A person’s brain is the actual organ with it’s roughly 100 billion neurons and the connections (synapses) that either occur or don’t occur between them. To contrast this, a person’s mind is actually a higher order set of functions that is contrived from a combination of personality traits, memories, environmental stimuli and experiences. In essence, as I heard it explained quite eloquently by a colleague a few years ago – the brain is the car and the mind is the driver. And sometimes the driver wants to go somewhere…. but there’s four flat tires and a leaking transmission.
Returning to the question of would I still employ the basic drill&kill approach to math after reading these papers and the answer is yes. I consider it an effective learning tool, when used in conjunction with other techniques. From the second reading, it became clear that neuroimaging studies show positive changes from intensive drill based practice for both mathematics and other subjects. Personally, I have seen the benefits in other aspects of my own learning as well. I first learned to play instruments as a young person in school. We were taught the basics for reading music – given drill based scales (to practice alone and with the class) and then we played some songs. I became fairly proficient and was able to adapt to other instruments. Then as an adult, I picked up the guitar. I paid for lessons from a teacher (he was much younger then me) and we would play songs together but I never really felt that I developed the proficiency that I had with the other instruments that I played…. until on my own I picked up a scales book for guitar. And started drilling myself at home. Now I have the competence to sight read new pieces of music.
Given this example and the question would neural imaging studies help us if retrieval wasn’t the goal, but creative writing was – I would answer a resounding yes! As the articles mentioned – as we get older and more proficient with our learning, the way that we use our brain changes. These changes could be seen on the scan and could provide significantly important information to the teacher. It could almost be used for prescriptive purposes. If we could see an image of a student’s brain ability map, so to speak, we could use it to inform our practice. I could have had a scan of my brain done while trying to play new songs (would have showed minimal activity) and the music teacher would have known I wasn’t ready and sent me home with some scales to practice. Might have even saved myself a few dollars:]
Even as I have finished writing this, I can also see a potential downside to such prescriptive practice. It might prevent teachers from challenging students to try something outside of their comfort zone… I have read other literacy research that has said 95% of the time you should be working within your ability level and then 5% of the time you should approach something that is really challenging to increase ability. What if this never happened? Would this potentially slow down your learning? Definitely, gives us some food for thought.
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