 Hi there, this is Tracy Tokahama again. Thank you very much for the opportunity to try to answer these great questions I'm going to do so in an abbreviated format here. If you need a more elaborate explanation, please don't hesitate to write me So the first question we teachers want and need to know more about the neuroscience of teaching and learning However, the teacher training programs available to us do not have much neuroscience. What can we do about that? This person really hit the nail on the head This is a problem around the world really teacher training programs Very few of them have kind of got up to speed here to include more of the brain in Teacher training programs. So what can be done at this stage? You can try to self-educate I would highly recommend that you have a look at these web pages from the Welcome Trust the Ennenberg Foundation the Dana Foundation The Society for Neuroscience They have a lot of wonderful short courses video classes posted on their website as well as links to High quality information in both video as well as article formats You can also I invite you to do this go to my web page and and watch the videos That summarize making classrooms better, which is the integration of neuroscience into a regular classroom practice There's 50 different things that are supported by neuroscience and are proven to make a difference in student learning outcomes here You can also have a look at other freely available Resources such as the mind-brain and education journal which can be downloaded from directly from the International Mind-Brain Education Society webpage and you can also continue to do what you're doing right now participate actively in society conferences Raise your voices and discuss this in universities or teacher training programs that you're familiar with and call attention to the fact that This is a big gap in teacher knowledge right now as I mentioned to you before the OECD countries have a special working group They create publications that are meant to educate and influence policy decisions by government So hopefully this will catch on sooner than later with enough individuals working on this in their own spheres of influence This can eventually become the norm Second question what changes have you personally made in your teaching style as a result of brain science? I've done a lot of thinking about my own personal practice. So thank you for this question I become a lot more conscious of the idea that every moment is really a teaching moment And this has a lot to do with a better understanding of social contagion and how Individuals influence each other's emotional states which in turn influences what level of cognition they can function at Also realize the amazing power of feedback and again This is also attached to the idea of Affect and learning how a person feels about their environment whether they feel safe or unsafe Really makes a big difference in whether or not they're open to new learning moments I also presume that most people do want to learn even those kids in our class that sometimes look like they're putting up a They're resisting this. This is you know, your natural brain state is to learn, right? But many times what might look like resistance is actually just being unaware of How or where to begin their learning venture and I think that's really part of my job is to help students find The importance of each lesson in their own personal lives. I also realize the impact of extrinsic factors on my own teaching It's not always just you know, what what's about me and the student their genetics come into play their prior experiences Their eating habits sleeping habits is a lot of other things that can influence student learning outcomes And so I've kind of learned to depersonalize some of these elements I realize that sometimes it is not just all about me who are about my Exchange with the students, but it can be that other things aren't influencing the outcomes of that students performance in my class. I Believe that everyone can and will learn and that's my job. I have to figure out as a teacher You know, how can I make that happen? How can I identify the starting point of my students? So I have to believe that all students, you know, their brains are plastic They are able to take a new learning sometimes it'll take a little bit longer with some students than others however, and I also have learned and realized this is really kind of fascinates this mix of Neuroscience and psychology, but students live up to the expectations of the teacher and this is high or low Which is fascinating to me So there's a lot of psychology and this but it influences student learning outcomes to a great extent And I think that holding students to high expectations believing that all students can learn but also just you know raising the bar a bit and saying You know what? I know you are capable of more. I'd love to hear your voice more in the class I'd love to see more participation. I'd love to read more examples of what you're talking about The more you encourage those students the more you tell them I believe that you're gonna be able to do this You're gonna see better results. So I think that that's another thing that is very important And it's a huge play in this whole balance between mind and brain What's going on in there when you do that finally? I also believe that it's my job, you know, not just to teach a Subject area. It's not to teach a class on whatever the neuroscience of learning My job is to help the students learn how to think it's not necessarily what to think right because we now know that in Google Just about you know any date fact figure concept theory And that is not what I'm here for the students can find that on their own What they need me for is to sort of challenge them to up their own game and to sort of think about how they actually Think about things and so that they have long-term skill sets that can go way beyond my own personal class Finally, do you think streaming or grouping students into classes by ability is a good practice? Are there any possible negative effects this can produce? This is a great question The short answer is absolutely no I would not agree to grouping students or putting the high students or the low students in separate groups But again, you know the the longer answer is in general in education the true answer is almost always it depends You know, it depends on your goal if your goal is To speed up your content knowledge acquisition and to ease the load on teachers It's great to put students who are at a similar level altogether. That just really makes the process just easier, right? Faster, however, is that all there is to it if your goal is to improve, you know Life-long learning skills cooperative learning or communication then this is really a bad idea The world is not made up of people who are, you know, very homogeneous in nature in general So learning to work with people who have different skill sets is very important In addition to this though, you have to remember that, you know If I were to ask you who learns more when you have mixed ability students in a single class The one who already knows a lot or the one who doesn't know very much If I put those two students together the one who knows a lot and the one who doesn't know very much Who's gonna learn more out of that encounter? Well, they're both gonna learn, right? But actually the one who knew more to begin with actually learns even more about the subject because one of the best ways to learn is to teach So creating exchanges in classes where students do peer teaching is really powerful, especially in groups with mixed ability That's actually something really positive So finally how can technological pedagogical knowledge be combined with knowledge of individual student learning? If a teacher is just getting to know the students or simply put how can teachers use technology to develop knowledge of how students learn best? First of all, let's just remember technology is just a tool. Okay. It's another tool It's all on humans really to develop those Relationships between individuals especially to student teacher relationships, right? How can then technology be leveraged in the best way to facilitate getting to know students better so that you can respond to their Needs better. Well, one thing you might consider doing is employing or taking advantage of the online Disinhibition effect that Seller coined in 2004. This idea is that you may be in a face-to-face context Students might be hesitant to share things But when you are online you feel disinhibited you feel much more free to share information Basically because you feel there's this anonymity about your exchange So posing poignant questions to the group. What is one thing that you're really afraid of or what is one thing that you're particularly proud of? Just asking those generic questions in a discussion structure can oftentimes bring out a lot of new information about an individual student That they might not be more forthcoming with a face-to-face class You can also use traditional tools for example journals or reflection exercises or discussions do it within the virtual platform If you have online journals for example, you can ask students You know once a day or once a week to simply jot down a few ideas based on a key prompt and Using that respond to the students that shows a high degree of your interest in their earning But it also gives them a space for Reflecting on how they are developing in your class and their own frustrations that they might be feeling Which they're probably more likely to do in an online Anonymous journal context that they might be to do so face-to-face with you, right? Similarly with discussion boards You'll find that people if you give a key prompt that's usually Valculated in almost everything that people shares an opinion has values attached to it If you choose the right types of questions You'll be able to stimulate a lot more exchange between students as well as a lot a higher level of sharing and that Permits you a new lens with which to see the students and to get to know them a bit better One thing that's really great in language classes that I find really fun is if you tell the students in their very first class Okay, we're gonna introduce ourselves But you're gonna do this online and you're gonna just tell everybody a bit about yourself But you're gonna tell us three things that are true about you and one thing that's a lie You might get somebody who says, you know, I was I was born in a circus. I'm a triplet. I Love rainy weather and I enjoy sleeping on trains. We're not really sure, right? But what's fun about this is that one of those things is a non-truth whereas the other things are characteristics about the individuals So they're sharing and at the same time you get some insight as to their level of humor And you'll often find that the lie stimulates a lot of good exchange between the students especially online So do take advantage of this Sometimes students are hesitant because of their writing skills to participate in technology in this way to share in this way So you should give them the opportunity to also just record their answers if you think it's better just to have audio there So there's multiple ways that you can leverage technology But the main idea is that these are a lot of things that teachers intuitively do in a face-to-face context But which actually are freer because of the anonymity of an online platform It can permit you a better insight as to what these students value need. What are their goals for the course and so on So thank you once again for the opportunity to participate in your wonderful conference. Hope you guys had a great time Stay in touch. Thanks. Bye