Transcript Brit Coun v2

Neuroscience and New Technologies
1. Thinking about the brain and technology
2. Games and the brain
3. Technology, neuroscience and learning games
Dr Paul Howard-Jones
NeuroEducational Research Network (NEnet)
Graduate School of Education
University of Bristol
www.neuroeducational.net
Nenet NeuroEducational Research network
www.neuroeducational.net
•NeuroEducational Research:
•Basic neuroscience
•Bridging studies
•Developing classroom
practice
•Public communication
•Consultation with teachers
‘Technology could be turning into a 21st-century addiction’
Roberts, D. in The Telegraph (2010).
Facebook is “infantilizing” our brains
Wintour, P. in Guardian (London, 2009).
Google is “degrading our intelligence”
Carr, N. in The Atlantic (2008).
Can Google rewire the brain?
Activity for internet searching, relative to reading:
a) Naive users
b) Experienced users
Small, et al. (2009)
The brain is plastic:
Learning involves changes in
* neural connectivity
* shifts in regional activity
Activity after adults practise difficult multiplication:
automaticity
Working
memory
bottleneck
a) Decreases
b) Increases
Delazer et al. (2003)
Is Google rewiring our brains?
Activity for internet searching, relative to reading:
a) Naive users
b) Experienced users
•Experienced users using more search strategies
•Additional activity: decisions making, reasoning
Some brains are more plastic than others…
Will Facebook “infantilise” them?
90’s :
* internet use -> reduced socialconnectedness, poorer well-being
NOW:
* 49% of UK children 8-17 profile on social
network sites (SNS) (OfCom, 2008)
* SNS’s -> stimulate teenage social
connectedness and psychosocial well-being
But it is about how the technology is used: Benefits if
supporting existing friendships
Games and Education
Gove (UK Education Minister, 2011): When children need to
solve equations in order to get more ammo to shoot the
aliens, it is amazing how quickly they can learn.
Mary Matthews(Blitz Games Studios, 2011): "Great ….but…
exploration, experimentation, team building, problem-solving
and independent, personalised, differentiated
experiences…?”
Zimmerman & Fortugno (game designers, 2005): ‘‘only
consensus in this whirlwind of activity seems to be that
educational games are something of a failure’’
Games: a special influence on the brain
1.5% to 8.2% of general population have
problematic internet use – what are they doing?
•Adults: pornography, illicit relationships
•Young people: gaming
.....video games are very engaging:
When players viewing images from internet games,
similar neural activities as when addicts of drugs
or gambling view images of cues (Han et al.,2011)
If you apply DSM addiction criteria, 1 in 5 teens
addicted to gaming in ’98 (Griffiths et al., 1998)
Mesolimbic Dopaminergic Pathway
This type of “wanting” is immediate & visceral (e.g. S,D, R & R)
“Educational motivation” can include other types.
Important because:
Dopamine helps orientate our attention
and enhances synaptoplasticity - learning
Rewards do not predict learning
The brain’s response to reward does
Nucleus
accumbens
(NAcc)
Processes linking reward and declarative memory formation
are still subject of research, but may involve:
* direct influence on the hippocampus via dopamine
NAcc activation during encoding => likelihood of recall
Rapid scheduling of uncertain rewards may explain 2 facts:
1. high midbrain dopamine release in games
- comparable to psychostimulant drugs (Weinstein, 2010)
2. Video games are powerful teachers
In a few hours, video games can
- enhance transferable visuomotor skills, sight
- improve some professional performance
(lapyroscopic surgery, fighter piloting)
- teach aggressive/prosocial affective response
(see Nominet report, RSA lecture)
What about uncertainty in school?
• We do most enjoy 50:50 chances in games but not in school,
where one study has shown children prefer risks of ~87% (Clifford
et al., ‘88)
• Academic failure has more serious implications for esteem
• The predictability of academic comfort zones (87% certainty) may
reduce reward response
This suggests:
• a “learning games approach” to teaching, with chance increasing
uncertainty while protecting esteem
More neuroscience needed:
e.g. How does the brain respond to a competitor?
“Reward learning” theory => mirror their rewards as our own
Our results show we mirror
a competitor’s actions as our own
but our reward system responds positively to their failure:
Reward response appears linked to learning inhibition not action
Bridging studies: neuroscience-> education
Do children prefer chance-based uncertainty in learning?
As the session
progressed, Mr
Uncertain was
increasingly more
popular than Mr
Certain – especially
amongst boys
Percentage of questions requested
from Mr Uncertain
Task: Ask your maths question from
* Mr Certain (Correct -> 1 point)
* Mr Uncertain (Correct -> coin toss, 2 or 0 pts
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Question number
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Bridging studies: neuroscience-> education
What happens to the learning discourse?
Issues of fairness?
Chance-based uncertainty encourages
motivational “sport-talk” around learning, i.e.
failure is bad luck, success is pure
achievement. Chance not seen as unfair.
How strong is this theory?
Estimation of brain’s reward response (not the
stakes) predicts learning during a learning
game
Estimated brain response
Is it just a superficial “sugar-coating”?
No - Chance-based uncertainty enhances
the emotional response to learning
Not recalled
Recalled
Practice-based research:
What is good practice in teaching with immersive gaming (twigging)?
Plan
Reflect
Intervene
Evaluate
Prototype software was developed with the help of
Dyffryn School (Newport):
Chepstow School
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Question
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
Option 4
Prestatyn High School, Penmorfa Primary School
Teaching With Immersive Gaming
(twigging) – the science:
• Close intermingling of learning and gaming (effects of
dopamine are brief)
• Use uncertain reward to generate dopamine ramps
• Rising stakes through the game (effects of dopamine
are context specific, influenced by expectations)
• Reward response when observing competitors is
driven by their losses – ensure high risk and high
stakes when individual teams selected for special
challenges
Teaching With Immersive Gaming
(twigging) – the practice:
• Close intermingling of learning and gaming
• Design of questions - test all learning levels
• When presenting the questions, support and scaffold
students (e.g. remind of principles involved, q and a)
• When revealing the correct answer, explain why other
answer options are incorrect before (usually)
explaining the correct one
• referring to options by content not colour
• Be ready  for your teacher persona to transform...
Example of final interventions:
•Year 8 (28 students)
•Heat Energy Transfer – 3 lessons:
Conduction
Convection
Radiation
•Students learn
•All consider these lessons are
more fun than normal lessons
•most would prefer always to
learn in this way
Although small samples prevent statistical gender analysis,
mean learning scores consistently favoured
boys………….why?
Young adults playing computer games (Hoeft et al., 2008):
B: Regions of activity, males
> females
C: Regions of functional
connectivity with warm
colours for males > females
G2A project conclusions
(small pilot, primitive software)
* Aided by the neuroscience, entire topics can be
successfully delivered through a whole-class teaching
approach based on gaming
* Likely to prove very popular with children
Transdisciplinary (Neuroeducational) research has helped
generate:
* messages “inoculated” against misinterpretation
* handbook
* Powerpoint-based software
* exemplar teaching materials
* videos of good practice
www.neuroeducational.net
Promethean are now funding
ImagineEducation to develop a professional
system that can be used with their wireless
audience response system.
This will remove residual
burden of game
administration, allowing the
teacher to focus entirely on
the gaming pedagogy.
Summary
1. Games are a special influence on the brain
2. Neuroscience can help us understand and exploit
this influence in the classroom.
3. Teaching through gaming requires technology, but it
also requires new understanding and new pedagogy
Thanks for listening! 
Introducing Neuroeducational Research (2010)
Paul Howard-Jones
Routledge
Digital Technology and the Brain (2012)
Paul Howard-Jones and Kate Fenton
www.lulu.com
www.neuroeducational.net