Mind, Brain, and Education 

About: Mind, Brain, and Education is an academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Cognition & Educational neuroscience. It has an ISSN identifier of 1751-2271. Over the lifetime, 473 publications have been published receiving 12600 citations.

We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education.

Abstract: Recent advances in neuroscience are highlighting connections between emotion, social functioning, and decision making that have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the role of affect in education. In particular, the neurobiological evidence suggests that the aspects of cognition that we recruit most heavily in schools, namely learning, attention, memory, decision making, and social functioning, are both profoundly affected by and subsumed within the processes of emotion; we call these aspects emotional thought. Moreover, the evidence from brain-damaged patients suggests the hypothesis that emotion-related processes are required for skills and knowledge to be transferred from the structured school environment to real-world decision making because they provide an emotional rudder to guide judgment and action. Taken together, the evidence we present sketches an account of the neurobiological underpinnings of morality, creativity, and culture, all topics of critical importance to education. Our hope is that a better understanding of the neurobiological relationships between these constructs will provide a new basis for innovation in the design of learning environments. Note: The lead author appears twice in this issue of LEARNing Landscapes: first in the reprint cited below, and next, in an accompanying follow-up article that features poetry from her daughter Nora Ming-Min Yang. Immordino-Yang, M.H., & Damasio, A.R. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain and Education, 1(1), 3–10. * Reprinted in Jossey-Bass Reader on the Brain and Learning (pp. 183–198). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Mindfulness for Teachers: A Pilot Study to Assess Effects on Stress, Burnout, and Teaching Efficacy

Abstract: Despite the crucial role of teachers in fostering children's academic learning and social-emotional well-being, addressing teacher stress in the classroom remains a significant challenge in education. This study reports results from a randomized controlled pilot trial of a modified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course (mMBSR) adapted specifically for teachers. Results suggest that the course may be a promising intervention, with participants showing significant reductions in psychological symptoms and burnout, improvements in observer-rated classroom organization and performance on a computer task of affective attentional bias, and increases in self-compassion. In contrast, control group participants showed declines in cortisol functioning over time and marginally significant increases in burnout. Furthermore, changes in mindfulness were correlated in the expected direction with changes across several outcomes (psychological symptoms, burnout, and sustained attention) in the intervention group. Implications of these findings for the training and support of teachers are discussed. Teachers play a central role in creating a classroom climate that fosters student learning and social-emotional well- being. However, teaching can be stressful and managing classroom dynamics taxing. As a profession, teaching is plagued by significant turnover, often attributed to burnout, with documented rates of teacher turnover rising in public

The Development of Metacognitive Knowledge in Children and Adolescents: Major Trends and Implications for Education

Abstract: This article gives an overview of developmen- tal trends in research on metacognition in children and adolescents. Whereas a fi rst wave of studies focused on the assessment of declarative and procedural metacognitive knowledge in schoolchildren and adolescents, a second wave focused on very young children ' s " theory of mind " (ToM). Findings from a recent longitudinal study are presented that demonstrate developmental links between early ToM and subsequent declarative metacognitive knowledge, mainly mediated by language competencies. The relevant literature further indicates that developmental trends in declarative and procedural metacognitive knowledge clearly differ. Whereas the fi ndings for declarative metacognitive knowl- edge show steady improvement through childhood and adolescence, mainly due to increases in knowledge about strategies, the results are not similarly clear-cut for procedur- al metacognition. Age trends observed for this component of metacognition are signifi cant for self-control activities but not pronounced for monitoring abilities. These fi ndings have important implications for education, emphasizing the role of strategy training procedures in different instructional domains and illustrating teachers ' potential impact on the improvement of monitoring and control processes.

Once upon a Time: Parent-Child Dialogue and Storybook Reading in the Electronic Era.

Abstract: Early experiences with books predict later reading success, and an interactive shared reading style called ''dialogic reading'' is especially beneficial to emergent literacy. Electronic console (EC) books, CD-rom books, and e-book apps are designed to teach preschoolers preliteracy skills, but research has yet to systematically explore the impact of these types of books on established predictors of positive literacy outcomes. This research fills that gap with two studies investigating dialogic language and children's story comprehension in a total of 165 parent-child dyads reading battery-operated, touch-sensitive children's electronic console books or traditional books. Results revealed that parent-child dialogic reading and children's story comprehension were both negatively affected by the presence of electronic features. Ways in which e-books may be altered to better serve as educational tools in this new era are discussed.

Guided Play: Where Curricular Goals Meet a Playful Pedagogy

Abstract: Decades of research demonstrate that a strong curricular approach to preschool education is important for later developmental outcomes. Although these findings have often been used to support the implementation of educational programs based on direct instruction, we argue that guided play approaches can be equally effective at delivering content and are more developmentally appropriate in their focus on child-centered exploration. Guided play lies midway between direct instruction and free play, presenting a learning goal, and scaffolding the environment while allowing children to maintain a large degree of control over their learning. The evidence suggests that such approaches often outperform direct-instruction approaches in encouraging a variety of positive academic outcomes. We argue that guided play approaches are effective because they create learning situations that encourage children to become active and engaged partners in the learning process.