The Cognitive Science of Education (14-Part Series)

A small selection of recent books on the brain.

The last 30 years have seen stunning developments in our understanding of the cognitive science of learning: from discoveries about the nature of attention to how willpower works, from what motivates us to what happens when we’re under pressure, from modes of learning to how and why we remember.

This sequence of posts aggregates and simplifies current research; psychology textbooks; conversations with clinicians; an original, Big Data study; and works by artists, designers, and more into a clear and useful overview. Whatever our environment or pedagogy or style, we learn through the same cognitive processes--and knowledge of these processes can only to deepen our understanding of and strengthen our ability to do the good work of education.

Table of Contents

Introduction:

The Science:

Implications and Opportunities:

Conclusion:

Manifesto: The Art and Science of Education

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Four Ways to Measure Creativity

Assessing creative work has been a bugaboo for a good long time. In schools it's the constant refrain: “How can you grade creative writing?” or “It’s a poem: however it comes out is right.” In businesses and elsewhere, people demand innovation--and are stymied with understanding how to measure it. But this is not the bugaboo we think it is--in the classroom, or in the broader world of creative work. Here are four different ways to assess creativity, each designed for different settings: 1. Measuring How Creative a Person Is - The Guilford Model 2. Measuring How Creative a Work Is - The Taxonomy of Creative Design 3. Measuring Creative Work Against a Program - The Requirements Model 4. Measuring the Social Value of Creative Work - Csikszentmihalyi’s Model Notably, in each of these cases, what we mean by "creative" changes a little. Sometimes "creativity" refers to divergent production (how much one produces, or how varied it is). Sometimes "c...

Taxonomy of Creative Design

Strategies to improve creativity are many, but they are also diffuse. Little ties them together in a way that offers a coherent vision for how creativity can be understood or developed incrementally. The Taxonomy of Creative Design, a work in progress, offers a new theory for doing so. Since creative work can be measured along spectrums of both and form and content, the Taxonomy of Creative Design offers a progression from imitation to original creation measured in terms of form and content. In doing so, it organizes creative works into an inclusive, unifying landscape that serves not only as an analytical lens through which one might evaluate creative work, but also as a methodical approach to developing creative skills. Here is a closer look: Imitation Imitation is the replication of a previous work. It is the painter with an easel at the museum, painting her own Mona Lisa; it is the jazz musician performing the solo of the great...

On Artificial Intelligence, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and the Risks of Playing With Magic

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C. Clarke, in Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible (1962) When I uploaded to ChatGPT a picture of my family taken at a screening of Taylor Swift’s “Eras” Tour, and asked ChatGPT simply to “write a poem about the attached picture,” and when it returned to me a sonnet accurately describing my wife and children wearing “Swiftie” shirts in front of a poster of the singer herself, capturing the mix of love, fandom, and family, I couldn’t help but pause to appreciate what an incredible time we are living in. Today’s technology might as well be magic. I’ve been thinking recently about another magical moment, too: Disney’s 1940 release of Fantasia , which includes the nine-minute, short film “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” The animated film recently celebrated its 80th anniversary, but the story is actually much, much older. And in its age, it serves as a ti...

Sense and Sensation

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