In a follow-up to the last episode and based on several comments I received I thought I would chat about the Left Brain versus Right Brain myth. Well sorry to tell you but it is a myth. It is based on very old research that was just plain wrong. We all use both sides of our brains and there is no evidence that analytical people use their left brain and artistic people use their right brain more.

I also talk about why I think this has fed into ability or IQ testing and why ability is the wrong way to think about intelligence. That we all have the potential to be anything we want to be (within reasonable parameters) and labelling students does everyone a disservice.     

Learning styles continue to be popular in many schools and with many teachers even though research shows that they do not exist. Many researchers have shown that separating students and teaching them according to their learning style does not improve learning outcomes.

I chat with Emeritus Professor Jere Confrey who is an expert in Mathematics Education.

We discuss a range of topics including:

• The current situation in schools with COVID
• Why learning trajectories should be viewed like climbing a wall not a ladder
• Tracking/streaming in schools versus flexible learning
• Why students need to believe they can learn
• We teach maths the wrong way around: division should come before multiplication
• Different ways of thinking and how that can transfer and generalise
• The next generation will need to be flexible, confident thinkers

To view Dr Confrey’s Math Mapper program go to: sudds.co 

Dr Confrey can be contacted at: jere@themathdoor.com