District Administration - May 2012 - (Page 20)

SponSored Supplement The connection between math and neuroscience By MAttHeW PeteRson As A college student, I set out to create games to teach math. now, 17 years later, I’m still working on it. over those years, I’ve designed 2,327 games. the vast majority were failures. At one point, I even declared it impossible to teach math using computer games. I began analyzing my games. In field tests at schools, most games didn’t improve test scores, but some showed moderate success. the ones that almost worked typically required students to generate solutions, not just choose answers. the most successful games were particularly good at showing students the consequences of their correct or incorrect solutions, allowing students to make adjustments and correct mistakes. Wait a second. this sounds like the tight-looped reciprocal connections between the perceptual and executive hierarchies of the posterior and frontal cortices. this neural circuitry allows adaptive behavior to occur as the individual performs an action, perceives the results of that action, and adjusts actions accordingly. It’s called the perception-action cycle, and it makes experience-based learning happen. I quickly abandoned all multiple-choice interfaces and replaced them with games requiring students to generate solutions. I also made the feedback instant and informative. Instead of just telling students whether they got it right or wrong, the games animate the consequences of their actions so students perceive why their solution worked or didn’t. this produces games where students touch, feel, see and interact with math in a way that takes advantage of their brain’s perception-action cycle. the result? An order of magnitude increase in the effectiveness of the games. now, did neuroscience help improve the games or did creating, testing and analyzing these 2,327 games strengthen our understanding of neuroscience? I think a little of both. I believe there needs to be a stronger interplay between neuroscience and education. While there is a long way to go in the quest to create learning environments where all students can become proficient in math, these recent developments remove all doubt in my mind that it will happen. Matthew Peterson is a co-founder of MIND Research Institute. Spatial temporal reasoning, and the importance of touch By nIgel nIsBet HeRe At tHe MInd ReseARcH InstItute, We often are asked, “What does the st stand for in st Math?” Well, st Math is a non-language, web-based mathematics program that uses and develops students’ spatial-temporal, or st, reasoning skills. spatial-temporal reasoning is the ability to mentally move objects in space and time to solve multi-step problems. It’s what allows us, for instance, to load an assortment of suitcases, boxes and bags in a car trunk without relying exclusively on trial-and-error. Research tells us three important things about st reasoning. first, it connects to mathematics at all levels, from kindergarten to calculus. second, it is innate in humans. And third, our st reasoning abilities can be increased. this understanding of st reasoning forms the foundation of st Math. By challenging students to figure out how to manipulate objects in space and sequence, st Math helps increase spatial-temporal reasoning and thus improves students’ understanding of math concepts. transforming the way students learn in this way has produced remarkable results, but the advent of touchbased tablet technology provides the opportunity to take this visual and kinesthetic interactivity, and the concomitant success, to another level. With our new st Math touch, for iPad and Android tablets, students no longer need to move a mouse to control an onscreen manipulative by proxy. now they can directly touch, orient, and control objects within a game, applying the same st reasoning skills but with an immediacy and directness that significantly increases the learning potential of the experience. Nigel Nisbet is director of content creation at MIND Research Institute.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - May 2012

District Administration - May 2012
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Sustainability Update
Conversations
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Problem/Solution
Product Focus
Digital Reading Empowers Students
The Critical Task of Hiring a New Chief
Hard Acts to Follow
Leading the Way
Sally Reis & Joe Renzulli
CIO News
Not Your Mother’s Student Information System
Professional Opinion
Noteworthy Books
New Products
Going Mobile

District Administration - May 2012