Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

D4 – Differentiated Learning:The Brain & Learning EnvironmentsIntelligence, maturity, aptitude, skills, learning styles, study habits—these are a few of the characteristics assessed in education and applied inthe classroom setting. The brain lies at the centre of these cognitive functionsand behaviour and plays an important role in how a person learns.For this reason, it is important to consider the role brain research plays inclassrooms for educators. New findings in neuroscience continue to reveal awealth of information regarding how the brain the functions, its structure,and how it continues to develop through adolescence.Parallel to this flood of scientific research are new techniques for handlingdifferent types of learners based on the notion of different and multipleintelligences. In full recognition that each individual does not possessthe same level of intelligence or aptitude for every skill, educators are stillfocusing on how best to connect with all the different kinds of learners.As for dropouts, they may be seen to fall into two categories: Commonlosers and rare winners. Academically unfit, undisciplined, or unmotivatedon the one hand, or else too smart and too driven to be constrainedby school’s regulations and limitations. In both cases, traditional learningenvironments do not appear to serve either extreme well. Rather than concedeand admit that education cannot reach each individual or compromisestandards to serve a lowest common denominator, why not considerhow education can be made more flexible and create differentiated learningenvironments for all individuals and all types of learners, no matter howeccentric or extreme.D4.1 The BrainIn the 2006 PISA results, fifteen year-old girls in Finland out-scoredboys in reading by fifty-one test points. In fact, in all OECD countries, girlsscored higher than boys, with an average spread of thirty-eight points. Finland’sfifty-one point spread was the second largest among all PISA countries(after Greece), which prompts two questions: Is this difference a matterof culture and environment or are the brains of boys and girls different?Some will argue one side, that the test results reflect a simple fact thatgirls read more than boys and are culturally predisposed to do so. In Finland,this is evident whether one looks for statistical evidence in libraryusage or observes children’s leisure habits in the field. Others will arguethat there are physiological differences in the brain and brain developmentof boys and girls. These differences begin to explain why girls develop acapacity for language and speech at a younger age.Dr. Leonard Sax falls into the latter category and attracted widespreadattention for advocating single-sex education in U.S. public schools. He176