cortes . “This study not only informs our understanding of how education changes our brains, but it also reveals key insights into the nature of the mind.”
“We can’t scan every kid’s brain, and it would be a really bad idea to do that even if it was possible,” says Green, who is also a faculty member in the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience. “Curriculum development can and does happen at the kinds of small scales that neuroscience can realistically accommodate,” Green says. “So, if we can leverage neuroimaging tools to help identify the ways of teaching that impart the most transferable learning, then those curricula can be widely adopted by teachers and school systems. The curricula can scale up, but the neuroimaging doesn’t have to.
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