Transcript: ECF Staffroom S04E04

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You're listening to an IOE podcast. Powered by UCL Minds.

Elaine Long 
Welcome to the ECF Staffroom. I'm Elaine Long.

Mark Quinn
And I am Mark Quinn.

Elaine Long 
We are programme leaders for the UCL Early Career Teacher Development Programme. Why are we in the staffroom? We are here because this is where the best professional learning conversations always take place. This is where problems can be aired bluntly and where solutions can be explored.

Mark Quinn
Over the course of this series, we will hear the voices of different colleagues as they come in the ECF Staffroom. We will hear from early career teachers themselves and from the mentors and induction tutors who support them. We will talk about all things ECF, the challenges and the joys. So, why don't you enjoy a coffee with us, perhaps even grab a biscuit and sit down to half an hour of ECF Staffroom chat.

Welcome to the ECF Staffroom, Dr Rebecca Gordon. We're really, really, really excited that you've come and joined us in our staffroom, Rebecca. you've been busy at the conference. I know you're going to tell us about that little bit later, I hope. But you're in our staffroom now, so you get to sit down with cup of something. What do you want it? A cup of tea? A cup of coffee. What would you like?

Rebecca Gordon
As its afternoon, a cup of tea. But I don't drink normal tea. I can't stand normal tea. So that would have to be the camomile or lemon and ginger or berry or something like that.

Mark Quinn
We have a whole cupboard devoted to specialist teas in this staffroom, Rebecca. Do you drink this with a biscuit or can I offer you one of those?

Rebecca Gordon
I don't have biscuits in the house because if I have them in the house, I'll eat them all because biscuits are my weakness. But if you have custard cream, I'll take one.

Mark Quinn
Everyone likes a custard cream. We always have a custard cream. I'll get that ready while, Elaine gets the proper chat started.

Elaine Long 
Great choice, a custard cream. You can't go wrong with that. We're really excited to have you in the staffroom, particularly as the topic you're going to be talking about, I think is a topic that people really want to hear about from foreign experts such as yourself. But your job, I'm sure, is, is very complex, and it might feel a bit alien to some of us mere mortals.
So, please, can you tell us a bit about yourself and, what your job is like on a day to day basis and what you enjoy about it?

Rebecca Gordon
Well, no, one day is the same, that's for sure. So, I'm an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Human Development at UCL. I run my own research lab, which looks at motor and executive control in children and adults and how they interact and how they explain or might explain educational outcomes higher or to cognitive abilities generally, and also how they might be related to certain abilities and behaviours in children with special educational needs and difficulties.
 
So, what else do I do? On a daily basis, I mean I teach as well. I have PhD students, I have master’s students who I supervise the dissertation. In terms of my research, which also obviously encompasses what my PhD students do is there's three key areas. One is and we probably will get into these, one is working memory or, working memory, executive function, sort of overlapping concepts. But people call them different things depending on which discipline you come from. 

I also look at dyslexia, but I don't look at reading and writing. I look at the broader cognitive deficits. And what we're trying to do is find out why these broader cognitive deficits exist and why they might manifest in basically a social invention, you know, an invention by humans, which is reading and writing and not always in other abilities that there's a lot of co-morbidity. 
And the other thing which is probably most relevant to you is the role of educational neuroscience in the classroom. And that does require unpacking, because it sounds like test tubes in the classroom and, you know, blood samples and genetics. And that's not what it is. But I'm sure we'll get to that.

On a day to day basis, I could be marking, I could be at a conference, I could be teaching, I could be meeting with PhD students, I could be having meetings with people about impact and engagement because I'm head of impact and engagement, I could be on a UNESCO working group. It's different every day, as is the life of an academic, which I'm sure you understand.

Elaine Long 
And, Rebecca, can I ask, why did you decide to specialise in this area?

Rebecca Gordon
That's a good question. I think it was when I was doing my masters. I really liked the set of lectures on memory and attention, executive function, working memory. So, I thought, well, that interests me, I'll do my dissertation on that, and it was really interesting. What I did was I developed an anonymous virtual reality program to test children's higher order abilities, but in a, and I'm doing, air quotes because it's not really a real-life environment, because it's non immersive VR, but in a sort of a real-life scenario.

So, they had to set the house up for a birthday party, and it just tested their ability to plan and prioritise and all these abilities that we associate with executive function or higher order thought. Ao anyway, I really enjoyed that. So, when I was doing my PhD, I thought, well, I will look for executive function scholars and do my PhD with them. And then it lead from there really. And then of course, the that connects very well to how we understand how children learn in the classroom, because those abilities are very important to learning, and the dyslexia stuff of course, looking at people who have deficits in these areas. 

So that's how I got to it. I just think it's very interesting, and I think in part it's because we don't, it's a very complex concept and we don't fully understand it. It's not sort of a cut and dried concept. We know what it is. That's it. Let's use it. So, it's a continuous field of investigation. 

Mark Quinn
Right. That means that my question, I already know what you're going to say because the question is, you mentioned that educational neuroscience is one of your big things. I want to know, when you when you use those words, what do those words actually mean? Because I can make, we trip them up. We trip up this phrase. Those of us who are not experts in this field, we trip out the phrase of educational neuroscience, as if we knew what it was. So, can you help us here? What is it and what isn't it? Maybe.

Rebecca Gordon
Yeah, I think it is a bit misleading as a term. If you were in, the US, they would call it mind brain education because it's about how we think, how the brain works and how that applies to education. Other people would call it the science of learning or the learning sciences. So, it is about how we as human beings learn, and it's incredibly complex, because what that sounds like is like it's a one way process, we receive some information and we learn from it. But it's not, it's much more complicated than that. But it's about those different systems and processes such as attention, memory, spatial awareness, spatial reasoning, causal cognition, all these different concepts. But we have, you know, in Europe, biologically, they're systems that we have and that, of course have evolved. We've evolved to have them for specific reasons. 

But now we have this formalised learning. So how does it work in those environments? And understanding that is important because it can help not just teachers but also the children themselves. You know, as children get older and become more aware of these processes, we look at things like metacognition, so understanding how they themselves learn, but also, you know, in terms of how policy is developed and how it informs schools and teachers and teaching content.

So, it is an important area, but yes, calling it educational neuroscience, at some point that term would have been the right term. But it can be misleading. I do understand that, but, that's basically what it is. Using developmental psychology, neuroscience and education to promote better learning and promote better teaching.

Mark Quinn
Yeah, well, listening to that answer and the breadth of that answer, it sort of strikes me that, forgive me, it's almost a problem, isn't it, because it's so expensive. There's so much which falls within the, the sphere of learning sciences, educational neuroscience. 

Is that problematic for, for you as an academic in the field or, or as someone who might seek to, you know, because you're interested impact and the engagement with the research. Is it problematic that your field, that field is so enormous?

Rebecca Gordon
I don't think so, because I think any field is enormous, and that's why it's so important to have things like the centre for Educational Neuroscience that I'm part of. It's important to have things like the International Conference in Working Memory, which is the conference I was just that. It's very important to have these things because nobody can know everything, and it brings everybody together. So, you can share the knowledge and make those connections and see where the overlaps are, and that's how different concepts build. 

I was talking to some people at the conference I was just at that. One person was looking at spatial working memory and creativity, and I was saying, oh, I've got a PhD student who's looking at spatial working memory and mind wandering and how that might relate to, to creativity.

And so, we started having a conversation about that, and then she mentioned other scholars that are looking at overlapping things, and then you sort of build a network and that's how you better understand things. So, it's not problematic that it's so huge, but it would be problematic if we didn't have those platforms on which to discuss the different areas.

Mark Quinn
And I guess and it gets problematic if anyone claims to be an expert in it all, right?

Rebecca Gordon
Yes. Definitely. You can't be an expert in all of this.

Mark Quinn
So be aware of that person.

Rebecca Gordon
You would have to be about 300 years old to be an expert in all of it. But also, you would have to be 300 years old, like, immediately at the points of time in which you're discussing these concepts because they're constantly evolving.  So that's why you have fairly narrow experts in certain fields, because they understand where the gaps are in the research, where these unsolved, that sort of conundrums exist and, and how they should be tackled and how they are being tackled and sort of take that journey with the research.
So, it's not it's not a static thing. So, you can't just know it, you know.

Elaine Long
So that brings me nicely onto my next question because it's fair to say over the last 10 to 15 years there's been an increased interest in cognitive science. Teachers are reading about it more than ever, and it's quite ubiquitous on professional learning programmes and it has also influenced policy, particularly in England regarding teaching and learning, and professional development.
So, a couple of questions for you. Do you welcome this interest and what do you see is the opportunity and limitations of this trend?

Rebecca Gordon
We absolutely, 100% welcome it. We have every week in the Centre for Educational Neuroscience an online seminar, where we get education professionals, policymakers, other academics come along and we can get, draw quite big crowds in where we present research in the field, and we want teachers to be interested in this and seeing that the growth of teachers being interested in it is fantastic.

And that is what led indirectly to the Early Career Framework, because teachers wanted to know more about it. And then, you know, via the DfE, this came back down and I worked on that actually, with only a little bit, I did a little bit.  Mark was much more involved, but, we absolutely welcomed it, and I mean, I can't say enough how much we encourage engagement in this stuff.

In terms of, limitations. I mean, there's there are, it's not really limitations, but it's things to be wary of. It's not a limitation, but it's an area to be cautious that you don't make this content prescriptive. So, you're not telling teachers how to teach because there's a big difference between evidence based practice and evidence informed practice, because what we want from educational neuroscience is for teachers to understand how this research comes about and how it's evaluated, and what good research looks like, so that they can have that knowledge and they can look at proposals as to how teaching might be done and understand whether that's robust, whether that's valid and whether it isn't. 

And then use that to inform their own practice because they are teachers. I'm not a teacher. I've never been a teacher. I don't know how to teach. I've been in schools and thought, how do you do that? My goodness, how do you control thirty, 7 year old children at the same time? So, we don't want to tell them how to teach. We just want them to understand the evidence and I think that's what's important. In that way, you avoid, you avoid application of things that are not robust and are not evidence based.

I know that schools, they have two very valuable resources. One is time and one is money, and when I see schools, you know, with all the good intentions or the right intentions, using practices that have cost them money and taken the teachers time, and they're not evidence based and you know, you wouldn't even have to test them. You can sort of see that they're hoowee just by looking at them. 

I see some great stuff happening in schools, but I also see some things that I just think, oh, well, that's a shame. And just while we're on it, sorry, just on having teachers understand how this research comes about and how it's evaluated, is often you will see interventions in schools, good interventions for literacy or for behaviour or whatever. It would be really, really good if the teachers could evaluate the effectiveness of it. 
So, they might observe that literacy is improved, they might observe that behaviour is improved. It would be great if they actually did evaluation of it. Now I understand they don't have much time, but just to say this was for example, their reading ability before the intervention and this was their reading ability after the intervention.

That would be very useful for them, but also very useful for other people. But sorry, that was quite a long, well, I can't remember the question.

Elaine Long
Super interesting. One of the things I'm just curious about is you mentioned that there are some practices emerging, as a result of people engaging with the science of learning that sometimes probably bear less resemblance to the original research, itself. Could you give any examples of general things you've seen that you think might be particularly harmful?

Rebecca Gordon
I wouldn't say they're emerging. I would say that enduring. So, these are things that have been around for a long time, and they keep popping up. And I've written a paper on this with other academics from the centre, and we have actually some video explainers if you want to go on the website. So, it's things like, learning styles, you know, that there are different types of learning styles, but that there aren't different types of learning styles.

So, there's certainly no evidence that there are. I'm trying to, left brain, right brain thinking that's not a thing. I'm trying to, there are one of my big things is, and I've done the video explainer on this is, identifying children with dyslexia. So there's this myth that, if children, when they're learning to write, if they reverse the letters, you know, so like a B is a D, a D is B, oh that's a sign of dyslexia.

And it's not, it's just a perfectly normal process of at point, you know, stage of development. Because a child doesn't understand that the orientation of the object that is the letter completely changes the sound it makes, because if they pick up a block or a ball or a teddy bear, it doesn't matter which way round it is, it's still that object. But if you turn D upside down instead of Da id Pa, it's normal. 

Yes. You can sort of have people selling themselves as gurus and they don't know this stuff. And, when you have things like Twitter, you know, that this stuff spreads like wildfire and people follow people and say, oh, this person's an expert, and you look at it and you think they're not. But having said that, there's a lot of experts on Twitter. I'm not saying that they're not. I’m on Twitter.

Elaine Long
I mean, in terms of something like, say, cognitive load theory. Do see many sort of, do you see much bad practice emerge as a result of people engaging in that?

Rebecca Gordon
Did you see me flinch when you said that? I was in a meeting in a working group the other day, and somebody who wasn't an academic mentioned it, and all the cognitive psychologists on the screen flinched. I mean, cognitive load theory, it's a tricky one because, you know, in its essence, yes. When you're teaching someone, there's only so much content that they can have, not novel content that they can handle. and if you overload it, they're going to have problems. 

The issue with the theory and I hope that Suella isn’t going to listen to this and send me a nasty e-mail, but the issue with the theory is that it assumes that this very static and narrow view of the systems involved in learning are everything there is to say.

So, it takes one phenomenon that occurs in certain situations, like the one I've just described, and treats it as if that's the fundamental constraint in learning, which is just not true. and it's often conflated with working memory because working memory is limited and it's effortful and you can't overload it, which, yes, there are some. This is the thing about cognitive science.

Yes, there are some overlaps in the way you describe these abilities, but they're not the same thing and they're not as simple as they look. So, I think if I say working memory because what cognitive load theory does, is it doesn't, so it talks about, some concepts that have come from working memory. So, we have this verbal store, we have this visual spatiall store and they're both limited. But you can load one and load the other and they won't sort of confuse each other. And to a degree that's true, to a degree, but it depends what the content is. You know, it depends whether the visual spatial information can be verbally recoded. If it can, that's going to cause problems.

But the point I was getting to is that it, it ignores the executive control processes. So, which is domain general. And that is very limited and effortful. So that can become overloaded. And it doesn't take that into account. It does talk about schemata and long term memory. And it sort of treats that as if it can do the “what should we do next” job. And, you know, when should we use this information? But it's not the same thing. So, we're talking about a learning a set of cognitive abilities that come together when we're learning. And some are used more than others in different situations, some can be overloaded, some can't be overloaded. It's very complex, and to just say cognitive load theory is vital and learning is, it's just much more complex than that, and it's unhelpful to simplify it.

Elaine Long
And that's quite hard for a teacher in the classroom, isn't it? Because I think, how can I possibly know the cognitive load of my pupils? Because I think it's the think as a teacher, well, I have a little piece of computer screen window into their brains. I wish I did. And it's interesting because one of the things I've observed as a sort of, I guess, negative thing emerging from this is that people have interpreted cognitive load theory as the need to minimise cognitive load rather than optimise it and I think they're two very different things.

I think, you know, optimising it is thinking about the working memory is limited, which I think, correct me if I'm wrong, most people would largely, agree on. But it's tricky because how do we really know that? But there are some good practices we can have in the classroom to avoid that. But that doesn't mean we have to minimise everything, because in minimising everything, the downside or negative of is that it can make instruction quite dry and boring.

And often people can fall into the trap of minimising it more than they need to. Such as, you know, not having any pictures on the walls or, and often I see sometimes those sorts of policies in schools are justified as a result of cognitive science. I wondered to what extent someone who's a real expert in cognitive science would agree that that theory would really extend that far, because, as you said, it's very, very complex.

I imagine that your conference, people are disagreeing about it. Perhaps, and perhaps there isn't such a consensus as is presented.

Rebecca Gordon
Yeah. I mean, cognitive load theory would never come up in a working memory conference because it's just, you know, it's not, like I said, it's the learning process is a much more complex than that. It's not. It's can I say it's not even worth talking about because it's, unless we were talking about how it's problematic being used in the schools.

But I was going to pick up on two things you said, actually, one, that how can a teacher know about each individual child's cognitive load, which I mean, I agree, of course they can't. But this is another problem with cognitive load theory, is that it assumes its teacher led and it's not. You know, it's very much about the child as well. It's a two way process. 

And cognitive load theory doesn't really, include the learner as an agent in that process. More like a recipient that only has so much room and that's simply not the case. They can actively engage in their learning. 

But the other thing I was going to say was you talked about, you know, not having stuff on the walls and removing all other distractors. This removes the very essence of what, long term memory formation is. The role of context and long term memory formation is vital. And if you look at people who have hippocampal damage and they've lost the ability to form new long term memories, could be, you know, through some traumatic brain injury, stroke or whatever. 

So, what is missing for them is context, and context is used when there's other things. But context is vital because we use that when we encode information. So, I'm not saying so therefore have loads and loads of stuff in the environment, so, we've got lots of contextual elements that will help us encoding. But to say they're unimportant in a theory just misses the point entirely because whenever you encode information, whenever you recall information and then re encode it, you're connecting it to things in your environment.

And if you couldn't do that, you wouldn't be able to form new long-term memories. I say all this to just indicate how it's more complicated and just saying don't have distractors.

Mark Quinn
This is so so interesting, Rebecca, because as you indicated a little while ago, you are aware of, the Early Career Framework and parts of our programme and what we say about educational neuroscience, because you helped us write large parts of it.

So, you are aware of the, I guess the seductiveness of simplification because, teachers aren't reading research papers and then not attending working memory conferences. nor can they really, because they're busy doing their actual job. So, maybe mutations start creeping into how they teach because they understand some aspects of working memory. And that turns into a way of teaching, or it turns into what they do and don't put on their walls or on their PowerPoints, for example. 

Without ticking teachers off. We, we understand that there are there are good reasons why teachers might fall into a series of traps, just like teachers have always fallen into traps. You mentioned learning styles before and as a trap that perhaps, you know, some of us old enough might have fallen into when we were teachers. Not me, of course.  So, we understand that this happens. I wonder if I can sort of, if we're going to leave cognitive load theory to one side because you say it's not helpful to talk about it much more, so I think that's fair enough. 

If we could talk a little bit more about actual working memory, which is what your, is one of the fields you're really interested in and is the conference you were recently, what would you say would be really helpful for teachers to know about when it comes to working memory? You're not a teacher, they are the teachers. But you're the scientist in this. So, what is really useful for them to know about so that teachers might actually convert that into something useful in the classroom?

Rebecca Gordon
Now that is an interesting question, and one of the talks at the conference that I've just been at, the final talk that I saw yesterday was by Sue Gadacolne, who you might know. She's a big working memory researcher, but she's kind of the key person for working memory in education, and doing it for a long time, she's very knowledgeable. 

Her end message was that we need, and she does this very well, but everybody who's looking at working memory in education should be engaging with schools, because we need to understand how we can provide this information in an accessible way so that it can be used in the classroom. So, there's no point me saying working memory as concurrent processing, storage, or manipulation of information in pursuit of the known goal in novel situations.

That's the that's the standard, description of working memory. But in novel situations, obviously learning new material, the that known goal is to remember it and the processing and storage is the learning process. But how you actually use that in the classroom is we need to be talking to teachers and many people, Sue Gaddacolne is one of them Amanda Waterman is another one, are doing this very well. 

But what happens is that you do it in pockets of schools, you know. So Amanda is in Leeds doing it with schools around there, etc.. And to, to my mind. So I'm sorry. I know I'm not answering your question, but, I think that this stuff, not working memory, but educational neuroscience in general needs to be embedded in ITE.

This needs to be part of standard. And I know that we're a long way off that and it would require influencing policy, etc., but this is another reason why we should be engaging with schools, because we need to understand how they can use the information, what limitations there are, what the challenges are, and that this knowledge could address. And then sort of lobbying to get policy changed.  I’m sorry, I didn’t answer your question.

Mark Quinn
I thought that was one way of answering the question, but I'm going to be a Michelle Hussain for you and give you another opportunity to answer the question by giving you a slightly different prompt, which is, you mentioned before about your interested in, dyslexia and other sort of the broader cognitive deficits. 

So, let's imagine this is a situation that, you know, a typical classroom will have children in it who have these cognitive deficits, right? Because every classroom does.  So, every teacher faces this. So, what might be really useful for such a teacher to know about, from the field of neuroscience, educational neuroscience, if not specifically working memory that you think, you know, young teacher perhaps missed this out in their ITE preparation but would really like, is really interested and is aware that they've got students and pupils in their class who've got these cognitive deficits and they really want to do their best.

Rebecca Gordon
I will stick to working memory because we'll be here for a year, if I'm talking about educational neuroscience generally. But I think it's important to understand that working memory is vital in the learning process, that it does involve, and the reason it's vital is because it is the processing and storage of information. So, it's a focusing of attention of the information that's being received, processing it so that you understand it and then applying it in some way.

So, doing a math sum, for example, learning a new mathematical procedure and doing a math sum. If children are struggling, if they seem inattentive, if they are always scribbling things down, if they seem to be taking longer to grasp the concept, these could be indications of working memory problems. 

Now that's not prescriptive. If they do that, they've got a working memory problem, goodbye. Because working memory problems are linked to a whole range of SEND populations. So, dyslexia, ADHD, autism and it goes on and on and on. You know it's the part of the brain that is implicated in working memory, which is the prefrontal cortex, does seem to show atypical stays in different populations.

So, it's not all about limitations but there's untypicalities, but it is worth noting that those things and others, and I'm happy to send links, because there are other people that provide much better indicators than I can in this on that. Worth noting that those could be problems with working memory and how you help children who might be struggling with working memory, because it doesn't have to be a child with dyslexia, it could be anyone. 

I mean, I'm sure you both know that one of the biggest, impediments to learning, one of the biggest challenges to learning in terms of, a child's profile is domestic violence in the home. It really creates the worst learning outcomes and one of the things that is problematic is obviously children in such situations are either tuning out or a hyper vigilant.

It's all about the, among other things, it's very much about the attentional profile, which is what working memory is. It's a type of attention. So, there could be a number of reasons why, that's my point, why a child is having problems with working memory. What you can do is you can give them, memory offloading devices. Now, I know that, whiteboards, small whiteboards are used a lot in classrooms now, but sometimes lessons are given where it's whiteboards away, we're going to do this a different way, we're going to do, like, some mental, I don't think. I'm not sure if mental arithmetic is still a thing in schools. But, you know, there might be a situation, well, for a child that has limited working memory, that can be very problematic because they would use that as a prompt and they may be completely lost.

It may be how the information is delivered. So, in small chunks, rather then do this, then do this, then do this, and then come and sit down. Okay, I want you to do this first and then I want you to do that. So, there's not so much being held in mind and processed and mentally ticked off as it's done, you know, to getting through the process mentally.

And more time as well, more time to do things because it can take time to process the information and then manipulate it, and then apply it. So, there are there are a lot of very, very good resources out there for this sort of thing, which I'd happily share with you later on. But those are, those are the types of things that teachers should be, they should have knowledge of how these processes work, why they're important in working memory, sorry, in learning and what you can do about them.

Mark Quinn
So, so issues of, you know, problems in the attention sphere, if you like, isn't always or necessarily a child not bothering to attend. This is a child who is attending in the way that they can or, you know, very likely in the way that they can, and the teachers can do something about that. 

Rebecca Gordon
Yeah. It it's very rarely because the child doesn't want to pay attention. Well, they might not want to pay attention for a number of reasons, but it's very rarely because they can't be bothered. There's usually another reason.

Mark Quinn
Or a child might have learned that behaviour, of course, that actually not paying attention is tactic in itself, right? 

Rebecca Gordon
Yeah. Exactly.

Mark Quinn
If they've learned that's the way they get through their day. Yeah. Well, I think I'm glad to give you a second bite of that question, Rebecca. Thank you.

Elaine Long
Well, I'm probably very naively going ask you another massive question? I'm going to go for it. But you mentioned at your conference that you were talking about the link between working memory and emotion, and I was really interested in the second word because I think the role of emotions in learning, perhaps talked about, less in common discourse around cognitive psychology at least. I was fascinated to hear that's, part of your, conference.

I just wondered if you could, I mean, I know I'm asking you an incredibly complex question, but for an ECT in their classroom, obviously they're thinking about learning for a cognitive lens, and we've just talked about that. But also, how should they be thinking about learning from an emotional lens as well?

Rebecca Gordon
Yes, that's a good question. I'm not an expert in emotion, so I won't go into it in too much. But we do know that socio emotional factors are just as important in the learning process. So, you have your memory, you have attention, and basic, you know, numeracy and language etc. are all very important. But socio emotional factors, are very important.

So, social factors are things that can affect you emotionally as well. So, you know that I've mentioned domestic violence earlier, but the home environment I'm not saying always negative. You know, it can be a good thing or a bad thing and have a brilliant home environment or you can have one that's slightly more challenging. but those social factors, environmental factors really do affect learning, and they affect the cognitive processes.

We know as adults. If you're stressed, your working memory shuts down. You just well, it doesn't shut down, but it becomes limited. Oh what was I doing? I can’t remember that I'm going to have to write it down. You know if you're stressed about something. Well, it's funny actually, because when I arrived at the conference, this was a real visual spatial working memory failure.

I've had problems with parking, which I won't get into, but it involved a lot of trying to find places and walking up and down. And when I got there, I was late for the first session and I really wanted to see it. So, there were only a few, there was probably about eight nine badges on the desk left and I said, hi, I'm here for the conference, and she said, oh yes, just pick out your name badge. And I did the scan and I said, it's not there. And she said, well, I'm looking at the list and you're registered, so it should be there. And I wasn't rude, but I said, it's definitely not here. Then she just went over and pointed to it. There it was right in front of me.

So that's a typical, I'm stressed, I'm running late, and I had a complete working memory failure where I couldn't process visual information. I've forgotten your question because I went off on that. That's another working of memory failure.

Elaine Long
That’s a really good analogy, I mean, I sympathise on the parking because I find that very stressful also. And that would send me into working memory failure. But, I mean, I was thinking about the classroom because there are many situations in the classroom where many strategies we might use in the classroom that we think are enhancing our students and helping them to think hard about stuff.

But in fact, because of the emotional impact we're having on them, I'm thinking about practices like Cold Call if they're implemented badly, you know, if students are stressed and anxious, it might actually inhibit their thinking process rather than enhance it, and I guess what I'm hearing is just speaking is there are a multitude of factors that can affect a child's ability to think hard in the classroom.

And as a teacher, we need to be balancing all of those, the cognitive and the emotional. We need to be thinking about how they're feeling, in order to get them to think well, and I think that's a message I hear less in teaching, but I think it's an important message, actually.

Rebecca Gordon
I agree, it's very important. And you used a cold calling. I don't think I know what that is in the classroom context. 

Elaine Long
So cold calling is a common strategy. Some people might know it as targeted questioning. And it can be a really good technique for teachers to use in the classroom, rather than just, asking questions and letting you put your hand up. I might ask my question, so you're all thinking hard about it, and you or Mark won't know who I've asked, and then I'm going to pick on Marks as it looks like he's not listening.

I guess the cognitive science behind it is it's making everyone think hard in the classroom, whereas if you just ask the people with their hands up, not everyone might be thinking, and there’s the danger when you always go to the students that want to answer you don't know what other students are thinking, 

A negative side effect, if it's implemented badly and I know it does work effectively for lots of teachers, is it can make students feel incredibly nervous. I know as a student myself and in the classroom, believe it or not, I was very introvert when I was a pupil, and I would have been very afraid in the classroom if I'd known my teacher was going to pick on me any minute.

And the panic of having to answer a question would have made me do exactly what you did at that event. It would have made me say something ridiculous as I’ve often done in interviews, actually, and this probably explains why I'm so bad at interviews. I get the most ridiculous answers in interviews, and maybe now I know. Now I know why it is, but.

So, I just think it's about balancing of all those things, and it's very hard for teachers, isn't it? They’ve got such a hard job.

Rebecca Gordon
Yeah. I mean, I agree with what you're saying. There are certain things in teaching that work very well. But just like some adults are introverted, some are shy, some are socially anxious, so are children and they don't always want to play the game that you're playing. Like I said, I'm not a teacher, but I, I think that it's fairly simple to understand, you know, a child is shy, don’t cold call them, as you called it. 

You know, if you know, a child is socially anxious, don't make them be the one to stand up and present something. You can ask them and give them the opportunity, but accept that that's just not who they are. And I think that that is important to understand, and it is important to understand the emotional aspect of learning, as you said.

So, maths anxiety is a real problem in Western cultures. You don't tend to get it in Singapore or, you know, China or Taiwan. It's not a concept, but it is in some, you know, other cultures and it's not it's not nothing to do with ability. Some of the best, physicists in the world have maths, anxiety. You know, it's true.

It's not about ability and it's not about automatising, you know, maths facts. Some people really do have this and it really affects their learning. And that is just as important as the cognition because it affects the cognition. Even if it didn't it would be important but if you're talking about learning processes, stress, anxiety, all of those things affect and so does nutrition and hydration.

Mark Quinn
During this conversation, Rebecca, you've mentioned the number of research academics or papers that might be interesting or YouTube clips that you've been responsible for. We will post links to those with your permission, alongside this podcast when it goes out. You've also, we're also aware that you are in the process of constructing a short course, an online short course, I think it is for teachers with interest in educational neuroscience. I'm just wondering if you can let us into any titbits around that, what that might contain and how teachers might can find out about it and get access to it.

Rebecca Gordon
Well, it's in the very early stages of development, so I can't tell them about how they would have access to it, because that's not formalised yet. But it will involve teaching in an accessible way. You know, we don't expect somebody to be doing a year long master's in educational neuroscience. But about attention and memory systems and processing, processes rather, and the how and why they're important in the learning process, how they're engaged in different situations and, and how and why they might fail in certain situations and in certain populations, and then how that can be used to develop teaching.

So, what I've said is a very important part of educational neuroscience is that teachers understand how this research is produced. So, I'll be talking about how we know what we know. It's to move away from what I call, I reckon-ism, which you can get, you know. Some people will put themselves forwards as experts and it's, it's not empirically based evidence, it's I reckon this would be good.

Elaine Long
Tell us more about, I reckon-ism. I like that phrase.

Rebecca Gordon
Well, I mean that that's basically it. It's when you, you know, somebody has an idea that a certain concept for approach might work, but you say, so what's the empirical evidence for that? And there, there isn't any or it's misapplied. And so, have you actually done some lab-based testing on that. And then have you taken that approach and done, randomised controlled trial in a learning situation to see whether that approach improves outcomes, whatever that outcome might be, whether it's maths or literacy or some other process.

So, yes, it's what I would really like to say, and this is why I would encourage teachers to take this course when it's developed. So that you can understand how we know what we know about learning sciences and being able to evaluate the evidence for yourself. So, this isn't about reading research papers, but it's about understanding the basics so that if somebody comes along and says, oh, look, I've got these coloured lenses that you can put over words and cures dyslexia, you know, well, actually, I know about this. That's not how it works.

Mark Quinn
Well, I reckon that our ECTs and mentors will be really interested in that course. And I also reckon I know how they'll find out about it, because once it does become available, Rebecca, we will make sure that we share links to it through your centre or wherever it might appear, wherever the course appears, we'll share links to it through our own UCL extend virtual learning environment, because we think it's really, really important, actually.

And actually, one of the aspects of the ECF now is, is research literacy. So, I think the last point you made there about how do we know what we know is really important, particularly in this field. So, I think that you'll get a lot of takers, for that course, at least I hope so.

Rebecca Gordon
That would be great because, can I just tell you about some findings from another PhD student who has looked at teachers understanding of educational neuroscience and the different factors that influence that. Now, what we know works is formalised training. So, academics who are experts in that field doing formalised training directly to the teachers, and I say directly to the teachers, because what we know doesn't work is when the school sends one person to do the training and then come back and teach everybody else.

That's where misinterpretation comes about. And of course it does. They've done that one day or one, you know, like eight weeks or something. So, we know that sort of secondary learning doesn't work. We know that CPD often doesn't work for that reason and also because schools don't always know which CPD programmes are valid and which ones aren't, and casual learning blogs, etc. they don't work.

Now, I'm not saying that everybody who's looked at a blog and done some CPD is knows nothing about education or neuroscience. But when we assessed, there was more than 800 teachers and we put them into groups based on whether they do no learning, whether they got an CPD, casual learning, blogs, etc. or formalised training. And then we tested them on neuro myths and neuro facts related to learning. It was only the group that done the formalised training that could actually differentiate between them, and the others were significantly worse, and believed a lot of neuro myths.

Elaine Long
That’s fascinating.

Mark Quinn
Can we give that research student a name check?

Rebecca Gordon
Oh, yes. Yetin Arslen.

Mark Quinn
I think I went along to, to his talk which he was talking about that research that he's been doing. It was really, really fascinating. So maybe, maybe we can give it, we should give him a shout out as well. 

Rebecca Gordon
Yes. Oh absolutely. He'd love to do a podcast as well, I'm sure.

Elaine Long
Maybe link to his research paper in the, the podcast, notes as well. 

Rebecca Gordon
Yes. There is one in impact actually. I'll send you the link.

Elaine Long
Yeah. And an important lesson there for us all, you know, and I know even I've been guilty of this sort of reading a blog and thinking, well, that sounds interesting. I might give that a try in my classroom tomorrow, but I guess what you're giving us is a bit of a health warning behind that. And you know that there's a difference between, the original research itself and hearing it from academics who are fluent and offer expertise in that, then hearing it from blogs that may be filtered down because there could be some great blogs out there as well.

Rebecca Gordon
Oh, that there are. I mean, Jonathan Firth at Strathclyde, he's got a fantastic blog and he's an academic, you know, he researches that stuff. I'm not saying blogs are bad or magazine articles are bad but do a bit of a name check on who's writing it and where they're from and what their expertise is.

Elaine Long
It comes back to that research literacy again, I think. Well, I reckon we're coming to the end of the podcast, but it's my favourite question. So, Rebecca, we give every guest, a post-it note and on that post-it note, we invite you to write some advice and you can stick that post-it note, wherever you like.

So here is your post-it note. what would you like to write on it? Where would you like to stick it?

Rebecca Gordon
Okay. Well, I had two, and I thought one will probably get covered, so whichever one doesn't get covered, I'll make the other one my post-it. I think it would be advice to schools, so I'll put it in the staffroom or maybe the head teacher's office to get involved with research. Get involved with research centres. We want you 100%. 

So, this isn't about giving up fifty, 20% of your time. It can be small. But if I'm writing a grant about some research into, you know, how children learn or how teachers can structure their training. If I could just have you on the advisory committee to sit when we first start to design the grant and then maybe have a bit of a look at the study design at the end, because we want to know not just what's important, but what would actually work in schools. Would this information be relevant to you? It can be being involved, not necessarily in the grant, but if somebody is putting a study together so we've already got the money or we don't need the money, being involved in the study design so that we know that this intervention or just this basic data collection process will actually work and most importantly, impact. What do you need from us? What do you need to know? How can we help you? So, I would say, if I got an email from somebody saying, I'm the head teacher at blah blah primary school, and I'd be really interested in talking to you about your research and how we could get involved. That would be a very good day for me.

I would absolutely love it. So that would be my post-it.

Elaine Long
It it's a great post-it note.

Mark Quinn
Yeah, and the bell is ringing on that head teacher because I think as they're listening to this podcast, they're about to pick up the phone to you, Rebecca or fire you an email, because I think you're going to interest quite a lot of head teachers and mentors and early career teachers out there in your work, and they'll gladly engage with you more in your research, at least I hope so. 

Rebecca, it’s been just amazing talking to you. I think we could have had another hour at least. We might have to get you back for part two.

Rebecca Gordon
Absolutely, just about working memory. I can do that.

Mark Quinn
Just on working memory. Well, that would be great. We should definitely do that. Rebecca, thank you so much for your time. If you are going to another conference again, maybe you can bring Elaine and me along as well, because I think we would like to sit in the back of that hall and take some notes.

Rebecca Gordon
Sorry, I know we're running out of time, but I am going to IMBES. I think registration is closed, but do you know the International Mind Brain Education Society Conference?

Mark Quinn
The stuff that I don't know, it could fill a whole other podcast.

Rebecca Gordon
But I tell you what's fantastic about it, it's neuroscientists, psychologists and educationalists. So, you know, and it's pitched at all those levels. It's brilliant for teachers. We get lots of teachers there. So IMBES, there you go.

Mark Quinn
Fantastic. Fantastic. That's one for the homework. Rebecca, If we don't let you go now, we'll have too much to do and we won't be able to get on with our day job, so thank you so much. Goodbye. 

Rebecca Gordon
Thank you. It's been wonderful. Thanks. Bye.

Mark Quinn
Our thanks go to Doctor Rebecca Gordon, Associate Professor at UCL and part of the centre for Educational Neuroscience Management Committee there for sharing a ginger and lemon tea with us this week in the ECF Staffroom.

Elaine Long
Please do get in touch with us if you think you would like to chat about your ECF experience. In the meantime, do join us for a biscuit and a chat with another colleague in the ECF Staffroom.

Mark Quinn
If you've enjoyed this episode, there's more where that came from. Search IOE podcast from wherever you get your podcasts to find episodes of the ECF Staffroom, as well as more podcasts from the IOE.

Elaine Long
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