Gridlock feeds ego and shuts out brainpower
while transparency
fosters innovation and increases trust.

The more gridlock we see, the more open exchanges get lost. Have you seen bullies and cynics keep ego alive by banishing transparency through backdoor deals?

Flawed leadership, whether called democracy or dictatorship generates  gridlocks that block creative brainpower.

Never before in history have we needed more successful innovators who rev up mental equipment for innovation.

It’s true that Barak Obama, Bill Gates, Ursula Burns, and Hillary Clinton communicate see-through stories to leave  no brain is left behind.  Still, leadership openness is rare. Why so?

One friend and fellow leader Dave Caiazza, put it this way:

Work against the dangerous twins of jealousy and hypocrisy. They come disguised as concern, shrouded in statistics, and hidden behind a smile. When you’re good at something, there will always be someone who wants to undo you. Don’t let them.

Transparency takes brainpower to tackle toxins from cynics who broker backdoor deals. How so?

1. Awaken more intrapersonal intelligence so that others will be led to respond openly to ethics that tend to follow.

2. Respond to confrontations by snipping your amygdala and peers often repeal demands spoken.

3. Spot opportunities within broken systems – and others tend to  join with like minded willingness to risk riding transparency’s surf.

4. Relate neuro discoveries that resolve conflicts and reasonable parts of your brain win supremacy.

5. Offer mental  olive branches to people who disagree and they tend to collaborate without forcing their views on one side.

6. Hone brainpower tools for peace rather than promote war where gridlock battles begin.

7. Suggest simplicity that adds intelligence to replace mental clutter with clear ethical practices that hold dividends for all.

8. Avoid hidden traps of cynicism by building transparent tone to open segues for all to speak and feel heard.

9. Brainstorm solutions with innovative peers rather than join in with naysayers who toss toxins into the mental mix.

10. Activate, encourage and open communication that sparks innovation,  rarely found in tragic traits of a cynic.

Step into any gridlock situation and you’ll spot far more routines, ruts and rituals, than innovative designs can survive. Have you seen it?

Luckily, newly discovered mental equipment offers tools such as new neuron pathways to dynamic innovation. See why transparency’s not possible when ego generates gridlock?

Government Funds Promote Failing Secondary Schools

People say stimulus money simply creates new layers of bureaucracy that prolong broken secondary school programs. My question is: How will the White House Campaign to Promote Science and Math Education support teens to climb new mental  peaks?  Will successful schools proliferate through fast growing charters?

President Obama’s recent announcement to help high schools excel in science, technology, engineering and math should  bypass broken secondary schools that resist growth.

Could Stimulus Funds Help Current Teen Crisis?

Fortunately these White House initiatives will bring in innovators such as MacArthur Foundation and technology industries that offer prizes for innovative video games that teach science and math. However, what about fears that government initiatives do little to address the crisis of teacher quality?  Poor secondary school curriculum leaves far too many teens  in crisis situations.

Often, I walk through poorly funded and well-funded high schools that look more like they were crafted for yesteryears, that rewarded misplaced high school teacher priorities.  Mark S. Schneider, vice president at the American Institutes for Research, expressed concern for many of us, that White House initiatives have, “,,, nothing to do with the day-to-day teaching.”

Funds used to Protect Teachers Tend to Neglect Teens

While bypassing stagnant bureaucracies that protect teachers and neglect teens, why not take advantage of the novelty that stokes brainpower, in this White House initiative. Let’s capitalize on working memory that holds only a few new facts at any one time, by supporting less memory work and facilitating more active engagement.  That would be a first step to higher motivation and achievement for all teens.

Too little money is not the problem with education – in spite of what those who lead  broken schools suggest. Renewal runs deeper than money and growth often pays for itself through mind-bending leaders who risk change.

Teens Come to Class Brimming with Talent and Leave Empty

In contrast,  the rampant unchecked anger and frustration felt in many secondary school communities literally robs a community’s currency such as creativity, talent, and innovation.  Teens come to class daily with amazing mental resources such as natural drugs of choice for turbulent times, and multiple intelligences.  Secondary teachers possess outmoded skills and so are unable exchange students’ lived experiences into dividends that will fund their futures.

Regardless of age or background, renewed teachers could spread generous doses of encouragement that alters the brain’s chemistry through tone tactics and through increased serotonin or decreased cortisol. It’s more about finer school vision, than lack of teen talent, that prevents teens from competing well in science and in arts.

Toxic Secondary School Communities

After years of hearing about toxic work settings in secondary schools, I have finally given up on most public systems. We hear leaders admit need for renewed approaches,  yet then go on to say they see no hope for learning renewal because of policy snares. From one you hear about outmoded state demands, from another it’s blamed on parental apathy. In most, it’s really a failure to recognize the brain’s keen ability integrate what works well – with what teens need to reboot for a fast changing world.

Filled with tenured, but tired faculty – today’s broken secondary systems cannot or will not lead teens forward for finer performances. If renewal is meant to race teens to the top, as the White House claims,  it will need to draw from more robust brainpower than today’s demoralized secondary school teachers who seem content to cover content, for even a cat covers its content as one frustrated parent put it. It’s no longer my belief that rejuvenation can be found in bloated, broken systems.  Some will continue to support flawed approaches that resist change like cats run from fire. Hopefully others will join the White House campaign.

Risk Renewal that Reboots Teens’ Brainpower

1. It’s time to step bigger and risk solutions outside pools of prevailing thought that leaves too many brains behind.
2. It’s time to create stimulating  settings where stagnant systems no longer grind teens through outmoded rules that hold back innovative engagement. Many youth could even help lead change forward, and all can engage many more of their unique  intelligences to offer mind-bending solutions to current problems.
3. It’s time to run past cynics who rewire brains daily to kill incentives and time to rev up brainpower that prepares teens for more peak performances beyond their schools. Let’s enable leaders for a new day in learning, one that hooks complex facts onto ordinary experiences for brilliant growth.
4. It’s time to rejuvenate brainpower beyond the mental snares of  those who resist innovative approaches to move teens’ intelligence up a notch today. Rather than wasted efforts to reclaim lost high school brainpower, it’s now time to bypass low-performing schools and build a better approach where teens can win.
5. It’s time to  redirect youth past educational organizations that protect bureaucratic barriers, and race them beyond stubborn bureaucrats that refuse to reclaim brainpower for learning and growth. Let’s shift approaches, not merely add time to already wasted school days.  Hopefully the White House initiatives will not lead more of the same and expect improvements, as Miami low-performing schools discovered.
6. It’s time to rebuild trust and power-up innovations such as those who are joining forces to sponsor and promote math and science.  To enhance success for teens is to offer new hope in ever changing worlds that have already bypassed broken secondary schools.

Below are 51 reasons to risk renewal that reboots teen brainpower!

Related blogs written recently on Secondary School Renewal:

1. No Brain Left Behind

2. MITA Brain Manifesto for Renewal

3. Death of Education – Dawn of Learning

4. Secondary and University with Brains in Mind

5. Parents’ Brains Belong at Secondary School

6. Renew with the Brain in Mind

7. Move Brainpower into Reconfigured Learning

8. Retention Lost in Lectures

9. Call for Simplicity that Adds Intelligence

10. 2 Footed Questions Lead Change

11. A Brain Based Dream

12. Talker or Brain Based Mentor at University?

13. Secondary Schools for Higher Achievement (1)

14. Myths that Shape Secondary Schools (2)

15. Math and Science Can Leak Brainpower

16. Higher Education Reinvention

17. Brainpower Response to Universities in Crisis

18. MITA Brain Renewal for Leading and Learning

19. Could Neuro-Discoveries Transform University?

20. Less Art for More Science

21. Renewal Runs Deeper than Dollars

22. Question Broken Systems with Solutions in Mind

23. Hidden Traps Undo Brainpower

24. Brain Related Renewal – Experts to Teens

25. Values for Brain Powered Climate

26. Renewal Races Teens to the Top

27. Reclaim High School Brainpower

28. Albany Blocks Brainpower while NY Burns

29. Tenure, Brainpower, and Pillars of …?

30. Reinvigorate Brain for Learning Dividends

31. Expect Neuron Pathways to Dynamic Solutions

32. Brain Related Renewal – Experts to Teens

33. A Brain’s Proclivity to Integrate

34. Steven Wiltshire’s Spatial Intelligence & Yours

35. Marks of Brainpowered Workspaces

36. Why Brain Based Approaches?

37. Move with More Intelligence

38. Mix Music and Movement

39. Reflect Change with Smart Skills

40. Reflect for Brainier Online Results

41. Reflect – Then Bolt from Meetings!

42. Reflect on Life-Changing Brain Facts

43. Reflect – then Leap like Lauren

44. Move Intelligence Up a Notch Today

45. Move to Replace Broken Systems

46. Move Tone Tools to Open Opportunities

47. Expect Value Added with Name Calling

48. Expect Active Participation by Facilitating

49. Expect Calm Under Pressure?

50. Urgent Call for Innovative Interactions

51. Higher Education Reinvention (Describes MITA)

Ever notice how Thanksgiving and Christmas tend to bring out blues in some and blessings in others? Or how lonely people see vast spaces between themselves and others – even at festive  holiday tables?

First glances  show people blessed with close family and  friends feel blessed over holidays while those alone feel abandoned. Not so. Loneliness replays for some yearly, in spite of holiday situations.  A stored sense of misery, or fears of lost opportunity may well be stored in your amygdala, and that rerun reaction explains feelings of isolation for some while others cherish holiday cheer.

Researchers John Cacioppo and others may help  explain why some people shop til their bank accounts drop – but still feel isolated at family feasts. New answers show why holiday blues for some becomes business boom for others, and could also help you  free up more holiday happiness. How so?

• Pleasure centers of lonely people light up with images of objects faster than with images of other people.
• Lonely people tend to increase their sense of alienation by not seeking out interactions with others, as they don’t see these will satisfy.

Scrooge with loads of money and no friends likely says it best. Not surprisingly, imaging of a lonely person’s brain also showed less activity in areas of the brain that understand other’s views or needs, and so further distance themselves from social bonding.

Loneliness is bad for your health

While still unsure if loneliness comes more from your gene pool or from social experiences,  researchers do agree on toxic outcomes.  Feelings of isolation often lead to serious cases depression, obesity, high blood pressure, heart problems, and many stress related illnesses.

Those who remain alone in live tend to die younger and enjoy less quality of life in senior years. Mother Teresa described feelings of being unwanted as “the most terrible poverty.”

If loneliness is bad for your health, and if feelings of isolation are often choices, is it also true that people choose health problems that come from a sense of abandonment?  That answer is less evident in the research and yet will likely be quite clear if you engage intrapersonal intelligence and reflect of how we change and grow mentally.

Rewire for holiday well being

With a few mental adjustments, that business boom need not come at personal expense this holiday season. Fortunately, you possess a unique ability to rewire negative emotions  stored in your amygdala – from feeling isolated and bitter -  to fully expecting fun with others in this holiday season.  How so?

Act now on what you’d value in your future.  Research shows how actions literally reshape your brain for more of what you expect.

Smile, regardless of how you feel, for example, and your brain’s plasticity changes in your favor. The action triggers your brain to create new neuron pathways toward a happier reality.

Give even a small gift of encouragement or support, without conditions, and in spite of personal loss.  In response, your brain raises levels of serotonin chemicals for sustainable well being.

Mimic the actions of a person you most admire for their holiday spirit, and your brain rewires dendrite brain cells for more of the same admirable spirit in you. Develop a new intelligence at the same time, and your brain rewires itself for further growth in that area.

Laugh, especially at yourself, and not only will others laugh with you, but your brain will create enzymes for clear thinking, better learning and adventures brimming over with possibilities in spite of turbulent times.

Discover one new insight by converting a rut into a renewed reality you’d like others to see in you. Phone one person you dislike today and invite that person to lunch to find out what’s working well in life. Curiosity and this call moves your brain’s basal ganglia from the rut of loathing into newly created possibilities lived from within your working memory.

Support one person who thinks on the opposing side of your own holiday views, and watch how your concrete defense of that person will leave you mentally able to override your brain’s default for ruts that held you back in past. The action shows you new possibilities where you may have slipped into limiting problems in past.

Can you see how brain based recommendations here carry you beyond hopeful or positive thinking? Do a few simple behaviors, and your brain does the rest for you.

Use any one of the above brainpower tools by simply doing a related act and you’ll spark brain cell regeneration for more satisfaction over any holiday.  Or create a brain power tool of your own and then use it, in spite of troubled times. Scientifically speaking, these tips come from neurogenesis research on how adult brains can grow new cells or regenerate old ones.

Worth a try to communicate colors where you once showed only sorrow for a festive event?

Great news from GE leaders today,  according to WSJ’s Paul Glader.  Any organization willing to change and grow, after a fall,  also holds potential to create a prototype for global change and growth.  Both qualities urgently needed in the broader business community. Bravo!

Let’s get behind GE’s  initiative and begin to move in new directions as a business community.

There will be speed-bumps though. Consider GE plans for new directions and then factor in a few basic brain facts that impact change.  How so?

1). They plan to teach humility. Without doubt, humility that is hardwired into minds, is the stuff that builds and sustains a brain powered community. It’s also true that arrogance tends to trigger a toxic workplace. But why does virtue come easier to some people, while eluding others like deer hide from hunters? That must be addressed in their renewal sessions.

2). Executives plan to discuss in small groups their business units, looking at how to prepare for crises. Success from these roundtables can only come with the kind of facilitation skills that spark innovative brainpower. For instance, when brainpower is tapped to climb back on sinking ground, groups will add serotonin that stimulates determination to hang in regardless of criticism from the outside, and to help others win.

3). They hope to learn from mistakes. Having been hard hit by the recession, VP Susan Peters statement, “We were close to financial meltdown,” will have to become, “We can grow past the cortisol chemicals that spread gloom faster than donuts disappear from a Monday morning staff room.”  It takes brain based smart skills to move past mistakes to genuine brainpower for growth and ongoing renewal.

Current CEO Jeff Immelt is honing in on terrific new themes: growth, change and flexibility. However, none is available without asking the kind of questions that help the old guard leap over life’s ruts. This involves exciting new discoveries about hidden traps that can undo brainpower.  It means snipping your amygdala, when others ridicule new directions. It also means leaving no brains behind this time through.

The company invited reporters to its training facility in Crotonville this week to show them how it is training managers in a post-recession world. Who will they invite in to learn new strategies to move forward?

Hopefully they’ll invite diverse leaders in to show how brain parts promote or stomp out change.  Hopefully they’ll consider neuro-discoveries that add growth and prosperity and get past  toxins from cynics that flood regressing workplaces. Go GE go!

Written By Ellen Weber, PhD and Robyn McMaster, PhD

Higher Education and Brain Based Benefits

Challenges of Change

Renewal is to the university community today what Renaissance was to the Middle Ages. Both encompass a resurgence of learning. Both tap into more potential from the human brain. To reconfigure university teaching for a rebirth of brainpower would be to lead innovation for the emerging global higher education movement. Traditional university communities, on the other hand, remain in crisis when they resist mind-bending changes to connect learners with 21^st Century advances. One dean at a large research university put it this way: We pretend to teach them, they pretend to learn.

Few deny an urgent need for innovative change to align universities with mental benefits from high perfmance minds. It takes open and courageous leaders who take risks to stand on the front lines. Brain based tactics highlighted in the ebook MITA Strategies in the Classroom and Beyond, inspire leaders to learn again, for instance, while igniting learners to lead at times. Have you seen it happen?

No magic bullet can offer surefire solutions to every learning setback seen in this YouTube video. Have you considered though, how information technology, distance education, and other biotech inventions generate changes in academic arenas?  Innovation shapes enormous challenges and yet offers advantages with significant results. At their best, higher education learning communities are integrating across isolated silos of isolated pasts.  The University of Washington Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, for instance, collaborates with diverse fields to create new windows into learning with the brain in mind. The result?  They invented Elekta Neuromag, a non-invasive way to observe brains in action.

Without such integration of talented minds from different backgrounds, universities remain in crisis and will continue to cling to traditions that fail the young.  George H. Douglas said it best in Education without Impact:

The American university as we know it today is not an ideal community …. The young may enjoy themselves on campus… they may even learn a lot, but … they don’t .. interact with the academic world. Most rapidly conclude that they are sojourners at university, not key players, that the university seems to be made by others for others-researchers, espousers of trendy political causes, grant seekers, elusive pedagogues, distracted graduate students working on Ph.D.’s, tunnel-vision specialists, administrators clinging to their tiny patch of ground like a drowning person clinging to flotsam. .., the young come to college looking for interesting and inspiring adults who will help them to make a spirited transition to adulthood, but for the most part they must abide the kind of process-teaching they have been accustomed to throughout their lives….

One significant shift underway -  brain based approaches -  moves university learning from; delivery to engagement, from isolation to collaboration, from hierarchy to mutual accountability, from bureaucracy to flexibility, from tenure to risk-taking and from delivering facts to inspiring curiosity. Time has come to appeal to the university community’s collective genius to return authenticity to the college campus in ways that reconnect learners and leaders to more current frontiers. The challenge presents both problems and possibility to a modern campus.

At MITA International Brain Center we ask: How will higher education transform neuro-discoveries into brain centered practices that propel higher education into a new era?

While 25 years have passed since advocates of brain based practices suggested connections between brain functions and learning practices, disconnects continue to separate content delivered at university, from innovative outcomes leaders require for a fast-changing world.

Challenges come more from facilitating applications and growth, than from any lack of solid science about the brain.  Brain science discoveries should lead to improved learning. Does it? We know from works of MDs such as Dan Siegel, at UCLA’s School of Medicine, that we can draw on recent science to harness the brain’s circuitry for engaging and enriching learning experiences. Normal brain activity is now observable to show how humans acquire insights and use knowledge to construct authentic solutions. The same neuro discoveries that inform higher education approaches, will also determine how successfully universities transform broken or tired practices into scholarly advances.

Surprisingly, challenges within the brain itself can cause university communities to resist even the kind of innovations that thriving entrepreneurs model. How so? People’s basal ganglia, or the mental equipment for safe routines – creates a sort of tug-of-war with their  working memory, the brain’s tool for change. When Aristotle said, We are the product of what we repeatedly do – he likely did not know the brain’s basal ganglia retains and repeats each move we make.

Think of a wine glass as working memory, with limited capacity, briefly held new details, yet it displaces facts easily since new details pour in to displace data already there. In contrast, see a backpack as basal ganglia, that holds habits, stores routines and sustains comfort levels with well worn facts.

Challenges also come through lack of widespread consensus. A shared vision for innovative change  requires extensive discourse across diverse backgrounds, and often involves risk. Brain based approaches negotiate roles and reward quality results, using two-footed questions that spark curiosity for solutions, and multiple intelligences as tools for productivity. Campus communities also increase their productivity as a result of hidden or unused talents that emerge. With smart skills, for example, learners integrate hard and soft skill strategies to address contemporary problems that require both sides of their brain.

Brain based communities rely on tone skills for harmony to engage voices on the other side of controversial topics, while avoiding mental toxins that come from cynics‘ demands to dominate. Brain based smart skills shield university learners from dominant shout-outs on either side. Tone for instance, melds together two sides into shared benefits for wider communities. Have you seen it happen?

The term brain based learning or intelligent-fair evaluations, tend to evoke a wide range of responses from both leaders and learners. For some, it signifies the death of education in exchange for a preferred dawn of learning within caring communities. Supporters speak of mentors and facilitators who approach all topics with learners’ brainpower in mind. For opponents, it suggests fear that traditional lectures will be lost in the hobble, and traditional leaders express concern that quality learning along with deeper understanding will flee in favor of a soft project-oriented settings. Where do you stand in the active learning debate?

Brain Based Approaches for Innovative Change

In the YouTube video here, a mental tug-of-war is seen to pull between working memory and basal ganglia. Working memory risks innovative changes or brain based approaches, and basal ganglia clings to traditions for safe practices. Methods that block benefits of emerging brain discoveries, but have also survived multiple fads. Not surprisingly then, breakthroughs come first to a campus community that remains engaged, involved, and inspired. In one class you’ll catch students actively involved in social media tools that enhance content presented in class. In another class, you’ll observe weblogs that stimulate literacy skills and higher cognitive thinking. Blogs are a means to enhance many math skills in practical ways. “In math the emphasis has shifted from teaching rules and procedures,” reflects Jamie Tubbs, “to helping students create their own understanding of the mathematics they are learning.

Obvious by its absence in brain centered learning circles, is student boredom or faculty frustration that limits learning and teaching through bureaucratic barriers. Nor does one encounter delivery of facts through canned lectures. Instead, classes such as business administration, political science, journalism and philosophy jump start new relevancy through student experiences with weblogs. According to recent research in the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, it works wonders for learning and motivation.  For 30 years, and across many countries, leaders at the MITA International Brain Center sought answers as to why some college communities run with renewal while others stagnate in routines and ruts.

Change comes easier to robust faculty roundtables, while healthy risk-takers rarely survive in a toxic workplace. Most agree that before change takes root, alterations shift, swirl and reconfigure within re-examined beliefs. How so? It takes mental agility, for instance, to facilitate silenced voices. To inspire others or to hear and move on beyond previously excluded views, also takes certain sense of daring. How so?  Bullies may insist that one way only suffices, and brain based facilitators draw on mental tactics to address disagreement strikes. They might distribute memos ahead to tell people what is coming, or solicit feedback that asks what people expect back from a change related project.

In healthy learning communities, beliefs align with a shared vision for growth. In contrast, flawed beliefs may lead faculty to lecture under the assumption that for one person to speak is for another person to learn, yet scientific studies now affirm how learners retain far more by doing, than by listening. In fact it is said to be more effective for learners to teach their dogs than listen passively to lectures. Similarly, the notion that intelligence is fixed, once determined people’s destiny in traditional colleges. We now know however, that intelligences grow with use.

The human brain is hardwired for overcoming challenges and seeking solutions to complex puzzles that show up at times of change. Certain problem-solving skills change the brain’s chemical and electrical synapses, and in so doing, create entry points for mind-bending opportunities. Possibilities in this era of the mind, yield solutions that will also be a driving force behind higher marks that learners achieve. Alongside, watershed marks earned also by emerging global higher education itself, for facilitator roles that engage caring communities.

No longer is mental growth seen as the elixir for youth alone. Research suggests that brain cell regeneration benefits also extend to senior community members. Until recently, it was strongly held that adult brains cannot grow new cells or regenerate old ones. Until now that is. Elizabeth Gould’s dynamic discoveries in this area recently created an entirely new field of neuro-genesis, a discipline that shows how the adult brain generates new cells.

In future, more members in higher education communities will trade traditional notions of mere gracious living, for a far more robust and risk-taking lifestyle. Equipped with adjusted mental thermostats and brain based tactics, seniors can choose curiosity, and expect developing minds to help them live voraciously. Have you ever wondered how Jacques Barzun, the highly respected emeritus professor from Columbia University, could publish his finest masterpiece, From Dawn to Decadence,” in 2000, at the age of 92?

Amazingly, science now shows why the brain’s plasticity remains so vital, to university communities of every age. Brain strategies offer practical tools to explore flexibility insights from science, while implementing practical tasks for life. Practices that draw from solid learning theories as well as from a wide rage of cognitive and neuro sciences stand learners with one foot in research, and one foot in practices.

What do brain based classes look like at university? Faculty who teach and assess with the brain in mind differ in their teaching approaches and use techniques and tactics traditionally not used on higher education campuses. Twitter can transform teaching for those who come to class with an interest in social media. Students in brain centered classes set up #hashtags and engage in Twitter chats that apply class content through their communications with peers and experts. Learning in this class may require sharing personally constructed videos on Twitter to explain a complex concept, or following an approved author to exchange literary insights. Or it may pose two-footed questions that spring from faculty and student curiosity related to a new frontier.

When my book MITA Strategies in the Classroom and Beyond, first published with Pearson Publishers in 2005, fewer faculty agreed that brain based practices would impact learners positively at secondary schools and universities. Over time, I have remained in contact with amazing leaders with experiences very different from mine, who use and model powerful approaches to capitalize on their own and their students’ brainpower in ways that differ from the MITA approach. Rarely does one-size fit all, nor should it in academic communities. Having made that point, clear advantages come to university communities that create a brain based vision together, and engage their collective intelligence to roll tasks into action, that benefit most learners.

The model for implementing brain based teaching and assessment, that I developed, and tested across many cultures, began MITA’s work 30 years ago. Then, fifteen years ago Dr. Robyn McMaster joined the International Center, with offerings from a distinctly different background. Our rich collaboration experience inspired us to integrate diverse capabilities in ways that will soon become a practical book, about learning and leading with the brain in mind. After implementing brain based practices across many cultures together, we sense it is time to combine both our personal backgrounds and objective scientific understandings, as part of the extended conversations we have with communities such as yours.

Learning Theories Embedded in MITA Brain Based Learning and Assessment

MITA’s higher motivation and achievement awards at university, secondary school and business workplaces, came from well-respected leaders who support different global theories. Theories rooted in problem based learning, multiple intelligences, authentic assessments, inquiry based learning, reflective thinking, differentiated learning, constructivism, socially constructed learning, evidence based assessments, performance based learning, and brain research applications from related discoveries.

Rather than emphasize any one theoretic pillar, this brain based model acts as a conduit that opens opportunities, based on leaders and learners’ unique background experiences with representative theories, and on the shared goals that learning communities identify.

In addition, the MITA brain based model draws from direct interactions across diverse cultures in the High Arctic, China, Mexico, Canada, United States, South America, Europe, and most recently from higher education and business approaches in the West Indies. In addition to theories and best practices, learning and leading acumen develops differently across different cultures, genders, disciplines, and experiences. Built on the belief that no brains need be left behind, this work fosters global interactions with innovative leaders from many strengths.

MITA Response to Critics of Brain Based Education

MITA methods consider brain based critics such as John Bruer – who question any translation of brain facts into specific learning and assessment practices. More effective responses to opponents include opportunities to emulate best practices and draw on well-respected learning theories, within substantiated brain facts. While we hear and learn from all reasonable positions on the other side, we would be remiss to ignore the implications from what we learn daily about the human brain’s plasticity. At MITA, evidence of effectiveness comes more from motivation and achievement in practice, and proven innovations, rather than from on-going debates about the authenticity of scientists’ latest mental breakthroughs.

Inclusion lies at the center of brain based practices. Because research suggests that cynicism shuts down creativity in the brain, for instance, the International Brain Center chooses to seek solutions that leave no brains behind. We tend to collaborate and work more with innovators, entrepreneurs,  and inventors, rather than merely discuss problems with naysayers or debate brain credibility with cynics. To collaborate and move forward makes better use of brain center resources, and allows leaders at the center to learn from others as well as lead from strengths.

To acknowledge experts on the other side of brain related approaches, is not the same as resisting brain research that informs teaching. Some psychologists suggest that no proven relationships exist for either educational practice or policy. MITA approaches, in contrast, draw from alternative learning and assessment approaches that relate to neuro discoveries that can guide theory research and practice in education. While critics continue to respond with interesting polemics, MITA brain based approaches concentrate more on transferring scientific results into brainpower opportunities that improve the way faculty teach and enhance learners’ takeaway tools.

Brainpower expands with challenge, and one way to turn criticism into shared visions together is to provide answers to even unfamiliar problems. Limited thoughts can create limited results and tend to add toxins that prevent caring communities.  MITA leaders conclude that in all learning and assessment fields, the brain promises to be the next grand research frontier, and therefore deserves continued consideration. What few critics know is that human brains hold miraculous flexibility to build goodwill even with those who disagree. Serotonin, the natural drug for calm and well-being, leads to collaboration, while cortisol can lead to skepticism or pessimism through panic and anxiety.

Just as practice in science tends to change when new facts surface, so practice in higher education evolves when people come together to expand notions of mental possibilities. University settings that too often perpetuated misconceptions about learning, begin to inspire facts about the brain that unleash real capabilities and increase intelligence. Rather than draw from jargon to diminish one another’s efforts, faculty discover the key to mental success is less about memorized theories, and more about rethinking possibilities, potential and life targets. Cognitive and neuro sciences along with psychology can help college communities to build together a finer art and science of learning by rewiring mind to co-create ongoing change for a finer future.

In an uncertain economy, with higher competition for fewer college students, brain based approaches offer one way to distinguish a campus’ contemporary eminence.  Learners gain incentives to thrive in future eras, and leaders achieve refreshing tools to collaborate and expand innovations with competitive advantage. Few deny that even in its infancy, brain research holds opportunities for pacesetters from formerly competing fields, to harness brainpower that could construct renewed university relevance. MITA continues to invite measurement through research processes where experimental groups, taught and assessed through brain based tasks, compare to control groups with traditional teaching and assessment approaches. Further investigations and on-going renewal ventures ensure learning and leading gains from within emerging brain facts. Analysis of pre-tests and post-tests, continue to reveal significant advantages in settings that favor brain based approaches. Simply stated, learners and leaders accomplish things never before accomplished by using parts of the brain never before used.

References in Addition to Hyperlinks used in Text to Illustrate Brain Based Terms

Bruer. J.T. (1997) Education and the brain: The bridge is too far. Educational Researcher, 26, (8), 4-16.

Douglas, G. Education without Impact: How our Universities Fail the Young (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1992)

Gardner, H. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (New York: Basic Books, 1983);

Hanna, J. “Mind, Brain, & Education: Linking Biology, Neuroscience, & Educational Practice,” Harvard Graduate School of Education News, 1 June 2005, available at www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features/mbe06012005.html.

Kuhn, T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).

Lipton, B. The Biology of Belief (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Mountain of Love Publishing, 2005); and Ernest Rossi, The Psychobiology of Gene Expression (New York: Norton, 2002).

McEwen B. and John Wingfield, “The Concept of Allostasis in Biology and Biomedicine,” Hormone Behavior, January 2003, pp. 2-15.

Marco Iacoboni et al., “Grasping the Intentions of Others with One’s Own Mirror Neuron System,” PLoS Biology, 22 February 2005, available at http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030079.

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