Some teachers give their students surveys to determine their preferred learning style – Visual, Auditory or Kinaesthetic (V, A or K) – and label each student accordingly, tailoring their lessons for each style of learning. Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic Learning Styles And yet Brain Gym persists: a Google search suggests that at least 180 UK schools continue to mention it on their website. Sense About Science debunked the pseudo-science behind Brain Gym, and the government reported in 2009 that “Brain Gym had been 'criticised as being unscientific in a wide-ranging and authoritative review of research into neuroscience and education.'” The EEF’s literature review shows that physical exercise breaks may improve learning, although they focussed on longer (30-minute) physical education lessons and not the short in-lesson breaks promoted by Brain Gym – and there’s no evidence whatsoever for the pseudo-science that Brain Gym promotes. Schools make a range of claims about how Brain Gym helps their students learn – claims such as this, from a junior school in Yorkshire: “We are finding some intresting (sic) results in the short time that we have used the exercises… These movements can have a profound effect, developing the brain's neural pathways through movement, just as nature intended.” An Ofsted inspection report of one nursery says that children do Brain Gym exercises because they “make their brains work better.” The persistence of neuromyths undermines the use of genuine brain research in the classroom, so everyone that wants to apply lessons from neuroscience in education should ask for reliable evidence.īrain Gym is a programme of physical exercises that are claimed to boost learning abilities, accompanied by pseudo-scientific explanations. ![]() The EEF found that some interventions such as tailoring the school day to suit the teenage brain are more promising, and warrant further research. We also asked Ofsted about their role in seeking evidence behind teaching methods. Results from a recent Wellcome Trust survey reveal how teachers apply these supposedly brain-based techniques in the classroom, shedding light on why non evidence-based methods persist. The majority of these techniques – including ‘brain training’ software and personalised learning – have little reliable evidence to support their use in education. ![]() Since debunking the pseudo-science behind Brain Gym in 2008, we have come across many other neuromyth-based teaching methods – as set out below, many have been shown to have little or no supporting evidence.Ī literature review by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (PDF) looked at 18 teaching techniques that have a more plausible basis in neuroscience, assessing the strength of supporting evidence and how they might impact on pupil performance. They’re based on neuromyths, promoting “ alarming amounts of misinformation.” Teaching methods that are claimed to be based on how the brain works are being extensively used in schools, but most of them are based on a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of neuroscience. “Teachers are like neurosurgeons, sculpting the brains of our children.” Newsletter from a primary school in Essex ![]() Posted by Prateek Buch on 07 January 2014 Neuromyths and why they persist in the classroom
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