 So we start off with this idea that human brains are unique. There are no two that are identical. Mathematically it makes a lot of sense because if you have these billions of neurons then you know combining them identically into people it was probably pretty hard. So that makes some sense but this begs certain other questions. You know what makes brains unique aside from genetics and past experience? Well basically that is the key. What you inherit from your parents your genotype based on how it's potentiated by the experiences in your environment those will potentiate only a certain fraction of your genes right and that will then in turn become your phenotype how you are to the outside world. So basically what makes your brains unique are the experiences. We oftentimes use the example of identical twins whose faces might physically look the same but their brains aren't going to be the same. So if you go to that extreme you can say well then how can they be so alike but so different? The bottom line has to do with experiences. No two people are going to take in the same experience in the same way. So even if those two kids both sat with mom or dad and reading the stories at night they're going to have different experiences with that interaction and a lot of that in turn is based on their prior experiences. So what you know influences what you can know in the future. All of these things make your brain unique but basically it's the cumulative collection of all of those past experiences combined with your genetics that makes your brain unique. If you know that brains are so unique then doesn't that sort of throw a wrench into this idea of okay let's create a curriculum that serves all kids. So that's a wonderful observation. This also points us to a really important clarification. While there are no two brains that are identical they're similar parts right? So the general mechanisms are very similar for all people. How do humans learn language? How do they learn to read? How do they learn to do addition problems? Check the connectome project where they're taking you know healthy school aged kids and they learn things and so we get all of the kids do a similar activity. We know that all those kids are coming in with different brains different ways of approaching this but what we look for in the connectome project which of those processes are identical? How are the kids actually approaching this? What are those really neuroconstructivist designs in the brain? What are the general networks that are used to do that? For example when a kid is learning to read what is his general understanding of symbol to sound? Symbol to phoneme relationship? Which networks tend to be the same? So if we have a hundred kids doing the same thing we can plot we can say generally it looks like human reading occurs in this way through these types of networks but none of them are identical but when you have enough subjects doing the same thing you can begin to see patterns of connectivity in the brains. Here's the big thing for teachers once you say okay these are the typical networks that need to be strengthened you see the types of interventions that strengthen those networks so that those are prepared and you could build up that architecture of learning in the brain. So basically we know that human brains are unique based primarily on the past experiences they have but this uniqueness doesn't mean that every single person learns every single thing differently there are patterns of human development it's the same as saying can I prescribe the perfect diet for everybody there's some general parameters you know this is what eating well means for humans but specifically what each individual needs will vary based on that person's physical body structure their metabolism rates how much sports activity they do all kinds of things so we know that what happens based on your genes what happens based on your environment are equally impacting informing your potential to learn so when we say that all brains are unique definitely an important concept but because there are these general parameters of human learning that are similar for all people do we know our kids well enough to be able to attend to those unique experiences that they've had in their lives they will either serve as detective factors that will help facilitate that learning or there might be risk factors that would impede that learning have they had any prior experiences in their lives that will really shut them down towards a certain subject area or a certain way of learning so we need to know our kids best to be able to take advantage of this particular principle then there are some comments that come up with this idea of well this is contradictory if each brain is unique i'm curious to find out about all these myths that she was yelling out i'm sorry if i was yelling i get enthusiastic i hope i don't come off as as dogmatic i hope it's enthusiasm that that comes off but anyways um these myths seem to imply that i think that all brains are the same and that's not at all what i'm talking about the myths tend to be misinterpretations of the science or a misunderstanding of the information behind things for example that people are right-brained or left-brained learners physiologically speaking there is nothing that you do that's isolated in a single hemisphere you're always using networks that cross hemispheres there's a myth that you only use 10 percent of your brain better technology we have the more we see that we're using more of our brains right so the idea here is that they shouldn't be contradictory concepts the fact that there's a uniqueness about the human brain does not contradict the fact that there exist myths about brains that aren't true there were a couple of questions about understanding then how does the aging brain differ from young brains and that is fascinating and that is directly connected to the first point of experience your brain is plastic and will change throughout the lifespan so your brain's physiological structure will also change with all new experiences that you have so we used to think that there was this critical stage where we stop learning so much because we look at these dynamic brains and how they're making new connections but then all of a sudden in adolescence there's more time spent on pruning which is really important for efficiency of the brain but then it sort of staves off and you think well why is brain activity slowing down between 18 and 24 and then sort of just flattens out well the main reason my hypothesis is that we stop learning we stop going to school most people stop actively learning new information this is really connected to this idea of use it or lose it the more you use your brain the less likely you are to have cognitive decline so we know that the uniqueness of the brain is modified throughout the lifespan also based on experiences that we have so the more rich experiences that we can continue to have throughout the lifespan the healthier the brain potential if you're really interested in this I have a folder of the articles related to cognitive aging part of the mantra of education is not just you know letting kids you know helping kids pass tests now but it's really helping them learn skills that help them learn literally throughout the lifespan another question that came up which is really at the heart of epigenetics is basically okay so the brain is unique but are some people more unique than other people or how is it that some people take advantage of different types of experiences in different ways this is at the core of the concept of epigenetics so you have a certain set of genes and the other kid sitting next to you has another set of genes unique sets of genes that are given to them by their parents right why is it that this one kid is going to react to a certain activity or stimulus or be more creative or more athletic or more musical than this other kid is it because of the genes that they have or the experiences they have and it's the answers both right based on what they've inherited there's this level of potentiation that's possible but it's based on multiple factors some that you can change as a teacher and some that you can't you cannot change that kid's genetic makeup but you can change the quality of the experience that they have you can change their attitude towards that particular lesson are you so in love with the topic or what you're teaching them that it's contagious and that they become more interested in this so their free will permits them to reach a level of potentiation of their genes that may be this kid with a natural talent because of lack of interest does not spend as much time as the other kid might or because he doesn't have that teacher that sparks that m and this this kid does so there's multiple things that will impact that unique human brains and this is really at the core of good teaching it's important for us to understand how different kids come into our class with different potentials ready to do different things but even more important is this power of great teaching what we do in the class and our basic job is to help maximize the potential of all those kids in the class whatever that potential might be that they inherited right this person was asking how can you reconcile these different perspectives and that we say that each brain is unique but we continue to question how some are more unique than others this gets back to this other question about why some people are more creative than other people or why some are more athletic than other people this is a really complex recipe attending to all is this huge challenge that we face in education when you begin to appreciate this variation in what it means to be a good learner there's just simply a huge spectrum of variation and this level of uniqueness this does have to do with things related to expert versus novice or challenged versus gifted please do write me an additional email i'd love to share some further readings with you uh last point that really came up as strong was really how do you personalize learning then if we have all of these unique brains in our class and how do i tend to all so i'd like to learn how to vary activities so that all my students thrive or i want to know how to best identify these unique differences in tailor these learning experiences to be more personalized what's going to resonate with one kid may not resonate with another which also leads to this idea of choice and this in the general concept of education means do i have a really clear objective what is my objective where do i want to get with my students this is all backward design right what is the goal of this particular lesson or activity or topic decide what that is and then be flexible with how that kid demonstrates he's mastered that concept and then what do you do in the class to get there so have you as a teacher provided enough options at those levels so that the kid can demonstrate mastery the idea of this big question how do you integrate the right types of activity so that there is a certain level of variety so that different things will resonate with different people but at the same time you're not creating 30 different types of lessons remember the brain is unique but there are definite distinct patterns of how people learn to read or how people learn to do basic math so we can use this similarity of the way that things are approached to do our core lessons but then create the space where people who might be approaching this in different ways the key way to do this if you're really willing to rethink curriculum is to return to mastery learning first of all why am i doing this why do we teach kids to read or do long division or a certain chemistry thing or a certain physics activity or physical education or certain art activity or musical piece why are we doing this so once that's pretty clear and we've justified to ourselves that this is a really integral part of you know reaching that type of a profile of an exiting student that we're looking for i know what my class is contributing to that particular profile great once you know why you're doing something then you should decide now how will i know if the students have reached that level of mastery so once your criteria is clear the activities can be multiple and you can let the students know you know you can approach this this way that way the other way what i want to be able to see at the end of the day though is this this is my evidence that you have reached this mastery goal i hope you guys don't think that this is a cop out answer but there is no cookie cutter answer to this i can't say you know do x activity and this is the way you can attend to unique brains and i don't think that's what you're all looking for it's much more a way of how we approach the really complex nature of our jobs we are you know teachers now are moving into this realm of being learning scientists and understanding all the things that contribute to successful learning experiences the genetic makeup the kids the environment that we created school the past experiences that he's had with his particular topic how our own enthusiasm can be contagious to the student all of these various elements combine to say okay we've achieved what we are out to do in our educational setting so it's a really complicated concept and there is no easy answer okay how you know tell me the activity to do anybody who pretends to do that is they're pulling the wool over your eyes it's just not that easy so once you know the brains are unique now that leads to another its own complexity how then can i structure activities in my class that attend to the uniqueness of all those brains i would suggest that we look at and we shoot for this idea of mastery learning this would respond to this whole other group of questions that you had related to the curriculum design and so what do i do then with a curriculum that says by x date all kids should know why and i have to test them on it is that fair to all of those unique brains in your classroom so how could curriculum be better designed to respond to the natural way that the human brain really learns there were many really heartwarming comments and observations that you made about wanting to celebrate all of those wonderful differences that people have within your own learning community and i think many of you really hinted at something when you talked about these greater learning ecosystems what are our feedback protocols what is the way that we should all as a group when we talk about group teacher self-efficacy right what how is it that we can then empower those students and one of the things that i think is very key here and that i think you already do very successfully but it's something that really it's worth emphasizing is making sure the students also know this same information understanding and appreciating how they are unique in the world understanding and appreciating how a lot of things that they had no control over they couldn't they didn't choose their parents right so the genes that they got where they were brought up the languages they might speak at home whether or not mom and dad work and they don't see them very often or parents are divorced or tons of things that happen in the context of your life experience shape your potential to learn one of the things that's really empowering to kids is to understand that while things happen to them they didn't choose their school their parents or whatever they can choose their attitude towards what they're about to learn they can choose to move towards that that model of resilience that they see in a in a particular teacher that they really like they can choose they use free will to actually tip the balance of their own potential so i think one of the best things that we can do related to how do we get everybody on the same page here is to really think of all the actors and especially the students themselves how well do the students understand the implications of having these unique brains of being different but at the same time understanding that learning processes well most of us will do it this way but some of us will want to do it a different way and that's okay we're all going to get to this end goal together so that i think those things are really important to take into consideration is involving all of the school community in a basic understanding of uniqueness of human brains and others of you were really looking more macro with this some of you ask questions really at the molecular level and other people were looking at it's kind of the systemic level how do we change the broader structure the entire institution how can we make sure that all of this information is woven through the fabric of the entire learning experience that we have at your school i think that's a really important thing to reflect on as somebody noted here you know the uniqueness of each brain gives us rich opportunities to create dynamic learning environments which is incredibly positive way of saying how do we leverage all of these wonderful individual talents these different types of brains that we have in our class these gifts differing how do we celebrate that in our class i think a lot of it boils down to this last comment here that says that you know i'd like to learn more about what teachers can do to positively impact students self-perception i think one key step here would be thinking about carol dweck's work about growth mindsets a lot of kids when you're telling your brain is unique automatically go to the biology end of it and think okay i inherited this lucky me i get to you know i'm going to thrive because you know i've been told i'm i'm really good at this or my parents have always been good at this rather than taking reins of of your own experiences and saying i am not bound to my biology i'm not just what i inherited through my genes so how do you get kids into that different type of a mindset and i'd say one of the things that teachers can do is number one model it but number two also explicitly tell students this i think very few of us humans spend enough time thinking about our own brains right and how does your brain really learn why are you unique i think it's really worth spending time with students sharing that with them because then it changes and empowers them to understand what it is that they can do to make their situation better how can they build up that level of resilience to different types of challenges that they face how will they now approach the next test even if they didn't do well on the first one how will they approach new learning moments a lot of this is attitudinal and so much of this is inspired by great teachers who know this information are able to transmit to them there's a lot of things that are in your realm this is for you to decide how are you going to approach this learning experience all this is very important and inspired by great teachers