The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique: Navigating the Social World

Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, one of the world's leading neuroscientists, will explore how best to understand the human condition by examining the biological, psychological, and highly social nature of our species within the social context of our lives.
Michael S. Gazzaniga, PhD, Professor of Psychology; Director of Sage Center for the Study of Mind, University of California, Santa Barbara; author of Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique (2008), The Ethical Brain (2005), The Mind's Past (2000), Nature's Mind (1994), and Social Brain (1985)

The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Developing Social Brains

Although we experience ourselves as individual, we are socially, emotionally, and biologically interwoven with those around us. This talk will explore the social brain from the perspective of interpersonal neurobiology, how we communicate across "the social synapse" and how our social brains allow us to interweave our hearts and minds. We will focus on the various ways in which evolution has shaped our complex communication and how we use these mechanisms to connect with and educate our students. Participants will understand how the brain evolved into a social organ, will gain deeper insight into the broad bandwidth of unconscious communication between "individuals," and will come to have a better understanding of some of the specialized brain mechanisms which weave individuals into the "superorganism" we call the human species.
Louis J. Cozolino, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Graduate School of Education and Psychology, Pepperdine University; author of The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain (2006), The Healthy Aging Brain: Sustaining Attachment, Attaining Wisdom (2008), and Neuroscience of Psychotherapy (2002)

Emotional Awareness

This talk will describe four emotional skills and provide information on how to acquire them. Those skills include: (1) Recognizing the emotions others are experiencing; (2) using that information constructively; (3) Recognizing your own emotional state and what is triggering emotional episodes you regret afterwards; and (4) exploring your own unique way of experiencing emotions -- your emotional profile.
Paul Ekman, PhD, Social Psychologist; Director, Paul Ekman Group LLC; Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, University of California Medical School, San Francisco; co-author with the Dalai Lama of Emotional Awareness: Overcoming Obstacles to Psychological Compassion (2008); author, Emotions Revealed (2007, 2nd edition); considered one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century by the American Psychological Association

How Social Interaction Promotes Cognitive Abilities, Memory & Intelligence

In this presentation Dr. Oscar Ybarra will discuss previous work from his lab showing that social interaction can increase cognitive performance relative to controls and to the same degree as having people engage in brain games (e.g., doing crossword puzzles), thus, social connection can be good for your smarts, and he will describe why that should be the case.
Oscar Ybarra, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan; co-author of “Mental exercising through simple socializing: Social interaction promotes general cognitive functioning” (2008, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin)

The Science of Raising Happy, Emotionally-Literate Children

Dr. Christine Carter, sociologist and executive director of the Greater Good Science Center at University of California at Berkeley, will speak on the topic of raising happy children, and will examine the underpinnings of happiness, compassion, social bonding and altruism.
Christine Carter McLaughlin, PhD, Sociologist; Executive Director, Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkeley; creator of the "Science for Raising Happy Kids" website; author of the book, The Other Side of Silence (1995)

Mirror People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others

This talk will describe the recent discovery of mirror neurons and their role in empathy and social relations.
Marco Iacoboni, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Neuropsychiatric Institute; Director, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab., Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles; author of the new book, Mirror People: The Science of How We Connect with Others (2008)

Emotions & Emotional Regulation

This talk will discuss the diverse roles emotions play in our lives. In many situations, emotions are crucial to healthy functioning. Sometimes, however, emotions can be unhelpful. At such times, the way we regulate our emotions matters, and he will review recent research on healthy and unhealthy forms of emotion regulation.
James J. Gross, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology; Director, Psychophysiology Laboratory, Stanford University; co-author, “Cognitive emotion regulation: insights from social cognitive and affective neuroscience (2008)

Mindfulness Meditation Training for Children and Their Parents: Effects on Mechanisms of Attention, Anxiety, Emotion Regulation, and Self-View

One of the most powerful methods for influencing the family system is to introduce specific skills that can be understood and implemented by children and parents. Mindfulness meditation based stress reduction (MBSR) as developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn has proven to be an effective method for modifying attention allocation, decreasing anxiety and increasing self-compassion in adults. Very little, however, is understood about the effects of mindfulness meditation training in children and as a family intervention. However, Stanford studies have found evidence of enhancement of attention skills, emotional awareness, emotion regulation, and self-view, and current studies are examining the feasibility and effectiveness of teaching mindfulness meditation skills to 4th graders and their teachers at school in order to complement previous studies examining training families. In this session, you will learn how mindfulness training can be taught both at home and in the classroom, you will be introduced to the use of multiple methods (both self-report questionnaires, information processing computer tasks, and functional brain imaging tasks) for assessing the effectiveness of mindfulness training, and you will learn about up-to-date evidence for the brain-behavioral mechanisms by which mindfulness training interacts with attention, emotion and self-view
Philippe R. Goldin, PhD, Research Scientist, Department of Psychology, Stanford University; Steering Committee, Association for Mindfulness in Education; researcher on the benefits of Mindfulness Meditation training in children and schools

Neuroeducation: Creating Collaboration and Community-Based Research Schools

In schools, students learn by building knowledge along specific skill pathways, mastering the special tools of mathematics, literacy, and other human inventions. Modern cultures have created schools as the main institution for promoting this learning beyond the family, but schools must change if they are to educate not only an elite, but everyone. Cognitive and neuroscience are beginning to provide tools for facilitating learning along many distinct pathways. Explore how to create collaboration and research-based schools to help use these tools to improve education.
Kurt W. Fischer, PhD, Charles Bigelow Professor; Director, Mind, Brain & Education Program (MBE), Harvard University Graduate School of Education; Director, International Mind, Brain and Education Society (IMBES); Editor, Mind, Brain & Education Journal; co-editor of Mind, Brain and Education in Reading Disorders (2007), and The Educated Brain (2008)

Cultivating Social-emotional Balance in Teachers and in the Classroom

Dr. Patricia Jennings will discuss her research findings that examines how greater emotional competence among teachers may translate into improved teacher-student relationships, increased student pro-social behavior, a more positive classroom atmosphere, and improved student academic performance.
Patricia A. Jennings, MEd, PhD, Director of Initiative on Contemplation and Education, Garrison Institute; Director, Cultivating Emotional Balance in the Classroom Project; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Child and Adolescent Development, San Francisco State University; Research Associate, Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development, Pennsylvania State University

Promoting Social, Emotional & Academic Learning

This talk will provide an overview of the latest research, practice, and policy advances in social and emotional learning (SEL). It will discuss the impact of SEL programming on children's skills, attitudes, behavior, and school performance. social and emotional learning. It will also describe classroom and school-wide programming strategies.
Roger P. Weissberg, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Education, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago; President, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL); author of Sustainable Schoolwide Social & Emotional Learning (2006), School-Family Partnerships for Children's Success (2005), and Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What Does the Research Say? (2004)

Hardwired to Connect: Creating Classrooms that Nurture Social Minds

Dr. Sam Goldstein will cover our current understanding of the importance of socialization and its relationship to learning, normal adjustment and transition into adulthood, and touch on issues related to resilience, genetics, stress and learning.
Sam Goldstein, PhD, Faculty Member, University of Utah Medical School; Neuropsychologist, Neurology, Learning and Behavior Center in Salt Lake City; co-author of Raising a Self-Disciplined Child (2007) and Seven Steps to Improve Your Child’s Social Skills (2006)

Weaving Social Skills into Collaborative Tasks in the Classroom

Classroom arrivals and departures, negotiating project responsibilities, cooperating while doing an activity, compromising, asking for help, etc. are all opportunities for students to learn and demonstrate basic social skills. Teachers need to design collaborative activities that have expected social skills integrated within the task. Don't assume that students know what to do!
Martha Kaufeldt, MA, Educational Consultant; Former teacher; author of Teachers, Change Your Bait! Brain Compatible Differentiated Instruction (2005) and Begin With the Brain: Orchestrating the Learner-Centered Classroom (1999)

The Relevance of Mirror Neurons, Social & Affective Science for Education

Recent advances in neuroscience are highlighting connections between emotion, social functioning and decision-making that have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the role of affect in education. In particular, the neurobiological evidence suggests that mirror neuron systems may provide the most basic biological mechanism for social learning, and that the aspects of cognition that we recruit most heavily in schools, namely learning, attention, memory, decision-making and social functioning, are both profoundly affected by and subsumed within the processes of emotion. Moreover, the evidence suggests that emotion-related processes are required for skills and knowledge to be transferred from school environments to real-world decision-making. The hope is that a better understanding of the neurobiological relationships between these constructs will provide a new basis for innovation in the design of learning environments.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, EdD, Assistant Professor, Rossier School of Education; Research Assistant Professor, Brain and Creativity Institute for the Neurological Study of Emotion, Decision-Making, and Creativity, University of Southern California; author of “Making Sense of Brain Research in the Classroom” (2001), Council for Basic Education Journal

Linking Social Development and Academic Achievement

In this presentation, Dr. Fay Brown will help participants understand the interdependence of six developmental pathways (physical, cognitive, language, social, ethical, psychological) to academic achievement. Using data collected from a number of schools over the past four years, she will focus specific attention on how social development impact academic achievement.
Fay E. Brown, PhD, Associate Research Scientist; Director, Child and Adolescent Development, James Comer School Development Program, Yale Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine

Children’s Socialization Skills & ADHD

This presentation will feature the major symptoms and impairments related to ADHD, as well as key risk factors for the condition. Emphasized will be the social and peer-related deficits associated with this disorder, plus the promise of behavioral and pharmacologic interventions for ameliorating these problems.
Stephen P. Hinshaw, PhD, Professor and Chair, Psychology Department, University of California, Berkeley; author, Breaking the Silence: Mental Health Professionals Disclose Their Personal and Family Experiences of Mental Illness (2008) and Attention Deficits and Hyperactivity in Children (1993)

BRAIN RULES: Principles for Surviving & Thriving in School and Work

John Medina, author of "Brain Rules," an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and Director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University, will explore how the intersection of exercise, memory, sleep, and stress might influence the way we teach our children.
John J. Medina, PhD, Developmental Molecular Biologist; Research Consultant; Professor of Bioengineering, University of Washington School of Medicine; Director, Brain Center for Applied Learning Research, Seattle Pacific University; Founding Director, Talaris Research Group; author of Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (2008) and “Mirroring in the brain" (2007), Psychiatric Times

Risk and Resilience with ADHD & Learning Disabilities

In this multi-media presentation, Dr. Goldstein will provide an overview of the most current research concerning our understanding, definition, evaluation and classroom interventions for children and adolescents with ADHD and learning disabilities. Dr. Goldstein will discuss the role genetics plays in normal development and the importance of considering these processes when structuring educational interventions for children with ADHD and LD. Dr. Goldstein will provide a framework to help participants understand the resilient or protective factors that appear to best predict classroom functioning and lifetime outcome for children struggling with these challenges. The presentation will focus on helping classroom teachers develop a strength based mindset and educational model.
Sam Goldstein, PhD, Faculty Member, University of Utah Medical School; Neuropsychologist, Neurology, Learning and Behavior Center, Salt Lake City; co-author of Raising a Self-Disciplined Child (2007) and Seven Steps to Improve Your Child’s Social Skills (2006)

Superflex: A Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum for ADHD, LD & Autism

This talk will cover a deeper understanding of social-cognitive therapy particularly a fun and motivating curriculum called Superflex-A Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum, which is being used with elementary and early middle-school students across the country. The various lessons of the curriculum will be explored and the audience will also learn about the cast of Unthinkable characters (unexpected behaviors) that often get into our student's brain and a variety of Superflexible strategies that the children can use to defeat the Unthinkables.
Stephanie Madrigal, CCC-SLP, Speech-Language Pathologist; Director of Therapy, Michelle G. Winner’s Center for Social Thinking, CA; co-author of Superflex: A Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum (2008)

Neuroanatomy of Reading: Connections Between Reading, Art & Math Skills

This talk will provide an overview of recent neuroscience research that helps us to understand the development of the brain circuits that are important for the acquisition of skilled reading. Dr. Robert Dougherty will also discuss how individual variations in the brain might hinder the acquisition of skilled reading. Finally, he will discuss the connections between the brain areas involved in reading and how they relate to other skills, such as math and music.
Robert F. Dougherty, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, Department of Psychology, Institute for Reading and Learning, Stanford University; co-author of "Training in the arts, reading and brain imaging" (2008, Dana Report on Arts and Cognition), and "White matter pathways in reading" (2007, Current Opinion in Neurobiology)

Wiring the Brain for Reading

Current research on how the brain learns to read points to exciting opportunities for helping educators increase student achievement. In this dynamic workshop, based on educational neuroscience, scientifically based research and personal research and work with students from pre-kindergarten to high school, Marilee Sprenger makes reading research meaningful and then personally models practical principles for effective instruction. Reading is a very rich, complex, and cognitive act. The brain is hardwired for spoken language but not for reading. Yet reading skills serve as the primary foundation of all school-based learning
Marilee B. Sprenger, MA, Adjunct Professor, Aurora University; former teacher; author, The Developing Brain: Birth to Age Eight (2008), and Becoming a Wiz at Brain-Based Teaching (2006)

Implications of Brain Research for Early Reading Instruction

Brain imaging has shown that skilled readers activate primarily left hemisphere areas. Dyslexic readers tend to access areas in the right, but when dyslexics respond to intensive phonological intervention, the activation tends to move to the left. How can early instruction help children build left hemisphere pathways from the beginning? This talk will compare speech-to-print (encoding) and print-to-speech (decoding) instruction and offer specific suggestions for providing more encoding opportunities for early readers.
Jeannine Herron, PhD, Neuropsychologist; Principal Investigator on four NICHD grants involving reading research, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD); former dyslexia researcher at University of California San Francisco; Director/CEO, Talking Fingers, Inc.; Director, California Neuropsychology Services; author, Neuropsychology of Left-Handedness (1980)

Recent Research on Math and Language Learning

Dr. Nancy Knop will integrate and interpret up-to-date research in cognitive science and neuroscience to present what we currently understand about math and language learning. She will place this information in the context of the evolution of human communication and the development of children and adolescents, as well as in the context of embodied learning, with emphasis on the importance of gesture to math and language learning. She will make the case for educational application of well-established brain research.
Nancy F. Knop, PhD, CET, Educational Therapist, Professional Therapy Services, Inc., former science teacher, Head-Royce School; specialist in cognitive development and learning styles of adolescents

How the Teen Brain Matures: Cognitive Control & Pre-frontal Cortex

This talk will take you behind the scenes of the adolescent mind, providing an overview of brain development during the teenage years. We will discuss ways in which teenagers' brains are already adult-like, and ways in which they are still immature. This neuroscientific evidence will provide insights on adolescent behavior inside and outside the classroom.
Silvia A. Bunge, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley; co-author of “Neurodevelopmental changes in working memory and cognitive control” (2007), Current Opinions in Neurobiology

The Adolescent Brains: Reaching for Autonomy

Dramatic developments in the cognitive neurosciences are providing us with an unprecedented understanding of our social brain's modular organization and 20-year developmental trajectory. We've tended to focus on the challenges posed by early brain development, but the adolescent maturation of reflective cognitive processes is at least as significant. This non-technical presentation will explore these new perspectives within the context of childhood as craft and adolescence as art.
Robert Sylwester, EdD, Professor Emeritus of Education, University of Oregon; author of The Adolescent Brain: Reaching for Autonomy (January 2007) and How to Explain a Brain: An Educator's Handbook of Brain Terms and Cognitive Processes (2005)

The Healthy Aging Brain: Attachment, Wisdom & Learning

This talk will focus on the healthy aging brain from the perspectives of social neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology. The brain will be described as a social organ whose health and longevity is embedded in a matrix of social connectedness. The brains evolution and development as well as its changing skills and abilities throughout the lifespan will be interpreted via a succession of adaptations to changing social roles. From these perspectives, we will take a new look at the research and make some suggestions about the promotion of healthy aging. Participants will gain a deeper appreciation of the brain as a social organ, a better understand the relationship between sustained brain health and its social connectedness, and how attainment and sharing of wisdom will come to be seen as a vital motivation of both the evolution and development of the aging brain.
Louis J. Cozolino, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Graduate School of Education and Psychology, Pepperdine University; author of The Healthy Aging Brain: Sustaining Attachment, Attaining Wisdom (2008) and Neuroscience of Psychotherapy (2002)

The Adult Brain & Memory: How Social Interaction & Learning Protects the Brain from Alzheimer’s

One of the most startling discoveries in the field of Alzheimer's research is the finding that education and socialization protects one from this dreaded disease. This finding raises the stakes even higher than they already are for ensuring that our education systems are effective throughout life. This effect, called the "brain reserve" hypothesis, states that with education and socialization, people enhance brain function so the earliest structural changes related to Alzheimer's disease have little clinical impact. Education thus offers a powerful strategy to stave off Alzheimer's disease.
Kenneth S. Kosik, MD, Co-Director, Neuroscience Research Institute; Harriman Chair and Professor of Neuroscience Research, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara; co-author of When Someone You Love Has Alzheimer’s (1997)

Addiction and the Teen Brain

Neuroscientific research has discovered that significant changes are occurring in the anatomy and neurochemistry of the adolescent brain. One of the findings is that during this period of change, the brain is especially vulnerable to substance abuse. It is also now clear that addiction is a brain disease. This session will provide an overview of these research findings and address possible implications for educators.
Patricia Wolfe, EdD, President, Brain Matters; Educational Consultant: former teacher, author of Building the Reading Brain, PreK-3 (2004), and Brain Matters: Translating Research into Classroom Practice (2001)

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