See the research behind why educational neuroscience is a game changer for the future of education!
Don't get left behind! Be a part of the Mind-Brain Education Revolution today.
If you are interested in Mind-Brain Education, here is a list of experts & organisations you may like to look into, just to name a few:
* The Science of Learning Centre - collaboration between ACER and QLD Brain Institute.
* Harvard University, Melbourne University & others - run courses in Educational Neuroscience.
* Professor Ken Purnell - Professor of Brain-Based Education who runs a Master of Educational Neuroscience in QLD.
* The OECD’s Centre for Educational Research & Innovation - promoting a Holistic Educational Neuroscience approach to schooling globally.
*Dr Judy Willis - neurologist of 20 years turned educator, promoting brain-based education.
*Dr John Ratey - psychiatrist, promotes more movement in education.
*Dr Carol Dweck - famous for promoting Growth Mindset in schools.
*Dr John Pelley - Professor of Medical Education, who explains that when students “know how their brain works they always perform better than those who don’t”.
Our training & workshops are perfectly aligned with:
We use a UNIQUE evidence-based approach to make teaching & learning
more engaging, enjoyable, easier, empowering & as EFFECTIVE as possible...
Well-Being
Holistic
Whole-School Community
Educational Neuroscience
WELL-BEING
The Australian Student Well-Being Framework states: "Whole-school approaches to student well-being have far-reaching positive impacts on mental health and resilience, and also enhance pro-social behaviour and learner engagement."Professor Donna Cross, University of Western Australia - Director & Program Head, Development and Education, says: "Well-being is everyone's business .... If we get well-being right we enhance academic outcomes & quality of learning; we improve life success in children .... Teacher well-being is as important as Student Well-Being."
EDUCATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE
The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development) through CERI (Centre for Educational Research & Innovation) has embarked on a project to explore a Neuroscientific Approach to Learning.
CERI/OECD states that “the education community has started to realise that ‘understanding the brain’ can help to open new pathways to improve educational research, policies and practice” – and asks, “Is the current classroom model of learning ‘brain un-friendly’?”
Extensive research has shown that when students know how they can ‘grow’ their own brain – and know about their brain’s learning potential, they behave differently towards learning & can achieve better academically.
Studies show that when teachers use brain-science knowledge to teach their classes, student achievement and motivation increases.
Professor Pankaj Sah, Director of The Queensland Brain Institute at The University Of Queensland, writes: "Neuroscience and experimental psychology have made great strides in understanding how learning occurs and the factors that influence it, but translating this to education is not straightforward. Part of the problem is an issue of communication: psychologists, teachers and neuroscientists don’t always speak the same language." That's where we can help! As a classroom teacher, specialising in Educational Neuroscience, Tammy-Anne has found a simple way to translate cutting-edge brain-science & psychology into practical applications to education, in the classroom daily, with improved pedagogical practices, tools & techniques, that can be understood by all students, parents & teachers.
HOLISTIC EDUCATION
CERI/OECD calls for “holistic approaches” to education, in order to help student brains meet their potential and facilitate the learning process.
A CERI/OECD report states that a student’s social interactions, environment, sleep, diet and movement are “easily overlooked in their impact on education”, but they shouldn’t be – because these “everyday matters” have a massive impact on the brain. It is vital parents, teachers & students understand this - and how to apply this knowledge in practical ways to benefit students daily.
Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, says we have a "new holistic vision of schooling" but that "Unfortunately, very few teachers and leaders truly understand HOW and WHY these emerging constructs [Mind-Set, Grit etc] actually impact teaching & learning". We explain the HOW & the WHY.
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
PESA's (Positive Education Schools Association) "vision is for the science of well-being and Positive Psychology to be integrated throughout the education system, enabling all students, schools and communities to flourish." Positive Psychology underpins basically everything we teach in all our workshops and it's where Tammy-Anne's journey into Educational Neuroscience began!
GROWTH MINDSET
Dr Carol Dweck's Growth Mind-Set research is very well-known and shows the immense power of a student's 'cognitive, affective, and behavioural features' over their learning experience and academic achievements. In our workshops, teaching students about a Growth Mind-Set is just the tip of the ice-berg! We delve deep into the brain-science and psychology of learning, success and happiness.
Unfortunately, some schools have not had the best success with a growth mindset approach to learning, because they have not taught it in the right way. As psychologists and educational experts know, students always perform better at school when we teach them how their own brain works, learns and grows. This is what is needed to ensure a growth mindset approach is as successful as possible. It is most empowering and beneficial when students don't just get 'told' that they can grow their own brain and that mistakes and challenges are just part of learning (in fact, they are opportunities needed to grow a brain); but when students truly 'understand and comprehend' exactly how & why their brain truly changes and grows in response to challenges, thoughts and many other choices & actions. This is precisely what we teach students in workshops for Year 1 - 12.
Teaching students, parents & teachers how a brain learns is now recommended by the Director for Education and Skills at the OECD, Andreas Schleicher. According to Director for Education and Skills at the OECD, Andreas Schleicher, regarding the 2018 PISA results: "... students who disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement ‘Your intelligence is something about you that you can’t change very much’ scored 32 points higher in reading than students who agreed or strongly agreed, after accounting for the socioeconomic profile of students and schools. Students who believe that their abilities and intelligence can be developed over time (those with a ‘growth mindset’) also expressed less fear of failure than students who believe their abilities and intelligence are ‘fixed’. In PISA 2018, the students with a growth mindset reported greater motivation to master tasks and self-efficacy, set more ambitious learning goals for themselves, attached greater importance to school, and were more likely to expect to complete a university degree.... There are various ways a growth mindset can be instilled in students. It can begin by teaching students more about the brain’s capacity to learn through reading, class discussions and other activities. Research has shown that students who are exposed to these school-based interventions tend to show stronger beliefs about the brain’s capacity to change, and are less likely to attribute failure to a lack of talent, than students who are assigned to control groups. Other successful interventions include encouraging students to explain the growth mindset to other students, instilling a growth mindset amongst parents and teachers..."
PARENTAL ENGAGEMENT
The Federal Education Department states: “Research has shown that when schools and families work together, children do better, stay in school longer, are more engaged with their school work, go to school more regularly, behave better, and have better social skills. Parent engagement also results in longer term economic, social and emotional benefits.” Our Parent Workshops are Game-Changers!
A report by the Australian Research Alliance for Children & Youth concludes that: “Given the clear benefits of positive parental engagement in student learning, by way of improved academic achievement, wellbeing and productivity, … progressing parental engagement initiatives is warranted, if not essential to education reform and the future of Australia.” Parental engagement is “essential”!
Promising studies in Africa, Asia and Latin America are showing that Educational Neuroscience has a huge potential in the home; when disadvantaged parents learn the choices to make at home to enable their children to enhance their mental achievement –they have the power to potentially break the cycle of poverty in whole countries. Neuroscience has a powerful place in the home!
A review by the South Australian government calls for increased parental engagement and says that parents’ expectations and efforts in the home have a “resounding” impact on “children’s educational attainment”. There has been a policy agenda shift, “with parents and educators being asked to work more closely together.”
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
The Grattan Institute found, in 2017, that nearly half of all school students in Australia are disengaged from the education process; many students just don’t enjoy learning. Neurologist Dr Judy Willis says that when we remove joy and pleasure from the classroom – students become bored, anxious and disengaged from the learning process. Surprise, surprise! Students will only learn and remember what they pay attention to, so as teachers we need to know how to give them something to pay attention to!
META-COGNITION
Nancy Chick, Centre for Teaching Assistant Director at Vanderbilt University says The National Academy of Sciences’ brought together decades of research on the science of learning, and "one of the three key findings of this work is the effectiveness of a “‘metacognitive’ approach to instruction”. What we offer is Meta-Cognition on steroids - it's so empowering for students to know what is happening in their brains as they think & learn! We literally help students learn how to learn.
Harvard Graduate School of Education, along with a select few universities around the world, are now offering courses in Educational Neuroscience and Mind-Brain Education.
PSYCHOLOGY
Our workshops also utilise some Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) which is a type of cognitive-behavioural therapy developed by psychologist Albert Ellis. REBT is focused on changing a person's irrational beliefs, to help them stress-less, improve their rationality and ultimately increase their happiness. Tammy-Anne is an accredited social-emotional learning trainer with You Can Do It! Education, trained by Educational Psychologist, Professor Michael Bernard of Melbourne University (whose testimonial is on the home-page.)
FUN & MOVEMENT IN THE CLASSROOM
"In a wide-ranging 2017 survey of 3000 British students aged between five and 18, the respondents were asked what the most important characteristic of a teacher was with the vast majority choosing ‘being funny’." - according to Education HQ August 2020.
Question What does laughter, enjoyment, fun, joy & humour all produce in a student's brain? Answer: DOPAMINE, the BEST brain chemical for learning, memory and feeling happy. This is something I have been benefitting from in the classroom, and teaching to students, parents and teachers over the last 8 years.
A 2020 edition of Australian Teacher Magazine asks:"Do we need more spontaneous and joyful movement in our classrooms?" and says: "Emerging research has highlighted the deep biological links between the brain and physical movement, and experts are now calling for a re-think on how schools work with children's natural inclination to move throughout the day to literally fire up their learning capacity."
This is terrific but this is NOT emerging research "just in".
Dr John Ratey, Dr Wendy Suzuki, Dr Anders & many others have been promoting more movement for improved brain performance, learning, and health, for years! There are so many books, articles, videos, presentations, and TED talks on the very well-known link between movement and increasing our brain's leaning capacity (and mental & physical well-being.) And, I’ve been putting this into practice and teaching this to students, parents and teachers over the last 8 years.
SELF-DIRECTED, SELF-REGULATED LEARNERS
From Education HQ 2020: "Australian researcher has pin-pointed self-regulated learning as key to successful online instruction - but says many school students do not know much about their own learning process and do not have strategies to manage it."
We teach EXACTLY what happens in the learning process AND strategies to manage and enhance one's own learning.
""Learning can be improved,” Professor Vosniadou says in a new paper, “and it is more effective when students can control their motivational states, use effective strategies to manage their thinking, and reflect upon their learning processes and outcomes.”"
"She points out that a lack of self-regulated learning is also being recognised as a barrier in the transition from secondary education to tertiary. Despite this, many school students do not know much about their own learning process and do not have strategies to manage it."
We teach EXACTLY this; we empower students to take control of their own learning, well-being (emotions) and success - and give them strategies to self-regulate their emotions AND their learning/thinking - and how the two are intrinsically interconnected, simultaneously.
"One problem is that schools do not have sufficient time or resources to devote to teaching learning skills. Rather, they are pressured to cover course content. Almost all (98.8 per cent) of Australian teachers said that self-regulated learning skills are important, but only 32 per cent included them in lesson planning."
"However, Professor Vosniadou points out that the teaching of content is deeply connected with the teaching of strategies about how to critically process this content and that the two should go hand in hand."
Yes, the two go hand in hand, and it's far easier (and actually far more enjoyable & engaging for our students and us as teachers) than we might think, to combine the two.
"Another concern is the inadequate testing of students’ skills to regulate their learning. “Although students usually do difficult tests on their background knowledge in different subjects, they are very rarely assessed on whether they possess the skills necessary to manage their learning in an effective way,” she said."
Learning how to manage learning - and teaching - effectively, based on the latest brain-science of exactly how we learn best, is quite literally ... 'what we do'.
IN SUMMARY
In summary, Tammy-Anne's 10+ years of classroom teaching experience & 'action research' at various schools (city, country, private, public, primary & secondary) - has proven to her BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT, that teaching using Educational Neuroscience improves, noticeably, student engagement, behaviour, focus, self-confidence, self-belief, self-direction, motivation, enjoyment and achievement. In addition, she has found that teaching using Educational Neuroscience makes teaching any subject, in any year group, so much easier to plan, far less stressful, much more enjoyable, and far more effective!
For more of the research behind what we do, please scroll down.
"What has intrigued me most in my 30 years of research is the power of motivation. Motivation is often more important than your initial ability in determining whether you succeed in the long run. In fact ... many creative geniuses were not born that way. They were often fairly ordinary people who became extraordinarily motivated. By motivation, I mean not only the desire to achieve but also the love of learning, the love of challenge, and the ability to thrive on obstacles. These are the greatest gifts we can give our students."
Dr Carol Dweck
Professor of Psychology behind the Growth vs Fixed Mind-Set
These gifts that carol dweck recommends ARE THE VERY SAME GIFTS WE GIVE STUDENTS
OF ALL AGES, THROUGH OUR MOTIVATIONAL-educational incursion WORKSHOPS:
THE LOVE OF LEARNING, THE DESIRE TO ACHIEVE, THE LOVE OF A CHALLENGE
& BELIEF IN THEIR OWN INCREDIBLE ABILITIES!
This ALL LEADS TO BOUNDLESS MOTIVATION AND SETS THEM ON A PATH TO REALISE AND
REACH THEIR INCREDIBLE TRUE POTENTIAL...!