Neuroscience Network News

The New 70/30 Rule: 70% Will Get Us $72 Trillion

The vaue of getting more students to the 70th percentile and learning what they need to without adjustments to the curriculum and instruction: $72 Trillion.

What Are the Top Zombie Ideas in Education?

Zombie ideas are those “undead” ideas that have been discredited by research but that persist in the neuromythology with which many educators grew up.

What Teachers and Students Need to Know about Learner Variability

These days, it may seem as if there is more variability in classrooms than ever when it comes to what students know and can do.  However, it is also important to remember that intra-learner variability can be just as great and just as perplexing as inter-learner variability, especially for the learners involved.

Cognitive Skills Account for More than 50% of Math Performance in New Study

In a study conducted by Mindprint Learning and CAST, Inc., cognitive skills accounted for over 50% of math achievement outcomes for the middle school students who were part of the research.

The 30/70 Rule or the 70/30 Rule

About 30 percent of students perform at grade level, the same percentage as perform at the 70th percentile plus on cognitive tests.

Betsy Hill Honored with Nepris Trailblazer Award

Betsy Hill, President and COO of BrainWare Learning, was recognized this month by Nepris (@neprisapp) for her commitment to inspiring students by sharing her knowledge, skills and passion for the neuroscience of learning virually in classrooms around the country.

A Human Tendency to Add Rather than Subtract

Additive ideas come to mind quickly and easily, but subtractive ideas require more cognitive effort, according to a new study.

How to Stay Calm During Standardized Testing

In this webinar, we talk about some simple things everyone can do to calm the jitters and get through the testing season calmly and in one piece.

EdCircuit: Are We Workforce Ready?

In the second of a two-part article published on EdCircuit, Betsy Hill and Roger Stark discuss the evidence that those entering the workforce lack many of the skills they will need to succeed in today’s workplace.  We then turn to the role of cognitive skills training in helping develop workplace-ready workers.

What You Should Know about Executive Functions

Executive Functions are how our brains organize the interplay of all myriad mental processes toward goal-directed, purposeful behavior. This article published by the Learning Counsel was written by Betsy Hill and Roger Stark.

Predictions for Education in 2021

An article on the Learning Counsel predicts that 2021 will be a year of momentous change in education, including a focus on cognitive skills.

Cognitive Training for Athletes

Cognitive testing and training tools are increasingly being used in athletics, including BrainWare SAFARI cognitive training software.

The Role of Cognitive Skills in Academic Performance

The negative impact of COVID-19-related disruptions on student learning has fallen disproportionately on students living in economically disadvantaged communities, students with learning disabilities and students who are English Language Learners. In this fifth article in our series on neuroscience and education equity, we explain why it’s time to help all students develop the cognitive skills that will foster greater equity in learning and true social justice.

True Gamification in Learning

When we truly gamify, we create the explore-lose-fail-retry-learn feedback loop that users want to engage in. BrainWare Learning. Article by Roger Stark and Betsy Hill in CIO Review.

EdCircuit: Blueprint for Building a 21st Century Worker

Whatever the specific skills workers need to acquire, each employee’s cognitive capacity to take in and process information, store, retrieve, and problem-solve with it, and continue learning determines his or her effectiveness.

edCircuit: Building Individual Learning Capacity

This article, authored by Betsy Hill and Roger Stark and published on edCircuit, identifies three keys to developing an individual’s capacity to learn.

Equity, Neuroscience and Cognitive Capacity

Most educators do not, according to multiple research studies and our own experience, have a solid understanding of the organ that actually learns – the brain. 

Cognitive Skills Development in Special Education

In this arcticle published on edCircuit, Betsy Hill and Roger Stark discuss how techniques and tools designed to build up weaker cogntiive skills help special ed students rapidly narrow the achievement gap.

Comprehensive Integrated Cognitive Training: Sculpting Cognitive Processes

In the third article in this series on Education Equity, published on the Learning Counsel, we examine the role of cognitive training.

Making Schools More Brain-Friendly

We can change the outcomes of the learning experience by taking what we learn from neuroscience to make schools more brain-friendly. Article published on EdCircuit.

Achieving Equity: Understanding Each Child’s Cognitive Strengths and Weaknesses

The second article in the series on Achieving Equity discusses the importance of and how we can understand each student’s cognitive strengths and weaknesses. 

Neuroscience of Learning: Brain-Based Learning Strategies

There’s a lot we can learn from neuroscience about the learning process and how to get learning to stick. Teachers need to understand some basics of neuroscience so that they can help students learn better. Students also need to learn about their brains so that they will be able to utilize strategies to be more successful, whether it is school-related or not.

Find Out Your Cognitive Strengths and Weaknesses

The BrainWare Cognitive Rating Scales are used to evaluate an individual’s cognitive skills in the areas of Attention, Perceptual Processing, Memory, Executive Functions, and Reasoning.

Achieving Equity: Knowing the Right Questions to Ask

Just how much students regressed due to COVID remains a matter of some debate. But perhaps that isn’t the right question. Instead of asking, “How far have we fallen,” we should be asking, “Where were we before the fall?”

Does Brain Size Matter?

To our knowledge, the difference in brain size within a species is not correlated with intelligence, but it is suggested that the number and strength of connections among neurons is related to cognitive function.

Educator Perspectives on Social and Emotional Learning Programs Take 2

We conducted our first survey on SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) in 2018.  We are fascinated to find out how things have changed in two years and hope that you will share your perspectives and insights with us via this short survey.

Déjà Vu May Be a Mental “Hiccup”

Recent research suggests that “Déjà Vu” is like a hiccup in the processes of memory formation and consolidation.

Homeschool Counselor Interview with Roger Stark

Homeschool Counselor Interview with Roger Stark In this episode of the Homeschool Counselor Podcast, Scott Whitaker and Dan Shirley interview Roger Stark, CEO of BrainWare Learning Company on helping students develop cognitive literacy.  (25 minutes) Listen    

How Brains Balance Accuracy and Simplicity

Our brains are not optimal learning machines. Making mistakes and learning from them is an essential part of how our brains operate.

The COVID-19 Slide: Bigger than a Summer Slide?

For many students, the current COVID-19 situation promises a much longer “summer,” with more than the usual amount of forgetting – a greater slide or slowdown that usual.

Meta-Analysis Concludes Intelligence Is a Whole Brain Phenomenon

Intelligence is not about discrete parts of the brain, but how the brain as a whole is connected according to a meta-analysis conducted at NUI Galway.

Learning Difficulties Are Related to Overall Brain Connectivity Rather than Specific Brain Regions

Learning difficulties relate to overall brain connectivity rather than specific brain regions. They are better addressed by understanding the cognitive skills involved, rather than a label like ADHD or ASD.

How Novelty Boosts Learning

Recent research shows that novelty gets the brain’s dopamine system working which accelerates learning. Let’s all get our students learning faster by giving them something new today!

Drawing Aids Visualization

When we draw something, our brains use the same neural networks as when we recognize and name that object.

Closing the Achievement Gap by Closing the Cognitive Gap – Edcircuit

This article from Edcicuit explains the connection between students’ cognitive development and the longstanding achievement gaps in education, and how the connection relates to equity.

How Many Words Can You Build?

Word Mania helps build literacy and spelling while kids have fun. While the 2019 competition has ended, students can play Word Mania all year long in LiteracyPlanet.

Some Ways to Be More Intelligent

A recent article published in Medium, busts myths about intelligence right and left. It discussed the idea of a talent stack which, in this collaboratively cross-disciplinary world where the boundaries of expertise shift and mesh, makes more sense than ever.

Grit, Growth Mindset and the Backlash against Both – Edcircuit

EdCircuit has reprinted a popular article originally published by the Learning Counsel on grit and growth mindset. As Betsy Hill, president of BrainWare Learning and author of the article explains, the valence of the terms is different and both have been extolled by some educators and then criticized by others.

Your Brain’s Memory Back-Up System

Strong memories involve groups or teams or networks of neurons that fire together. While neuroscientists have long said that “neurons that fire together wire together,” recent research at Cal Tech shows how repeated exposure to something recruits multiple neurons into the memory system, creating built-in redundancy.

Closing the Achievement Gap by Closing the Cognitive Gap – EdNewsDaily

The achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, and English Language Learners are stubbornly wide. An article published in EdNews Daily explains the importance in addressing issues of cognitive development in closing the achievement gap, as a matter of equity.

Play a Game to Relieve Work Stress!

Researchers compared digital games and mindfulness apps. It turned out that digital games were significantly more effective in helping adults recover from work stress than the mindfulness apps.

Why Knowing Students’ Cognitive Skills Matters

If reading and math are like the part of the iceberg that you can see, then cognitive skills are like the part of the part thats under the water. Underlying cognitive processes contribute to academics but are difficult to see if youre only looking at academic data.

Later School Start Really Does Help Teens

The information about the changes in teens’ Circadian Rhythms has been around for a long time, as has the suggestion that later school start times would benefit them. Now, a landmark study is confirming what just about any adolescent could tell you – teens sleep more if they can sleep a little later.

Demanding, Rewarding Tasks Create Strong Memories

Recent research looked at how the difficulty of the task and the size of the reward impacted the strength of the memory and the consolidation process.The size of the reward, not surprisingly, influences the strength of the memory, but just as important is the level of challenge of the task.

Why Teachers and Students Need to Learn about Their Brains in the Digital Age

For good and bad, technology changes our brains. But then again, so does every experience we have. So what are our brains doing and becoming in the digital age?

The Brain – Webinar for Broad Creek Middle School

Betsy Hill, BrainWare Learning Company’s president, met with middle-school students via Nepris, and discussed how we know what parts of the brain do, how the brain changes when we learn and the role of sleep in learning, as well as widely held neuromyths.

BrainWare Learning Company Teams with LiteracyPlanet

BrainWare Learning Company is teaming with LiteracyPlanet for the U.S. launch of its award-winning, online English Language Arts program.

What You Eat Affects Your Brain

This excellent video answers these questions and helps us understand that the food we consume affect our brains, just as it affects our hearts and the rest of our bodies.

The Brain that Predicts the Future

Can your brain really predict the future? Absolutely! In fact, predicting the future is something our brains do constantly. It turns out that there are two different areas of the brain that help us anticipate when something will happen.

Research Continues to Show Link Between Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior

Research Continues to Show Link Between Media Violence and Aggressive Behavior   Research continues to add to the already strong evidence of the impact of media violence on aggressive behavior. A recent study looked at teens and concluded that teens with high levels of impulsivity were particularly at risk. On the other hand, parental monitoring […]

Brain Connections and the Neuroscience of Procrastination

Researchers have discovered that people who procrastinate tend to have larger amygdalae (the structure in the brain associated with fear) and weaker connections between the amygdala and the part of the brain that regulates the recognition of salience of fear and initiation.

BrainWare Learning Company Approved to Support School Improvement Initiatives in Indiana

In June, the Indiana Deparatment of Education (INDOE) approved 35 companies as technical assistance partners for the State’s School Improvement efforts, including BrainWare Learning Company. In August, school and district personnel from across the state had an opportunity to meet one-on-one with technical assistance partners to explore how they can work together to help achieve the State’s amitious goals under ESSA (the Every Student Succeeds Act).

How Neurons Multitask

Duke University researchers have shown that neurons seem to be capable of carrying more than one signal at a time. They do this, apparently, in much the same way that telecommunications engineers developed rapid switching between pieces of two different messages.

Reading Success Depends on Cognitive Factors

The Digital Promise models also explain that students may struggle with reading for reasons that have nothing to do with the adequacy of their reading instruction. Many students struggle with reading because of issues with cognitive processes like working memory, visual reasoning, inhibition, and attention.

Roger Stark to Address Serious Games Conference

In his speech at the Serious Games Conference, Roger Stark will share the challenges and successes of being the first to build the most comprehensive integrated cognitive skills training program in the world.

The Marshmallow Test Revisited

Interventions focused just on deferring gratification haven’t been effective. According to researchers, “it is likely to be more fruitful to target the broader cognitive and behavioral abilities related to gratification delay.”

Speaking in Sentences

National Speak in Complete Sentences Day is meant to remind us that to make sure our sentences have subjects and verbs and are grammatically correct, but we’d like to use it think about the process of learning to speak in sentences.

STEM and SEL: Inseparable Partners

This article, published in STEM Magazine and STEM for Women, concludes that STEM and SEL are not in competition. They are not even separate but equal. They don’t sit side by side. They are built on a common set of cognitive processes and therefore mutually reinforcing, synergistic and inseparable.

Wild Guesses May Not Be That Wild

Intuition is “nonconscious emotional information,” and perhaps most fascinating, we can get better at using it. The researchers speculate that someday, intuition training may help us tap into all of that nonconscious information in our minds.

Who Is Smarter – Millennials or Baby Boomers?

Are millennials or baby boomers smarter? That is the question being researched by a middle school student who met with Betsy Hill, president of BrainWare Learning, via Nepris.

What Our Brains Think is Funny

We predict – in milliseconds – what a word is based on the phonemes (language sounds) it starts with. A joke fools us, by disappointing our brain’s predictions.

Brain Processes that Support Sharing

Why is sharing so hard for very young children? Like many aspects of development, it has to do with our frontal lobes (prefrontal cortex, in neuroscience-speak) according to research.

Cognitive Skills and Math

Reading involves the simultaneous, coordinated use of multiple mental processes, including attention skills, working memory, visualization, and planning according to an article written by Betsy Hill and published by EdCircuit.

Automaticity – What It Takes and Why It Matters

Automaticity is a concept we talk about in cognitive training – getting skills practiced to the point where they don’t require conscious thought. The concept also applies in other training situations, for processes (procedural memory).

A Time to Ask Students to Think about Misbehaving

One teacher helped her students get ready for a field trip to a museum by asking them how they could be sure they would be kicked out of the museum.

Bright Lights Before Bedtime Problematic for Preschoolers’ Sleep

Parents should dim the lights for preschoolers for the hour before bedtime according to reesarch on the impact of pre-bedtime light on melatonin levels

New Evidence for the Value of Mental Rehearsal

Researchers at Stanford have shown that monkeys, trained with a brain-computer interface, could transfer that learning to the real world, even though they had never physically performed the action.

Pixels the Size of Neurons May Transform Brain Imaging

Technology has been reducing the size of pixels on a screen to the point where scientists believe they can focus on brain activity at the level of individual neurons.

Gesturing Reflects Language Development in Young Children

Research shows that observing gestures can help predict language delays and may eventually be useful in diagnosing language development problems before a child actually begins to speak.

Friends Share Brain Patterns

A recent study shows that the pattern of brain activity in the brains of friends is more similar than the brain activity of two people who aren’t friends.

Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone

Roger Stark, BrainWare Learning Company’s CEO, was interviewed about his own educational trajectory, in this article on Operation Enterprise, a program offered to enterprising young people by the American Management Association

How Mirror Neurons Signal Empathy and Moral Decision-Making

Mirror neurons are a type of neuron that is equally active when we are performing an activity or watching someone else perform that activity. They have been shown to have a role in imitation, in empathy, and most recently their activity has been shown to predict moral choices that involve others.

Cognitive Skills and Reading

Reading involves the simultaneous, coordinated use of multiple mental processes, including attention skills, working memory, visualization, and planning according to an article written by Betsy Hill and published by EdCircuit.

McKinsey Report: Future Jobs Require More Advanced Cognitive Capabilities

According to Mckinsey, the skills needed for the jobs of the future are in the process of shifting as technology replaces predictable, repetitive work. Jobs of the future will require more advanced cognitive capabilities.

BrainWare Learning Company Featured in VoyageChicago

BrainWare Learning Company was covered by VoyageChicago. The article looks at the company’s journey and what to expect next in the world of cognitive training and education.

When Brains Learn to Walk

In some fascinating research, scientists at Washington University in St. Louis scanned the brains of babies as they learned to walk. In the initial stages, the connection between the default-mode network (the brain networks we use while we’re daydreaming or letting our minds wander) works with the motor cortex.

Why We Root for the Underdog

In one study, people rooted for a fictional basketball team described as being expected to lose, rather than the team that was supposed to win, 88 percent of the time. Scientists have put forward a number of different theories on why we have such a tendency to favor the less favored.

Do Smartphones Make You Dumber?

Research is now showing that just having your phone on your desk, even though it is turned off, results in poorer performance on demanding cognitive tasks than if the cell phone is out of sight and in another room.

Do Brains Blink?

The research says that our brains do, in fact, “blink,” every time we shift our attention! When we shift our attention from one object to another, the activity of the neurons in the visual cortex is temporarily disrupted.

Punctuation in Text Messages

Have you ever wondered whether to put a period at the end of your text message? It may sound trivial, but it can make a difference in how your message is perceived.

Research Suggests Visual Skills Are Different from IQ

Research at Vanderbilt University suggests that people differ significantly in their visual skills and showed that visual skills were not associated with IQ.

Gratitude is Good for the Brain

Expressing gratitude can help with depression, help us sleep better and make us feel more connected to those around us.Perhaps surprisingly, the beneficial effects seem to last for months afterward.

CIOReview Names BrainWare Learning Company to Top 20 Gamification List

BrainWare Learning Company is named one of the top 20 global gamification solutions providers by CIOReview.

Why Teachers Should Study Neuroscience – Dr. Pat Wolfe Webinar

Join award-winning author and presenter, Dr. Pat Wolfe for a mini-web session on the application of brain research to instructional practice. If you’re ever wondered would neuroscience could do for your teaching, you won’t want to miss this!

Cognitive Skills: The Foundation for Learning

Cognitive Skills are the mental processes our brains use to take in, organize, understand and retrieve information. So much of what happens in our brains are processes we aren’t even aware of when they happen. But while they may happen non-consciously, they define our ability to learn.

Two Types of Brain Waves – Two Types of Memory

Neuroscience researchers at MIT have been able to distinguish between brain waves associated with explicit learning and implicit learning. The fact that different types of brain waves are involved underscores the importance of teachers understanding the difference between the two types of memory and the different strategies that will be effective in the two types of learning.

Check Your Financial Literacy

The FINRA Investor Education Foundation has been studying the financial knowledge of adults in the U.S. through a short 5-question quiz as part of its Financial Capability Study. Sadly, Americans do not fare very well. Happily, the questions could easily be turned into engaging classroom exercises for middle- and high-school age students

Bullying Causes Long-Term Physical Brain Changes

If you think that bullying is something kids will someday get over, think again. Research shows that bullying results in physical brain changes and serious long-term cognitive and emotional deficits.

Human Brains Find Hidden Objects that Computers Can’t Find

Do you see the keys in this picture? That’s because the human brain is really good at seeing partially obscured objects. New research conducted at the University of Washington in Seattle examined the interactions between the visual cortex and the prefrontal cortex when subjects tried to identify partially hidden objects.

Babies Learn the Value of Hard Work

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that watching adults struggle with a couple of tasks before succeeding led to babies trying harder on their own tasks.

Quick Cognitive Health Check for Adults

There is a new online test that will give you an idea how strong your mental functioning is, particularly attention and short-term memory. And it will let you know if you should consult a medical professional.

A Cognitive Lesson from a Backwards Bicycle

Riding a bike is something you’re never supposed to forget how to do once you’ve learned. This video is a great example of working to change the way our brain is wired to perform a task!

Cognitive and Visual Training Team Up for Athletes

An example of how vision developmental optometrists use BrainWare SAFARI to help patients enhance a range of visual processing cognitive skills.

High Moral Reasoning Linked to Brain’s Reward System

An international team of scientists has shown that high moral reasoning is associated with increased activity in a key part of the brain’s reward system. In other words, our brain activity reflects how morally developed we are.

Multitasking Does Not Make Us More Productive

There is plenty of evidence that multitasking is not what we think it is. A new study showed the negative impact of distractions on memory.

How to Spot Fake News

Because children get much of their news from social media sources, they are most vulnerable. 39% of children prefer online media as their news sources and fake news is often believed. 31% of children have discovered later that a news story they shared on social media was fake.

Common Sense Media explains how to identify fake news and help kids get smarter about it as well.

What Do High School Students Want to Know about the Brain?

What do high school students want to know about the brain? BrainWare Learning’s Betsy Hill addressed their questions in a Nepris-hosted presentation, including different types of memory, study tips, and sleep.

Generosity Brings Cognitive and Emotional Benefits

What Buddha knew about generosity long ago has now been confirmed by neuroscientists who have shown the connection between generosity and structural brain changes in the areas of the brain associated with empathy and social cognition.

Exercise Facilitates Cognitive Development

We were reminded by National Exercise with Your Child Week about the importance of exercise for cognitive development for both children and adults. An NIH-supported study reviewed the available research and concluded that there is ample evidence of the cognitive benefits of physical activity for children.

Are Male and Female Brains All That Different?

Lon Woodbury, an Ed Consultant (IECA), a Certified Educational Planner (CEP), and an Internet Talk Radio Host focusing on news and personal help for parents of struggling and troubled teens with behavioral/learning problems. interviews Betsy Hill, president of BrainWare Learning Company, on the differences between male and female brains.

Forgetting Can Actually Make Us Smarter

We all worry about forgetting things, but it turns out that forgetting can actually make us smarter and our brains are designed to promote memory loss under certain circumstances!

Finger Counting is Good for the Brain!

Not only is it OK for kids to count on their fingers, when combined with counting games, they do much better on math tests. Finger counting is good for the brain!

Take a Photo to Remember Better

The things we take pictures of we remember better, even if we never look at the pictures again. Picture taking can, however, reduce our auditory memories of the experience.

What is Social Media Doing to Our Brains?

What is social media doing to our brains? This great TedEd presentation explains – and it’s not all good. Which change do you think is the most important?

Is It Real or Is It a Memory?

Neuroscientists at the University of Western Ontario are starting to unravel how our brains mark the difference and inform us whether something is imaginary or something we are really remembering.

The Brain Is Wider than the Sky – Emily Dickinson

The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side, The one the other will include With ease, and you beside. Emily Dickinson

Congressional Briefing on Neuroscience in the Classroom

Congressional Briefing Hosted by Congressman Danny Davis
Roger Stark, Dr. Pat Wolfe, Dr. Sarah Avtzon, Superintendent Ron Kraft

Grand Opening Bethesda Empowered Learning Transformation Center

Roger Stark, CEO of BrainWare Learning Company speaks at the opening of an Empowered Learning Center in Bethesda, MD.

Blackline Interview with BrainWare CEO Roger Stark

Roger Stark, CEO of BrainWare Learning Company, discusses BrainWare SAFARI cognitive training software in a Blackline Review interview.

A Glimmer of Understanding: New Concept Formation

A Glimmer of Understanding by Betsy Hill When I was in college, I was fascinated with how humans learn and use language. I took every course I could find related to language The Philosophy of Language, The Psychology of Language, and Linguistics, in addition to double-majoring in French and Russian. The explanations suggested by the […]