Raw Notes From Learning and the Brain 2021 - Saturday

 Each year, I used my blog to take notes.  What you will find here are raw, including a mix of the presenter's thoughts mixed with my own responses as I mentally process.  They will make sense to me, but they may or may not make sense to you.  I usually process all of this in the following week and post things that make actual sense, so check back in if you are interested.

Keynote I: Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion - Wendy Suzuki

• Brain plasticity can be positive or negative
• Good anxiety is protective.  It is wired into the human brain so that we can respond to signs of danger.
• The problem is that we have so many triggers of danger in the modern world.  There are so many alarms, notification bells, arguments on social media, etc.
• You don't want to get rid of anxiety.  You want to turn the volume down so that it is at a healthy level (the level at which you can use it to propel you forward rather than shut you down).
• There are responses from the nervous system you cannot control, but there are many that you can.  You can slow your breathing.
• Box Breathing - Inhale for a count of 4, hold it at that point for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 4, hold it at that point for a count of 4. (What is great about this method is you can do it any time. You can do it during an anxiety-provoking conversation without the other person even knowing.
• Changing your mindset is powerful. In an experiment, a variable group of hotel workers who said they never exercised were told that their work met the scientific definition of exercise.  They became harder workers and reported more satisfaction in their work than the control group.  Their activity didn't change, but their mindset did.
• Moving your body turns down anxiety.  This can be vigorous exercise, but it can also just be a quick walk or stretching.
• Immediate effects (after only one 10 to 30 minute session) - Increase in neurotransmitters, growth factors, and hormones.  It's like giving your brain a bubble bath. This improves your mood, your focus and attention, and your reaction time.
• Long-term effects - A group of healthy but unfit adults were given cognitive tests and EEGs were given a free membership to a spin class and asked to do it 3x per week for 12 weeks (in a team setting).  The control group did competitive video game playing (so the variable was exercise and not teamwork). The tests and EEGs were then repeated.  The exercise group lost weight, increased aerobic capacity, had more motivation, better attitudes, better long-term reaction time, better memory.  The exercisers were even better at finding items in a virtual town than the video game players were.  
• An emotion being uncomfortable doesn't make it bad.  We are complex human beings.  We have all of our emotions for a reason.  
• Worry tells you what is important to you, so learn from it rather than JUST trying to get rid of it.
• What makes you angry?  It's telling you what you are passionate about.
• What does your fear tell you?  It tells you what you believe to be dangerous.  Perhaps that needs to be addressed.  
• Enjoy the superpowers of anxiety - Properly harnessed anxiety at a healthy level can give you more productivity, increase flow (not when anxiety is super high), and grow your empathy.  "I am the high-paid lawyer that I am because of my anxiety," said a lawyer because she could take every "what if" and turn it into a plan.
• Don't be stressed out be trying to reach flow states often.  You can enjoy micro-flow many times a day.  Relative contrast means the moments of micro-flow will feel even better because you have anxieties.

Keynote II: Under Pressure: Confronting the Pandemic of Stress, Anxiety, and Mental Health Concerns in Adolescents - Lisa Damour, PhD

• Husband is a teacher.  He's never been so worn down as the last 20 months.  He leaves looking put together.  He comes home looking like the bus dragged him home.
• Bad news - Stress, anxiety, and mental health concerns have skyrocketed in teenagers.
• Better news - There is much we can do for them.
• Because of the commercialization of wellness, we entered the pandemic with a lack of understanding of mental health, and now it is worse.  (They make money by making you believe you should feel good all the time and then sell you something when you don't.)
• Neuroscientists and psychologists don't talk about stress the way culture does.  Culture proclaims it to be bad.  Psychologists are neutral to pro-stress.  They know it is inevitable (change = stress), and they know growth doesn't happen without it.
• The two times it is bad (according to psychologists and neuroscientists):
• Chronic stress - No break from it for long periods of time
• Trama - stress at a level that breaks the coping dams.
• We must deprogram kids from the messages of the wellness industry.
• Beat this metaphor to death - Mental stress is like muscle building.  Lifting a 1 lb weight won't build your muscles, but neither will lifting one that is too heavy for you.  Telling students that school is designed to be a progressive mental weight lifting program.  Knowing it is by design reframes their mindset and allows them to see that they can feel good about their stress in the same way we feel good soreness after a workout.  It also helps them see breaks as a time of restoration rather than laziness.
• Anxiety at the appropriate level of response to a situation is good.  If you aren't anxious enough for the situation, you are in danger.  If you are having a panic attack, you cannot respond to the situation.
• We can teach them about the systematic nature of anxiety.  
• Whether a test or a tiger, it's all the same to your amygdala.  It's logical to respond to the threat.  This helps kids understand that it is good.
• When we over-react, we overestimate the danger and underestimate our ability to respond.
• It's a physical response.  Deciding to call it anxiety is a choice.  We could call it activation, excitement, or self-protection.
• Because your heart and lungs have gone into overdrive, the act of box breathing can bring the response back down.  The brain and the lungs/brain communicate on a two-way street.
• Kids call a lot of things anxiety because they don't understand their feelings, so they are looking for language to put on it.  "Whenever Mrs. Bennet was discontented, she fancied herself to be nervous."  Kids use anxiety for any time they don't feel perfectly calm (anger, excitement, sadness, discontent).  It's not all anxiety (fear), and we can help kids identify what they are actually feeling.
• Managing actual anxiety involves recognizing the level of risk properly.  Are you overestimating the risk?  It also involves recognizing the tools you have for managing it.  Are you underestimating your ability to cope?
• We have to change the way we talk about mental health.  It's not about feeling good. 
• You should count on your emotions to reasonably resemble the world.  It makes sense to feel bad when things are bad.
• It isn't about not feeling.  It's about regulating response.  Are you managing the feeling effectively?  Regulation is a two-part process (express the feeling, contain the response).  Express it and then pull yourself together.
• We can help them with expression and containment.  If someone is expressing too much, they need help with containment.  If someone is entirely shut down, they need help with expression.
• If expressing isn't making them feel better, they are turning to rumination, which is a worry loop.  Then, you help by having them go into distraction, or "why don't you leave this for now and come back tomorrow?"  Give them an activity to do that engages their brain.  When they revisit it, it will seem less bad.  
• Don't put them on the spot or ask for an answer in the moment.  They need processing time.  You can email them instead.
• When they need a break, help them figure out if they need distraction, connection, or reflection.
• How to Manage a Meltdown - drlisadamour.com 
• For the parents who believe their kids must get into Harvard, the research shows that the keys to a satisfying life are that they have
• Strong relationships
• Meaningful work
• A feeling that they are good at their work.
• Harvard isn't necessary for any of that.  (Maybe college isn't even needed for it.)  Focus on them becoming a good person, and these things are likely to be fulfilled.

Concurrent Session B - We Needed Executive Function During COVID-19 and Still Do - Jack A. Naglieri, PhD

Personal Note:  I'm kinda tired of doing Mindful Deep Breathing at the start of each session.  I get its value, but if we do it too much, doesn't it lose its value?  I don't think I was particularly mindful on this one because I was not paying attention to the moment without judgment.

• Executive function is a type of intelligence.
• When he taught guitar, he wondered why he used the same methods and books with every student but had such varying results.  When he got to college, he became intrigued by psychology.  As a school psychologist, he wondered the same thing he had wondered when teaching guitar, but about school work.  He came to realize the measurement tests were not helpful.
• Executive Function is the most important ability we have because it is how we decide what we choose to do.  (During Covid, we had to decide if we should do things we had never thought about before, like going to the grocery store.  Since our routines were disrupted, we had to think about how to do almost everything.
• Executive function is about thinking, not remembering.
• Executive function is about neurocognitive ability, so it can be trained.
• Executive function takes place in the frontal lobe.  It is the "organ of civilization." It's about making decisions, leadership, motivation, drive, vision, self-awareness, awareness of others, creativity, etc.
• He wrote the Comprehensive Executive Function Inventory - It is not designed for you to look at the individual parts.  It is only meant for the total score to have meaning.  Don't abuse the information by taking a person with an average total score and trying to drill into the one weak area.  What matters is how it all works together, not how one factor might be an outlier.  It's like a minestrone soup.  It has pasta, but that is not the defining quality of the soup.  It's the whole that matters.
• Any novel task demands executive function to create a strategy.  After it is practiced and becomes a skill, less executive function is required.  
• Executive function is not a skill.  Skills are what you do with minimal thinking.  We should stop scripting things for kids if we want them to use executive function.  Give them an idea of the principles involved, but they only build executive function if they make plans on their own.
• It takes energy (which is why we were so tired during Covid).  
• Controlling emotion is important because it will interfere with executive function decision-making if it is uncontrolled.
• Look at executive function from a strength-based perspective (build them even more) rather than a weakness perspective (even if it gets a little better, it won't affect the overall ability too much).
• Don't do all the planning for students.  Give them opportunities to make plans for projects, problem-solving, etc.
• EF is not measured by traditional IQ tests.  They only measure half of what is going on.
• PASS theory is a modern way to define intelligence (not about only knowledge and skills)
• Planning - Thinking about thinking
• Attention - Being alert
• Simultaneous - Getting the big picture
• Successive - Following a sequence
• How do you know f you are good at something?  You need a reference point, which is the value of a norm.
• Intervention - Teacher facilitates student planning.  Direct instruction isn't the way to go here.  Ask questions to help students self-reflect, like:
• What was your goal?
• How did you start?
• What strategies did you use?
• How did the strategy help?
• What would you do again next time?
• What other strategies might you use next time?
• This not only makes them perform better on the math skill being assessed, but it also improved their ability to think about math overall.
• Think smart, and use a plan.

Keynote III:  Bridging the Gap Between Innate and Learned Behavior: A Parent’s Role in Promoting Survival - Bianca Jones Marlin, PhD

It is going to be hard to sum up how awesome this presentation was because it was mostly based on complex research that would be difficult to explain in writing.

Teachers are the biggest influencers today.  I would not be here if it hadn't been for teachers who recognized something in me and helped me develop it.

• The Nature v. Nurture battle has damaged our understanding.  They communicate with each other.
• Hard science on the effects of Oxytocin - Research on mice because their brain pathways are similar to humans and their lifespans are short enough to study multiple generations.
• Oxytocin is generated in many ways, including birth, breastfeeding, soft-touch, eye contact. deep conversation and plays a role in social reward and relationship building.
• A mother mouse will rescue a lost pup if it gets separated from the group and cries.  A virgin mouse will abuse or even cannibalize the pup.  
• Because she hears it cry, they wondered if oxytocin might be generated from hearing the sound.  The experiments are complex, but they involve manipulating the mouse brains directly with drugs and blue light.
• When the mother is removed, and the pups are left with the virgin mouse, those that have been given oxytocin treatments and blue light treatment will rescue the pups. "Oxytocin can make bad babysitters into good nannies."
• Antibodies are used to track where the oxytocin receptors are.  There were twice as many in the left auditory cortex than in the right.  They chemically suppressed the left hearing center, and the mother mouse would not rescue the pups (neglect).
• Adoptive parents should take comfort in the fact that whether you give birth or not, you can generate oxytocin in other ways.
• Conclusion:  Nurture informs and communicates with nature (2-way street)
• They then studied whether the effects of trauma could be passed on to the next generation.  This was stimulated by stories of Holocaust survivors who fear certain smells having children who fear those same smells and by victims of the Dutch Hunger Winter whose children and grandchildren still suffered from metabolic issues (even though the experience of the first generation lasted less than a year).
• It can be difficult to discern in humans whether the fear is actually passed down genetically or if it comes from hearing stories, so animal studies give better insight.
• They used light shocks whenever a male mouse went into the side of the cage that had a gas in it with an almond smell.  The mice became afraid to go into that side of the cage.  Their offspring were separated from them as soon as they were born, but they were also afraid of the almond smell, and so were their offspring.  The conclusion is that the experience of the first generation mouse affected his sperm, which caused a genetic passing of trauma to the next two generations.
• In humans, it takes about 12 days for olfactory (smell) nerves to regenerate (which is about how long it took people with COVID to get their sense of taste and smell back).
• Conditioned taste aversion is when an experience makes us be repelled by it (like when you get food poisoning and then never want that food again).  In mice, if you make them sick after a certain food a few times, not only won't they eat it again, neither will their offspring.
• The next step is to see if the offspring can be changed back by their own experience because the thought is that because the brain is plastic, since it can be changed by experience, it should be able to be changed back by experience.
• Questions wondering about other senses.  If the next generation can be influenced by an aversion to a smell or taste, can the aversion to a visual also be inherited?  

Concurrent Sessions C

How Tutoring Works: Raise Motivation and Accelerate Learning - John T. Almarode, Ph.D. (My favorite presenter from 2019) 

• We've been at 30000 feet.  Now we're going to drill down.
• What if they aren't keeping up with skills.  Can we move learning forward regardless of where their starting point is?
• Define tutoring 
• Extended learning - Tutoring offers us the opportunity to extend learning and address unrealized potential in our learners.
• Tutoring has a .51 effect size
• Effect size is only a potential.  It is only realized with effective implementation.
• "Learning Loss" isn't real.  Kids didn't make the same gains they would have pre-pandemic, but they did not lose anything.
• The ideas that have been suggested (extending the school year, etc.) have had no benefit.
• Six Dimensions of Tutoring Sessions
1. Invest in relationships - The student is more successful once a relationship is established because there is trust.  (Effect size is .48) Build credibility through trust, competence, and immediacy.  
2. Address confidence and challenges to learning - There may be a barrier you don't know about.  Define what is in the way of the learning goals.  Self efficacy (the belief that I can do something with evidence) has a .71 effect size, so get them a win quickly.  Avoid labels at all cost because labels have a -.61 effect size.
3. Goal setting with students - "Today, we are going to work on . . . "  Have the student write the goal in their own words.  It's an immediate goal.
4. Don't just teach them what to learn.  Teach them how to learn. - Talk to kids about strategies first.  You aren't using practice ON your learners but teaching them to use them for themselves.  Will they know what to do when you are not around?  Students must engage in the generative process of selecting, organizing, and integrating their learning.  (Note-taking is less effective than summarizing.  Drawing an image of what you have learned makes the learning stick.  Elaborate interrogation causes them to dig for themselves.)  The tutoring session should involve the teaching of study skills in the context of the content.
5. Teach content and how to know what success looks like.  - Success criteria can almost double the advancement of learning.  The objective should not only be clear, but it should also be clear how they will know when they have achieved it.
6. Deliberate practice - Practice that which is hard to do. (Effect size .79)  To be deliberate, it has to be challenging.  (To retain your brain has to strain.)
• Decisions must be made within your local context.

Providing Support for All Students to Address Learning Loss - Kathleen Lynch, EdD
www.studentsupportacceleration.com

• Covid caused setbacks
• Research-based strategies can improve learning
• Learning loss = not on track with pre-pandemic standards
• Summer represents an opportunity for enrichment if done correctly.  
• Effective summer programs include SEL, Reading instruction, Math instruction
• Recommendations
• Keep it voluntary
• Focus on enrichment rather than remediation.
• Support teachers with materials, time, and lesson plans
• Maintain ample vacation time (programs should not be more than 5 weeks and about 4 hours a day).  They don't have to look like traditional summer school.
• Prioritize in-person learning

Rethinking Motivation and Mindsets: Strategies to Reengage Students - Andrew C. Watson, MEd 

(I finally got to meet him Off-Twitter, and he used my tweet in his presentation)

• Just teaching kids about mindset will not mean they know how to do it.  We have to change our practice to show them how to have a growth mindset.
• Doing what a researcher does won't necessarily work in your classroom because your context is different.  Instead, think about what he did and how you might adapt it.  "Don't just do this thing.  Think this way."
• Meta-analyses on growth mindset interventions say the results are trivial.  That alone is not a reason to drop it.  You have to ask why the results are trivial.  It could be that the method is sound, but we are applying it incorrectly.  We shouldn't think, "Growth mindset doesn't work."  We should think, "It is difficult to do growth mindset well, so we should really focus on doing it well."
• Steps
• The teacher introduces a new topic.
• Students work on the new skill
• Struggle/Failure 
• Lather, rinse, repeat (due to desirable difficulty)
• Learning
• Easy learning doesn't stick (desirable difficulty)
• Some kids consider a hard thing fun, so their emotion helps their cognition and builds persistence.  (Charge! response - I got this)
• Some kids have negative emotions when it gets hard, which makes them forget things, and destroys their persistence. (Retreat! response - I give up)
• We want to reduce the Retreat! response.  
• We used to think If they believe they are not good at something, they will retreat from it.  But that turned out not to be true.
• Carol Deaner and Carol Dweck asked if it was about what we say to ourselves.  Those who describe things based on ability tend to retreat.  Those who talk about their effort or their strategies tend to charge.
• How we praise students matters to their perseverance.  "You must be smart" is demotivating.  "You must have worked hard" is very motivating.  Success should be reflected on with the strategies that made them successful, so they can focus on what they do.
• Use verbs instead of adjectives.  Be specific and precise with your praise.
• Dangerous kindness - It can be hard for us to give critical feedback because we don't want to make them feel bad.  We try to soften the blow by lowering expectations or by saying "some people are just not good math."  Or we call on them less so we don't embarrass them.  These strategies are demotivating.  
• Students with fixed (ability) mindsets have performance goals won't let you see them working because it should look effortless and be flawless, and they value high scores.  Those with growth mindsets have learning goals, so they want you to see the effort, view flaws as signposts for what they need to work on, and value high learning.  We should normalize struggle.
• Run like a bunny to read Teach Like A Champion
• Frame wrong answers as normal
• Ensure wrong answers occur frequently by making the material high challenge
• Emphasize the usefulness of a wrong answer
• Wrong answers will ultimately lead to the right answers (No answer won't).
• Let them share what they used to struggle with but have overcome.  Let them share what they are still finding challenging
• Given EEGs while taking hard trivia quizzes.  Told them if they got it right or wrong and gave the correct answer.  Asked them again.  Fixed mindset thinkers activated the "error detection" area of the brain ("I got it wrong.".  Growth mindset thinkers activated the area of the brain the processes the meaning of language ("Oh, that's the answer.").  The more activation there was in the language processing area, the more likely they were to get it right the second time.
• Teach students that ability can change.  Coach students to teach others that ability can change.  Think about how and what you choose to grade.  Think more about how they can learn at school and less about how they can perform at school.
• Don't do this thing.  Think this way.  Adapt and apply to your context.