LEARNING & the BRAIN CONFERENCE, Cambridge, MA
Rewiring The Brain: Using Brain Plasticity to Enhance Learning and Cure Disorders
At the Marriott Cambridge Hotel, Boston, MA
Conference: April 26-29, 2008
Pre-Conference Workshops: April 26
For Educators, Parents and Clinicians
Only a few decades ago, scientists considered the brain to be fixed or ‘hardwired.’ But cognitive neuroscience has discovered that the brain has a remarkable power to change its own structure and function even in old age. This revolutionary finding provides the possibility of rewiring brains in children and adults to cure learning problems and disorders, raise IQ, and even help the blind be able to see.
This conference brings you the most recent findings from preeminent neuroscientists themselves to help you enhance your work with children and adolescents. Discover what the neuroplasticity revolution means for disorders, education and our culture.
MAKING MATH REAL PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP: MAKING MATH REAL: CONNECTING RESEARCH TO PRACTICE – A COMPREHENSIVE MULTISENORY STRUCTURED METHODOLOGY IN MATHEMATICS K-12
David Berg, ET, creator of the Making Math Real multisensory structured methodology, K-12 and founder/director of the Making Math Real Institute, and Dr. Nancy Knop, ET, of the Appalachian Reading Center, will co-present a full-day, pre-conference workshop at the upcoming Learning & The Brain’s East Coast Conference.
CONFERENCE WORKSHOP WEBLINK: http://www.edupr.com/workshopsapril.html
WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
• Gain understanding of emerging research related to math teaching and learning.
• Learn the methods for implementing and maintaining a multisensory program in
mathematics that is consistent with research.
• Learn to develop concept-procedure integration and sensory-cognitive processing
tools.
• Learn how to support successful processing for all students.
• Learn strategies for immediate application in the classroom or private practice.
• Receive handouts and materials for professional use.
INTRODUCTION
Research in the last few years has provided exciting new insights into how the brain does
math. However, the continued disassociation between the implications of research and the
specific methodologies educators require to benefit from research indicates the imperative for
an effective and comprehensive program that is consistent with research.
There is now sufficient neuroscientific and cognitive research to understand that the biological basis of numeracy is centered in parietal lobe activity, while the culturally derived use of numeracy to do and communicate exact math requires connection of parietal lobe quantity-estimation areas to temporal lobe and other language areas of the brain. A key connection appears to be in, or near the angular gyrus, an area of the brain that relates to the
use of the hands in supporting the integration of mathematical processing. Even in adults, if this brain area is disrupted, calculation is disrupted. Therefore, an effective instructional approach must include significant components that connect the hands-on experience of math to the ability to receive and express the mathematics in its abstract form, while stimulating the development of the specific associative and perceptual tools for the successful processing of numbers and language.
This workshop will provide the direct, specific connections linking current research in neuroscience and cognitive science to applied practice in the multi sensory structured teaching of mathematics for grades K-12. The research basis for this methodology focuses
on the current work in the areas of neuroscience and cognitive science, combined with the work of Miller, Mercer, Tomey, Marolda, Orton-Gillingham, and others for the connections to the cognitive benefits of multisensory structured methods. Therefore, the emphasis of this workshop will be on the precise educational structures that effectively reach the full diversity of processing styles for all math content from pre-K through calculus. It will be divided into three sections linking research to practice:
I. The pedagogical foundations and research basis connecting neuroscience and cognitive science to multisensory structured methodologies in mathematics.
II: The structure: effectively guiding students from the concrete, hands-on experience of math to its specific reconstruction in abstract symbolic form.
III: Sensory-cognitive development: developing the associative and perceptual tools for the successful processing of numbers and the integration of math and language.
This presentation is designed for researchers and general education and / or special education teachers of all levels.
Making Math Real (www.makingmathreal.org) is a national Institute in association with the University of California Berkeley, and University of California Santa Cruz Extensions. The Institute provides 320 hours of professional development seminar covering multi sensory structured K-12 content in mathematics. Making Math Real, originally created and designed for the special needs population, is equally structured from pre-K through calculus to support the full diversity of processing styles for all learners, including those requiring remediation or acceleration. In addition, it is a developmental, highly systematic, and hands-on approach
that guides students from the concrete to the semi-concrete to the semi-abstract, culminating in the synthesis of abstract functioning. The emphasis is in re-connecting math to its concrete fundamentals to develop comprehension and mathematical decoding while building the specific perceptual and associative cognitive tools of central processing to help students make and retain connections.
Workshop Title: Making Math Real: Connecting Research to Practice: A Comprehensive Multisensory Structured Methodology in Mathematics, K-12
Date: Saturday, April 26
Time: 10:00am to 4:30pm
FOR GENERAL CONFERENCE INFO: http://www.edupr.com/