Kalbfleisch, M. Layne

Frontiers in Psychology

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M. Layne Kalbfleisch

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Educational neuroscience, constructivism, and the mediation of learning and creativity in the 21st century

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Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library, The George Washington UniversityHealth Sciences Research CommonsPediatrics Faculty Publications Pediatrics1-1-2015Educational neuroscience, constructivism, and themediation of learning and creativity in the 21stcentury.M. Layne KalbfleischGeorge Washington UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://hsrc.himmelfarb.gwu.edu/smhs_peds_facpubsPart of the Pediatrics CommonsThis Journal Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Pediatrics at Health Sciences Research Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Pediatrics Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Health Sciences Research Commons. For more information, pleasecontact hsrc@gwu.edu.Recommended CitationKalbfleisch, M.L. (2015) Educational neuroscience, constructivism, and the mediation of learning and creativity in the 21st century.Frontiers in Psychology, 6:133EDITORIALpublished: 12 February 2015doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00133Educational neuroscience, constructivism, and themediation of learning and creativity in the 21st centuryM. Layne Kalbfleisch1,2*1 Kidlab, Krasnow Institute, College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA2 Pediatrics, The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC, USA*Correspondence: mkalbfle1@gmail.comEdited and reviewed by:Jason W. Osborne, University of Louisville, USAKeywords: educational neuroscience, transfer, neuroplasticity, reasoning, neuromyth, creativity, math, musicElephant. Imagine one standing right in front of you. Whybegin this editorial on educational neuroscience and construc-tivist learning with an elephant? Because in many ways, this bookillustrates the old parable of the blind man who has his hand onthe elephant. More specifically, he has his hand on part of theelephant (his flank? his trunk?). And that part, in and of itself,informs the blind man’s understanding of the elephant as thething in itself. Yet, a compadre standing with him also has his handon the elephant and commands his own subjective conception ofand experience with the great mammal.The call for this special topic was intentionally broad and con-ceptually ambitious, to coalesce state-of-the art research acrossmultiple domains that would collectively give shape to the emerg-ing field of educational neuroscience. This book spans a bodyof work that represents the efforts of 60 contributors and took14 months to publish from the first article (on neuromyth)to the last (on the multiple intelligences). That shape, pro-vided by nine original research papers, two reviews, and oneperspective article, pragmatically demonstrates one of the mostdifficult existing theoretical proofs in the field of educationalpsychology—constructivist learning. Both ubiquitous in its influ-ence (the grand challenge?) and hard to parse (the elephant in theroom?), each paper in this book gives rise to a piece of the ele-phant constructivism. An idea blueprinted by Vygotsky, Dewey,and Bruner, and now instantiated in this series of papers, tack-les the issues of learning, transfer, and experience with multiplemetrics (from survey research to various neuroimaging tech-niques) across domain general (creativity, reasoning) and specific(“three R” learning, music) processes and accounts for the influ-ences of state (motivation), genetics (in reading disability), andarousal (sleepiness). Three aspects of constructivism arise fromthis collective: the influence of context on human learning andperformance, training influences on neural plasticity and learn-ing transfer, and the assessment of individual differences. Thismodern interpretation illustrates the potential of educationalneuroscience to answer “how,” “why,” and “when” individual dif-ferences matter and when we’ve struck upon a piece of universalknowledge.Intervention science is still in its infancy and overlaps ourefforts to norm the basic developmental trajectories of the brainacross life. In my opinion, learning context is the great dividebetween educators and neuroscientists simply because the scalesof measurement are so different. In response, these papers areexamples of the intellectual risk, curiosity, and transdisciplinarythought that narrow that divide. For example, musicologistAlexander Khalil poses the idea that training young children tosynchronize their playing of the Balinese gamelan may, perhaps,influence more general tendencies to self-regulate and attend.In that same vein, Nina Kraus’ team reveals that music trainingin adolescence may help the brain better contend with distrac-tion. Todd Lubart and his team add “matter” into the ongoingdiscussion about the contingencies of creativity, what it is andmeans in different contexts, and how we might assess it usefully.Jelle Jolles, Paul Howard Jones and colleagues attempt an “epi-demiology” of neuromyth in order to assess the influence of thisroadblock in our understanding of the learning process. Otherarticles span a range that includes: articulating rules and methodsfor understanding the relationship between genetics and behav-ior in reading disability, assessing how sleep quality may impactperformance in school, the context in which transfer may occurbetween linguistic training, reading, and writing skills in collegestudents, and arithmetic fact learning and retrieval in numericaland nonverbal problem solving contexts.In an age where complexity is beginning to define how weunderstand our cities, other pandemic dynamical systems, andeven ourselves, we cannot, for the sake of education, afford todismiss this theory’s complexity. Because it is articulated frommultiple historical and contemporary perspectives suggests anexplanatory power that, while complex, will eventually simplifyand collapse our understanding of the learning process to thebest set of first principles that can re-populate and positionour understanding of what education ought to be and look likeno matter the context. After all, that is the goal of educationalneuroscience—to apply the tools, metrics, and methods of neu-roscience to questions and problems of human learning in orderto inform aspects of curriculum design, pedagogy, and humanperformance in both formal and informal learning contexts.Though this research topic is conceptually broad and perhaps“wider than the sky” would say Emily Dickinson, it is a necessaryfirst cut to re-define the blueprint of constructivist learningaccording to the tools, metrics, and methods that modern neuro-science provides us. And with that, the need to educate readers sothat they become literate consumers of this new technical genreso that we can arrest the impact of existing neuromythologieswww.frontiersin.org February 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 133 | 1Kalbfleisch Educational neuroscience and constructivist learningand curtail the proliferation of new ones. And so the elephantemerges again as a metaphor. Elephants possess a fantasticmemory. They remind us how fundamental the learning processis to survival and a capacity to thrive individually and socially.They remind us that though the proposition of understandinglearning is impossibly large, that we can take a crack at it, see whathappens when we do, and, in the end, through new knowledgeand reflection, learn from our own experience.Conflict of Interest Statement: The author declares that the research was conductedin the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construedas a potential conflict of interest.Received: 02 December 2014; accepted: 26 January 2015; published online: 12 February2015.Citation: Kalbfleisch ML (2015) Educational neuroscience, constructivism, and themediation of learning and creativity in the 21st century. Front. Psychol. 6:133. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00133This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiersin Psychology.Copyright © 2015 Kalbfleisch. This is an open-access article distributed under theterms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution orreproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensorare credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance withaccepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted whichdoes not comply with these terms.Frontiers in Psychology | Educational Psychology February 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 133 | 2

Educational neuroscience, constructivism, and the mediation of learning and creativity in the 21st century.

EDITORIAL
published: 12 February 2015
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00133
Educational neuroscience, constructivism, and the
mediation of learning and creativity in the 21st century
M. Layne Kalbfleisch1,2*
1 Kidlab, Krasnow Institute, College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
2 Pediatrics, The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC, USA
*Correspondence: mkalbfle1@gmail.com
Edited and reviewed by:
Jason W. Osborne, University of Louisville, USA
Keywords: educational neuroscience, transfer, neuroplasticity, reasoning, neuromyth, creativity, math, music
Elephant. Imagine one standing right in front of you. Why
begin this editorial on educational neuroscience and construc-
tivist learning with an elephant? Because in many ways, this book
illustrates the old parable of the blind man who has his hand on
the elephant. More specifically, he has his hand on part of the
elephant (his flank? his trunk?). And that part, in and of itself,
informs the blind man’s understanding of the elephant as the
thing in itself. Yet, a compadre standing with him also has his hand
on the elephant and commands his own subjective conception of
and experience with the great mammal.
The call for this special topic was intentionally broad and con-
ceptually ambitious, to coalesce state-of-the art research across
multiple domains that would collectively give shape to the emerg-
ing field of educational neuroscience. This book spans a body
of work that represents the efforts of 60 contributors and took
14 months to publish from the first article (on neuromyth)
to the last (on the multiple intelligences). That shape, pro-
vided by nine original research papers, two reviews, and one
perspective article, pragmatically demonstrates one of the most
difficult existing theoretical proofs in the field of educational
psychology—constructivist learning. Both ubiquitous in its influ-
ence (the grand challenge?) and hard to parse (the elephant in the
room?), each paper in this book gives rise to a piece of the ele-
phant constructivism. An idea blueprinted by Vygotsky, Dewey,
and Bruner, and now instantiated in this series of papers, tack-
les the issues of learning, transfer, and experience with multiple
metrics (from survey research to various neuroimaging tech-
niques) across domain general (creativity, reasoning) and specific
(“three R” learning, music) processes and accounts for the influ-
ences of state (motivation), genetics (in reading disability), and
arousal (sleepiness). Three aspects of constructivism arise from
this collective: the influence of context on human learning and
performance, training influences on neural plasticity and learn-
ing transfer, and the assessment of individual differences. This
modern interpretation illustrates the potential of educational
neuroscience to answer “how,” “why,” and “when” individual dif-
ferences matter and when we’ve struck upon a piece of universal
knowledge.
Intervention science is still in its infancy and overlaps our
efforts to norm the basic developmental trajectories of the brain
across life. In my opinion, learning context is the great divide
between educators and neuroscientists simply because the scales
of measurement are so different. In response, these papers are
examples of the intellectual risk, curiosity, and transdisciplinary
thought that narrow that divide. For example, musicologist
Alexander Khalil poses the idea that training young children to
synchronize their playing of the Balinese gamelan may, perhaps,
influence more general tendencies to self-regulate and attend.
In that same vein, Nina Kraus’ team reveals that music training
in adolescence may help the brain better contend with distrac-
tion. Todd Lubart and his team add “matter” into the ongoing
discussion about the contingencies of creativity, what it is and
means in different contexts, and how we might assess it usefully.
Jelle Jolles, Paul Howard Jones and colleagues attempt an “epi-
demiology” of neuromyth in order to assess the influence of this
roadblock in our understanding of the learning process. Other
articles span a range that includes: articulating rules and methods
for understanding the relationship between genetics and behav-
ior in reading disability, assessing how sleep quality may impact
performance in school, the context in which transfer may occur
between linguistic training, reading, and writing skills in college
students, and arithmetic fact learning and retrieval in numerical
and nonverbal problem solving contexts.
In an age where complexity is beginning to define how we
understand our cities, other pandemic dynamical systems, and
even ourselves, we cannot, for the sake of education, afford to
dismiss this theory’s complexity. Because it is articulated from
multiple historical and contemporary perspectives suggests an
explanatory power that, while complex, will eventually simplify
and collapse our understanding of the learning process to the
best set of first principles that can re-populate and position
our understanding of what education ought to be and look like
no matter the context. After all, that is the goal of educational
neuroscience—to apply the tools, metrics, and methods of neu-
roscience to questions and problems of human learning in order
to inform aspects of curriculum design, pedagogy, and human
performance in both formal and informal learning contexts.
Though this research topic is conceptually broad and perhaps
“wider than the sky” would say Emily Dickinson, it is a necessary
first cut to re-define the blueprint of constructivist learning
according to the tools, metrics, and methods that modern neuro-
science provides us. And with that, the need to educate readers so
that they become literate consumers of this new technical genre
so that we can arrest the impact of existing neuromythologies
www.frontiersin.org February 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 133 | 1
Kalbfleisch Educational neuroscience and constructivist learning
and curtail the proliferation of new ones. And so the elephant
emerges again as a metaphor. Elephants possess a fantastic
memory. They remind us how fundamental the learning process
is to survival and a capacity to thrive individually and socially.
They remind us that though the proposition of understanding
learning is impossibly large, that we can take a crack at it, see what
happens when we do, and, in the end, through new knowledge
and reflection, learn from our own experience.
Conflict of Interest Statement:The author declares that the research was conducted
in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed
as a potential conflict of interest.
Received: 02 December 2014; accepted: 26 January 2015; published online: 12 February
2015.
Citation: Kalbfleisch ML (2015) Educational neuroscience, constructivism, and the
mediation of learning and creativity in the 21st century. Front. Psychol. 6:133. doi:
10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00133
This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers
in Psychology.
Copyright © 2015 Kalbfleisch. This is an open-access article distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or
reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor
are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with
accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which
does not comply with these terms.
Frontiers in Psychology | Educational Psychology February 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 133 | 2


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Educational neuroscience, constructivism, and the mediation of learning and creativity in the 21st century.

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