Greetings!

I wanted to share an article, "Studying Young Minds, and How to Teach Them" from the New York Times series on Math and learning. 

In his article, Benedict dives right into an interesting curricular junction between cognitive science and education and thankfully, mentions the junction of the two as "awkward" at best. 

Disambiguating the "awkward" is part of the purpose behind Kurt Fischer's Mind, Brain and Education program (disclosure: I'm a grad), and having the benefit of spent time exploring this issue, I agree, it's no less than bumpy. 

By way of explaining, I'd like to elaborate on the article a bit, and point out an area that's particularly challenging for us. 

Similar in nature to the Building Blocks program, we're working to identify basic cognitive functions that children develop into skills and competencies. The more basic mathematical abilities - subitizing, for instance, or one-to-one correspondence, there is an expanding history of research literature. A good primer can be found in a recent National Academies title, Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood.

Our work at The Public Learning Media Laboratory is focused on children who may - or may not - possess strong foundations in these skills, but more specifically focused on children who are a bit older - the 11s through the teens - who are working hard to apply their Arithmetic or nascent Algebraic knowledge. 

Here, the cognitive science is much more thin; which is to explain that the transition between cognitive neuroscience and educational practice is developing, and very much exploratory. This indicates that the savvy educator will ask two questions of products that attempt to make this linkage in educating youth: first, what is the science behind the application, and second, what assumptions does the application make that it can, or can't, back up with evidence?

We hope you will ask these questions about our productions, and about any other materials and tools you may use in your classroom.

As we move more deeply into a century in which cognitive sciences will no doubt inform education more strongly than ever before, we will do our part - as best we can - to build solidly-grounded educational applications. But, educators - please do your part, too! There are no shortages of Baby Einstein products on the market... 

Cheers, and make it a cognitive-science day, 
--Dave