Linking Mind,Brain, and Education to Clinical Practice: A Proposal for Transdisciplinary Collaboration

It has been suggested that the field of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) requires a stable infrastructure for translating research into practice. Hinton and Fischer (2008) point to the academic medical center as a model for similar translational work and suggest a similar approach for linking scientists to research schools. We propose expanding their model to include a formal role for clinicians. Including clinicians who work with children with learning problems brings an important perspective to the translational work. For example, the integration of the concept of “differential diagnosis,” a core precept in clinical medicine, would bring needed diagnostic specificity to the field of MBE. We describe a virtual infrastructure for collaboration, or “collaboratory,” consisting of research scientists, educators, and clinicians, linked to an academic institution. We anticipate that MBE graduates can play a critical role in the collaboratory model. With additional training, they can become “neuroeducators” capable of moving comfortably among the disciplines, building linkages, fostering communication, and facilitating collaboration.     

Next Steps for Mind,Brain, and Education: Strengthening Early‐Career Development

An increasing number of scholars are being trained in the field of mind, brain, and education (MBE), yet discussions of trainees' needs and how to meet them are rare. We, the inaugural International Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES) Trainee Board, identify three broad needs of MBE trainees: guidance and support, greater access to and connections among the MBE community, and professional development. We report a first step to address these needs: a daylong trainee conference, which included sessions to foster connections among trainees, provide mentorship from MBE leaders, and provide knowledge and skill building for careers. Attendees' survey results suggest the conference successfully supported trainees' development. As substantial trainee needs remain, we offer specific ways that principal investigators, institutions, funding agencies, future IMBES trainee boards, and the MBE community can further address trainees' needs to support early‐career development and strengthen the MBE field generally.     

Communication in Mind,Brain, and Education: Making Disciplinary Differences Explicit

Difficulties in communication within Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) can arise from several sources. One source is differences in orientation among the areas of research, policy, and practice. Another source is lack of understanding of the entrenched and unspoken differences across research disciplines in MBE—that is, recognition that research in MBE comes from many diverse disciplines, rather than some monolithic entity. A third challenge to communication in MBE arises from the nature of studying the mind and brain; we address the different levels of analysis in mind–brain research. Throughout our article, we emphasize that recognizing these differences—across areas (research, practice, and policy), disciplines, and levels of analysis—and making them explicit can facilitate effective communication in MBE. We illustrate these concepts with examples from the study of reading disorders across several disciplines.     

Responsible Research and Innovation as a Novel Approach to Guide Educational Impact of Mind,Brain, and Education Research

We propose a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) framework to improve the alignment between mind, brain, and education (MBE) research, the educational practice, and other societal stakeholders. RRI is an approach that has successfully been used in different research fields, but not yet in MBE research. After substantiating the need for, and possibilities of using this framework within MBE research, we report a case study to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of RRI within an MBE context. This case study entails developing an educational intervention to improve learners' sense of agency regarding their own learning processes using neurofeedback. Using RRI, we found that societal stakeholders (teenagers, parents, and teachers) anticipate different potential impacts of this neurotechnology‐based intervention than researchers did, enabling us to adapt the intervention according to these perspectives. This example demonstrates that RRI enables researchers to be reflexive and responsive to the stakeholders needs and values, to ultimately improve the educational and societal value of MBE research.     

Mind,Brain, and Education: A Transdisciplinary Field

The emerging field of mind, brain, and education (MBE) is grappling with core issues associated with its identity, scope, and method. This article examines some of the most pressing issues that structure the development of MBE as a transdisciplinary effort. Rather than representing the ongoing debates in MBE as superficial squabbles to eventually be “overcome,” this article argues that the politics of MBE language, discourse, and validity suggest profound epistemological differences that transcend a traditional interdisciplinary approach. Instead, MBE would benefit from a transdisciplinary approach that contextually accords equal and differential weight to a range of knowledge inputs from education studies, neuroscience, and other academic and practitioner spheres beneath the broad umbrella of MBE. Specifically, this article suggests that some of the key tasks for those involved in MBE studies require a transdisciplinary approach to knowledge translation and knowledge development.     

Under the Magnifying Glass: An Examination of Fundamental Concepts in Mind,Brain, and Education

This special section explicitly introduces aspects of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) in order to help those new to the field develop a better understanding of and participate effectively in MBE. Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners who are already active in MBE will also benefit from the varied perspectives on MBE fundamentals to better understand key concepts in the field. The current issue includes two articles concerning communication in MBE: The article by Tina Grotzer outlines potential barriers to understanding scientific work, and the article by Rebecca Martin and Jennifer Groff presents examples of MBE collaborations in action. Subsequent articles will focus on interdisciplinary work and communication among various stakeholders to address meaningful questions in MBE.     

Teachers' Mind,Brain, and Education Literacy: A Survey of Scientists' Views

While there is a growing interest among teachers to embed Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) knowledge in their practice, most are still not clear about the key concepts in the field that have the potential to improve their pedagogical knowledge. The present study was conducted to identify the domains of current MBE knowledge that are important for teachers to know. Using a deductive qualitative survey design, data were collected by an online questionnaire from 112 experts of the global MBE community. Findings indicated that there are at least 18 conceptual areas of MBE literacy that need to be included in teacher professional development programs.     

“UNIFIED”: Bridging the Researcher–Practitioner Divide in Mind,Brain, and Education

Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) science is by definition transdisciplinary. However, the communication and collaboration between constituent disciplines needed for true transdisciplinarity remains relatively rare. Consequently, many of the potential benefits of MBE science remain unrealized for parties on all sides of the discipline. The present commentary first conducts an analysis of the current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of transdisciplinary partnerships in MBE. A new, free, and international web platform (“UNIFIED”) is then proposed to broker relationships between researchers and teachers within schools. This website would allow users to form collaborations based on a system of tags indexing their research interests as well as practicalities such as their location. Such a website appears well placed to realize many of the opportunities, and mitigate the threats and weaknesses, of transdisciplinary MBE research. The article concludes with an appeal to interested researchers and schools to contribute to the development of the project.     

Mind,Brain and Education: A Decade of Evolution

This article examines the evolution of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE), the field, alongside that of the International Mind, Brain and Education Society (IMBES). The reflections stem mostly from my observations while serving as vice president, president‐elect, and president of IMBES during the past 10 years. The article highlights the evolution during that time about the meaning of MBE and some of the representations that help illustrate the problems and challenges in arriving at a consensus about what MBE means and how IMBES can best serve its members. I explore how IMBES, incorporated in 2004, experimented with a number of different conference models to provide frameworks for thinking about MBE, as well as a structure for supporting collaboration between the disciplines represented in Mind, Brain, and Education. Those models help highlight what IMBES has accomplished in scaffolding the complex conversation unfolding in the field, as well as offering a strategy for a collaborative enterprise that informs practice and new research agendas in the future.     

Investigating the Educational Implications of Embodied Cognition: A Model Interdisciplinary Inquiry in Mind,Brain, and Education Curricula

Much educational neuroscience research investigates connections between cognition, neuroscience, and educational theory and practice without reference to the body. In contrast, proponents of embodied cognition posit that the bodily action and perception play a central role in cognitive development. Some researchers within the field of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) explore this theory by researching the impact of sensorimotor activity on academic competencies such as language comprehension, mathematics, and scientific thinking. In this article, I call for this work to be highlighted more centrally in MBE training programs. Toward this end, I model an investigation of the concept of embodied cognition that can be used in MBE curricula with a dual purpose: to train future practitioners in the seminal metaphor of mind as an embodied system, and to demonstrate effective interdisciplinary research, which is critical to advancing the field of Mind, Brain, and Education.     

Course Design Process to Create a Coordinated,Experiential, Integrated Core Operations Management Course for Business Majors

We describe our process for transforming a traditional, core operations management/supply chain management (OM/SCM) course into an experiential, integrated, and coordinated course. We developed a vison to create a course that all business majors would find engaging and relevant and that faculty would teach consistently and at the same level of rigor. A primary result was three new learning outcomes that focused on concept integration across operations, the supply chain, and the business. We specifically focused on decision trade‐offs and the effects of OM/SCM decisions on other parts of operations, the supply chain, and the business. The redesigned course has been implemented for three semesters. Our experiences offer new insights for redesigning and coordinating an OM/SCM core course and a process that can be implemented in other redesign efforts.     

Let the Questions Be Your Guide: MBE as Interdisciplinary Science

From its inception, the field of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) has been conceived as an interdisciplinary science, and with good reason: The phenomena the field aims to understand often arise from interactions among multiple factors, span levels of analysis, and are context dependent. In this article, we argue that to reach its potential as an interdisciplinary science—and in order to explain such complex phenomena—MBE must be fundamentally organized around meaningful, discipline‐spanning questions, and the questions must determine tools and research methods (not the other way around). Using examples from three central questions in MBE—“who,”“when,” and “how”—we highlight the limits of single disciplines, and the value of a question‐driven interdisciplinary approach in MBE, with respect to questions that can be asked, the perspectives that can be considered, and the array of methods, tools, and models that can be made available. We believe that the future is bright for MBE, and that the field has a unique opportunity to provide meaningful answers to some of the most difficult questions in education today. However, realizing this potential depends on, as a first step, allowing the questions themselves to drive the field's work moving forward.     

Collaborations in Mind,Brain, and Education: An Analysis of Researcher–Practitioner Partnerships in Three Elementary School Intervention Studies

A reciprocal relationship informing both research and practice is one of the primary goals in the emerging field of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE), yet the field has little documentation and analysis of such collaborations. In this article, we present case studies of three research–practice partnerships taking place between scientists and educators. By comparing and contrasting these three partnerships we expect to illuminate common characteristics, challenges, and benefits that come with doing MBE work.     

Teaching a course on prisons: A design,some resources,and a little advice

We discuss our experience teaching undergraduate students about prisons. First, we describe the design of a course, including course goals, course content and some assignments. Then, we share the intellectual and logistical hurdles we have experienced and offer advice on how to overcome them for those planning to teach a seminar on prisons. Included is specific advice on how to successfully integrate prison tours as an experiential learning tool.     

Development,Implementation, and Assessment of a Lecture Course on Cancer for Undergraduates

The war on cancer has been waged for nearly 40 years, yet the cancer burden remains high, especially among minority and underserved populations. One strategy to make strides in the war on cancer and its disparate impacts is to increase the diversity of the cancer research workforce. We describe an approach to recruit a diverse population of future cancer researchers from an undergraduate student population at a minority-serving land-grant institution. Specifically, we have addressed the following questions: Given the dearth of published reports of undergraduate cancer courses, is it possible for undergraduates at a land-grant institution (rather than a research or medical institution) to successfully learn cancer biology from a lecture-based course? Can we develop a template that has the potential to be used by others to develop and implement an undergraduate cancer course? Can such a course stimulate interest in careers in cancer research? Based on a learning gains analysis, students were able to learn cancer content and related skills, and based on student surveys, students'' interest in cancer research was stimulated by course participation. We have identified aspects of our course development process that were critical for the successful development, implementation, and assessment of the course.     

Diversity of Students' Views about Evidence,Theory, and the Interface between Science and Religion in an Astronomy Course

Arguments for teaching about the nature of science have been made for several decades. The most recent science education policy documents continue to assert the need for students to understand the nature of science. However, little research actually explores how students develop these understandings in the context of a specific course. We examine the growth in students' understanding about the nature of astronomy in a one‐semester college course. In addition to student work collected for 340 students in the course, we also interviewed focus students three times during the course. In this article we briefly describe class data and discuss in detail how five students developed their ideas throughout the course. In particular, we show the ways in which students respond to instruction with respect to the extent to which they (a) demand and examine evidence used for justifying claims, (b) integrate scientific and religious views, and (c) distinguish between scientific and nonscientific theories. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 340–362, 2000.     

Situated Learning with Online Portfolios, Classroom Websites and Facebook

In this article we describe the evolution of an elective course designed specifically for undergraduate students in our pre-service teacher education program. This course is intended to prepare these undergraduate students as future teachers—helping them to make effective and creative uses of technology in learning settings. This course emphasizes learning to learn with and about technology, in the ever-changing context of educational technology. Generally speaking, we outline and describe three key goals of teaching young teachers to thoughtfully integrate technology into a real-world classroom. First, the course emphasizes learning to explore and learn proactively by engaging in learning by design activities. Second, students are given an opportunity to try a wide variety of innovative technologies through explorations of their own choosing. Finally, we attempt to leverage the power of online community building for learning by harnessing the ubiquity and convenience of tools like Facebook. We look into the future with great hope and enthusiasm that our preservice teachers will lead the way in integrating new technologies into their teaching in ways that will benefit their students, colleagues, and the greater education community.     

An Education Grounded in Biology: Interdisciplinary and Ethical Considerations

ABSTRACT—Work in the new area of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) raises epistemological and ethical issues. With respect to epistemology, the norms of the component disciplines must be honored and the resulting amalgam must be more than a mere sum of the parts. With respect to ethics, the roles of scientist, educator, and practitioner each raise ethical dilemmas and the MBE worker must be cognizant of each set of dilemmas and the possible strains among them. Only if both of these spheres are confronted can good work be achieved in MBE.     

Understanding teachers' attitudes to change in a Logomathematics environment

We describe the views and attitudes of a group of Portuguese primary teachers as they unfolded during a course aimed at introducing a Logo-mathematical culture. We identify what was at stake for them in interacting with such a culture by focusing on sketches of two participants. The study had threefold aims: to describe and analyse attitudes towards mathematics and mathematics teaching; to examine the interactions between participants' attitudes and their activities on the course; and to investigate what kinds of influences the course had on their attitudes.