Complete Coverage

Scientists Find Learning Is Not 'Hard-Wired'

Ten-year-old Miles Murdough sits in front of brain scans in Dublin, Calif. They show the activity in his brain as he plays the piano.

—Manny Crisostomo for Education Week

By Sarah D. Sparks

Neuroscience exploded into the education conversation more than 20 years ago, in step with the evolution of personal computers and the rise of the Internet, and policymakers hoped medical discoveries could likewise help doctors and teachers understand the "hard wiring" of the brain.

That conception of how the brain works, exacerbated by the difficulty in translating research from lab to classroom, spawned a generation of neuro-myths and snake-oil pitches—from programs to improve cross-hemisphere brain communication to teaching practices aimed at "auditory" or "visual" learners .

Today, as educational neuroscience has started to find its niche within interdisciplinary "mind-brain-education" study, the field's most powerful findings show how little about learning...