10 minute read
ANNE-MICHELLE ENGELSTAD ’12
Context Matters
ANNE-MICHELLE ENGELSTAD ’12
Asimple statement, “context matters,” and yet, sitting in one of my first classes as a Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, it was a wake-up call.
Dr. Todd Rose, director of the MBE program, was discussing the importance of accounting for context when researching systems as complex as child development and learning. 1 Research that takes place in the lab, even when utilizing a combination of methods, he argued, may not yield data that translate to the classroom at all when you consider the unique and abundant neurological demands that the classroom context presents. It was the first clue in answering one of the key questions I had come to Harvard Graduate School of Educa- tion (HGSE) to explore.
My journey to HGSE had been rather linear. I knew from a young age that I wanted to teach, and thanks to a literature class at St. Andrew’s that assigned Mark Ha- don’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” 2 I became very interested in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). A se- nior paper investigating the etiology of ASD and a stint in an autism support classroom for my senior project affirmed my desire to study development in children with ASD.
I set my sights on Vanderbilt University’s acclaimed special education program, which gave me the chance, beginning in my freshman year, to spend ample time in classrooms around Nashville. Through a second major in child cognitive studies, I learned about early developmental con- structs and the varying trajectories children follow. Instructors supplemented this with neuroscience research pointing to the underlying systems involved, and patterns of activation and connectivity that could be seen across development, due to emerging neuroimaging tools. The power of these tools to act as a window into the minds of children with complex learning needs excited me, and I dove in. I spent the next two years in labs that utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate learning differences in children with conditions such as specific language impairment, anxiety, and neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1).
I learned a great deal about research procedure and methods in these labs. The results coming out of this research intrigued me as a special educator and gave me a deeper understanding of the profiles of students. I felt the more I understood about students’ brains, the better I could tai- lor my teaching to their learning patterns. However, the connection was not clear to teachers I was working with. When I told a mentor teacher that I wanted to add a neu- roscience minor, she asked me “why?” For that teacher, neuroscience and education was too far of a leap. Another teacher felt that a neuroscience implication for teach- ing was faddish. “Wait five years,” she told
me, “the pendulum will swing again and you’ll be hearing about the next thing.” My next step, then, was to investigate this gap between research and practice. How do we get this research to teachers in a way they feel is both usable and beneficial? Secondly, how do we ensure that the research we use to inform teaching is sound and established, employed with fidelity?
So, sitting in that first class with Todd, I had a revelation as to why those teachers didn’t jump at findings from fMRI research. Not only were those data not usable to teachers in their existing form, but brain activation patterns that occur when a child completes a learning task in the isolation of a magnetic tunnel tells us very little about the neurological response that child would have if presented with the same learning task in a classroom setting. Factors relating to motivation, sensory integration, attention systems — the list continues — would not only change the child’s performance on the task, but also alter the very neurological response we aim to measure. Context matters.
I spent my remaining time at HGSE trying to find a sweet spot on the bridge between research and practice. It was an uncomfortable place to be where the journey was no longer linear. In the fall, I synthesized research findings from mouse models 3 and neuroanatomical imaging studies in an effort to identify research-informed strategies to improve observational learning 4 in students with Down Syndrome. While I came up short of unveiling any practices novel to existing educational literature, my work did corroborate existing research. In the spring, I worked with teachers in a local fully-inclusive elementary school to roll out secondary and tertiary tiers of a positive behavior support system, an established research-based practice with demonstrated efficacy, 5 yet felt distanced from the active research I had been involved with before.
Researchers often set out to add something novel to existing literature rather than build on established neuroscience principles to develop usable strategies. I had to shift the way I framed my own research questions. Instead of starting with an area of interest and wondering what mysteries in-vivo technology could unveil to us, I began with specific questions that I had in the field, then consulted the literature to find what findings, if any, seemed translatable for practice. Could the research be replicated in the classroom context? What would that look like? Would those findings be readily usable for teachers?
Since HGSE, I have found a sweet-spot that does sit between academic research and classroom practice. I have been working on a study 6 funded by the Institute of Education Sciences investigating the efficacy of Dr. Rebecca Landa’s Early Achievements model 7 in public preschool classrooms. The Early Achievements model is grounded in neuroscience theorem 8 and has undergone iterations to prepare for translation into the public preschool context. As a coach on the project, I’m able to help teachers implement research-informed strategies that increase communication and social behaviors in students with ASD, signifying shifts in underlying systems to more closely mirror typical development. I am helping make research-informed strategies work in the contexts of real classrooms. As I learned in my first weeks at HGSE, “context matters.”
Anne-Michelle Engelstad ‘12 attended Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College following her graduation from St. Andrew’s before pursuing graduate work in Mind, Brain, and Education at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. AnneMichelle currently works as a research coordinator at the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Autism and Related Disorders.
PRISCILLA ANG
My first brush with Mind, Brain, and Education Sci- ence was two weeks before my Cambridge A-Levels examination in the early 1990s. I had unwrapped my Biology textbook for the first time and was having a mind-shock moment realizing the amount of mate- rial I had to memorize on brain anatomy. I blame this predicament on my release from an all-girls middle school to a co-ed high school; my sensory memory was overloaded with walking males of the spe- cies which promptly hijacked my ability to executive function.
Fast forward to some decades later: my amygdala is screaming bloody murder. I am facing Mind, Brain, and Educa- tion (MBE) all over again. My children attend St. Andrew’s, a school that infuses research-informed MBE strategies into its learning environment, curriculum design, pedagogy, assessment, student success, and well-being.
What is MBE?
By definition, Mind, Brain, and Educa- tion is an intersection of neuroscience, behavioural psychology, and education theory. Just writing that is so massively daunting. What exactly do all those com- ponents mean? How can a parent like me use these evidence-based practices and know just enough to help me do my job as a parent better?
The Bridge Between Educators and Parents
I found my answer in a book called “The Self-Driven Child” by Dr William Stixrud and Ned Johnson. 1 While the school uses MBE in an educational setting, the authors of “The Self-Driven Child” explain the same MBE concepts in the context of motivation, fighting about homework, and being a non-anxious parent. This gives me the belief that there is a common block of research data that can be used as an interchangeable vocabulary between parents and educators. This is extremely powerful as a large part of our child’s growing years involve education. To be optimal partners with educators in raising our children, shared knowledge is desirable.
The Bridge Between All Your Kids
I am all for a universal cure and efficiency. So I looked at my brood and con- cluded that the only common denominator amongst them is the fact that they have a brain. Amidst their differing personalities, gender, age and developmental stages, I figured that if I can work out what goes on in their heads, I have a better chance at success.
For example, take the concept of execu- tive functioning skills, i.e. the ability to devise an appropriate plan, execute it, selfmonitor while doing so, make adjustments as necessary, and determine a satisfactory endpoint. MBE informs us that the part
of the brain that controls this skill is only fully developed around 25-years-old. It also tells us that the more you use a part of the brain, the better you get at it.
As a parent, we know that helping to grow executive function for all our kids is essential. It is not an excuse that they aren’t biologically unable to plan and complete a task, and thus we will sweep in to do it for them. Instead, I identify where they are in their current ability and help them where they need it. So for my youngest who is 8, he gets a chance to practice by coming up with a daily to-do list. For the older children, I leave them to plan and organize on their own, but be checking and suggesting better ways to get their tasks done. And when I see a 2-monthaged piece of moldy bread at the bottom of their bag, I cut them some slack and blame it on their under-developed brain.
My Two Biggest MBE Applications as a Parent
1. Parent as a Consultant: Child development experts, such as Madeline Levine 2 and Laurence Steinberg, 3 provide evidence that “Authoritative Parenting” produces the best outcomes. 4 It entails being supportive, but not controlling. The key is to give the kids all the resources they need to make an informed decision, and then allow
them to learn from their own experiences. Based on this parenting concept, Stixrud and Johnson, authors of “The Self-Driven Child,” urge parents to act as consultants, instead of enforcers. Consultants provide support yet recognize that it is the client’s responsibility. Whose problem is it? In this case, it is the child’s.
So I learned that it is healthy to take a hands-off attitude and let my children struggle, but make sure to let them know that I am there for them when needed. This point is also outlined in the book “Neuroteach” 5 which talks about finding the “Zone of Proximal Discomfort” for each individual learner.
2. The Power of Yet: Stanford University professor, Carol Dweck, explains that having a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset will influence a student’s academic achievement, and his/her ability to think and work at the highest level in a resilient manner. 6 Glenn Whitman and Dr. Ian Kelleher, the authors of “Neuroteach,” went a step further to explain that to cultivate a growth mindset for our children, it is not replacing the words, “Good job!” with “Good effort!” When one is running on a hamster wheel with no strategy and help to get off it, effort doesn’t help. They write that “having a growth mindset also requires the development of clearlydefined strategies for improvement and the enlistment of support, advice, and guidance from others.” In short, you cannot have a growth mindset without a challenge.
If they have no insight or plans on how to improve, trying their best won’t be enough. I need to help them brainstorm, apply, test, and tweak strategies in their learning process. And in the midst of this all, I remind them that they sometimes just can’t do it yet. Dweck’s research is often over-simplified to “have a you can do it! attitude.” People miss the most important piece of her work, that quality of effort and using good strategies are vital.
I did well enough on my A-levels biology examinations to get into college with my spot-the-questions strategy. But as MBE will tell you, I learned and retained nothing from those two weeks of cramming. But hey – at least high school was fun and if I had to do it all over again, I now have the research-informed strategies to make it stick longer.
Priscilla Ang has three children currently attending St. Andrew’s and has experienced the impact the CTTL has on the school’s committment to research-informed teaching and learning from Kindergarten through Grade 10.
