Dr. JoAnn Deak's talk on girls brains and learning - my notes

This is the second time I have heard JoAnn Deak speak, and she was wonderful again. I work at a girls school so she talked to us specifically about girls brains and how they work. Much of her talk connected to Carol Dweck's work in Mindset but most centered around specific applications to girls.

My high-level takeaways included:

• learning works best with 10 minutes struggling/grappling/learning then 2 minutes capturing/processing - "concurrent notetaking impedes depth of learning and long-term thinking"
• teachers are neurosculptors working on a plastic brain - we must learn how best to sculpt - this is essential in first 20 years of life
• 80% of girls have female-differentiated brains and 20% have male-differentiated brains - we must learn teaching techniques that work for both and harm neither
• there are real differences between "girl" neurology and "boy" neurology and we need to be able to use these differences skillfully

Here are my notes from the session:

rules for highest learning outcomes:

1. ask questions when you have them
2. disagree with her when you do
3. if you don't believe teacher has expertise and is a good teacher, it will be an obstacle to learning

"You cannot be as updated as I am or you wouldn't have a life"

• language-based collection of details does not allow for deep thinking
• we're having trouble with salience with students - how do they find what is needed or relevant?
• if you don't stretch all parts of the brain in the first 20 years, those parts start to diminish
  • first 5 years: major neural pathways are developed if they are used
  • 5-15: smaller routes
  • after 15: specialized routes
• if you teach to learning style too much you develop an imbalanced brain
• concurrent notetaking while learning impedes depth of learning and long-term learning
  • notetaking works best in clumps - learning for 10, 2 minutes for capturing/processing
  • concurrent notetaking does work for: 1) a-ha thinking or 2) writing down a question that is bothering you
  • 5 universities announced last year no concurrent notetaking
  • many universities require podcasting
• for most girls she will learn better if she is looking at the teacher; no correlation for boys
  • tells parents: don't tell your sons, "look at me!"
• after 20 minutes have kids get up, do toe pushups, then 20 arm raises
• drinking water during class is essential - 1 hour
• SAT's will go away, and letter grades are right behind them
• teachers are neurosculptors
• crucible events (death of a loved one, divorce of parents, molestation) are burned into the hiccocampus
• crucible moments can be burned in, too - an off-hand comment from a teacher, a roll of the eyes by the 'queen bee'
• the research does not support hands going up - it interferes with learning - she uses "the magic finger"
  • ask a question, and ask everyone to think about it for 30 seconds
  • purpose of asking question is to get brains to think more deeply; it I allow hands to go up, people stop thinking and prepare to listen
  • after 2 rounds of calling on people, let people raise hands
• to reduce anxiety allow students 10 seconds to ask a peer if needed and give people time on the front end to think
• to reduce anxiety give all students one pass
  • we want girls to exercise judgment - even just thinking about whether to use the pass
• brain is designed to remember mistakes so that it can learn from it the next time
• set up classroom to encourage, celebrate mistakes
• attempting, failing is prized - not an incorrect answer
  • ACC in brain goes off when it hears a wrong answers
  • bigger in girls
• read: Scientific American Mind - Male vs Female brains
• 80% of dyslexia are male, 90% of autism are male, 80% of OCD are female
• 100 billion neurons, 100 trillion connections
• 80/20 rule - need to find teaching techniques that work for both and harm neither
• when girls are challenged they release oxytocin - makes them not want to take risks
  • cooperative learning
  • use buddies
  • prepare them to do things on their own
• read: Your Fantastic Brain - children's book on how your brain works/grows
• "the female neurobiology is designed to be hesitant"
• stretch is the key word
• research shows that if parents don't understand the brain research they will fight us every step of the way
• marathon thinking and sprint thinking - combine these for the best learning
  • we have been giving girls more and more time, and they need more an dmore
• grades that compare kids to other kids goes against all the brain research
  • they need to compare their scores to themselves - how much did they learn/grow?

my question for JoAnne: how does game play show up in the research? More effective? What about video games?

- I haven't asked it yet, but she mentioned that she plays brain games on her Nintendo DS when she travels