DailyDirt: Better Learning Techniques (Maybe)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

More education can be the uncontroversial answer to a lot of problems. But better education tends to bring up questions about what makes one educational approach better than another, and how "better" is measured or defined -- and if the methods of measuring education can be trusted at all. The solutions for creating better teaching/learning techniques aren't always effective, but as we learn more about our brains, maybe we'll figure out how to manipulate our grey matter with more precision. Here are just a few links on how we might improve the way we inject knowledge into our heads.

• Maybe someday you can get better at math by connecting a few electrodes to your head, but for now, transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) and transcranial random noise stimulation (TRNS) are experimental techniques that have shown at least some benefits for faster learning. However, TDCS has also exhibited some negative side effects -- such as cognitive impairment. [url]
• A little electrical stimulation to the brain (aka transcranial direct current stimulation or TDCS) could help people learn complex tasks more quickly. The US Air Force and other military operations are already testing out this technique for its effectiveness in training pilots and soldiers. [url]
• There are a lot of myths about how students learn and what the most effective methods are. There are no "left-brained" or "right-brained" students. The Mozart Effect is temporary and essentially useless for any long-lasting effects to a student's IQ. The science of education is actually not as clear cut as most students tend to believe. [url]
• Is the smell of grapefruit better for learning math? Can pleasant ambient noise improve test-taking performance? These kinds of questions seem to be prone to the Hawthorne Effect, but if performance actually does improve, educators will try it. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: education, hawthorne effect, learning, mozart effect, tdcs, teaching, training, transcranial direct current stimulation, transcranial random noise stimulation, trns