TECHNOLOGY MEETS THE BRAIN! We love the idea of a virtual brain inside your computer. The following link is a great showcase, though, of just how much more the brain is capable of than the furthest reaches of any (current) tech device.
The link above will bring you to an interactive map of the brain, from the All Kinds of Minds blog.
This is a great tool for learning about the location-based, diverse functions of the brain, and how these functions interact to produce the way we perform physically, emotionally, and intellectually.
While perusing the frontal lobe on this model, the realization struck: introducing our real brains to this virtual brain may help shift our thinking about learning disabilities. While it is common to blame academic problems on a learning disability, it is helpful to think about what might happen if all academic communities were to embrace and nurture neurodiversity through differentiated instruction, rather than to identify learning disabilities by determining which kinds of minds cannot conform to a standardized education. In education, we so often think about assessing what the brain can’t do, rather than all the things a brain can do and how to better support the amazing collaboration between different brain centers to produce each task.
It is refreshing to see leaders in education such as Tony Wagner and Rick Wormeli setting the tone to differentiate through content and assessment. It is important to address HOW we teach and WHAT we teach students who will go on to live in a very different world, one in which we are adapting the way that we use our brains not just to conform to standards, but to analyze, problem solve, critique, collaborate, synthesize current information, and create meaningful change or something new. What “something new”? The sky is the limit. This is why it is our responsibility not to limit any student based on a current understanding of learning disabilities, and instead to accommodate the search for their area of interest, ability, and potential to excel.