Live today: Discover magazine is running a story about dyscalculia, a specific math learning difficulty that affects about 6-10% of the population. Titled How Can a Smart Kid Be So Bad at Math? the article focuses on what is known about dyscalculia and math learning difficulties more generally. The story discusses a young woman here in Wisconsin who struggles with basic arithmetic, but not with more advanced mathematics, and does a wonderful job of summarizing research conducted by Ed, and by a number of our friends around the world, including Daniel Ansari, Melissa Libertus and Justin Halberda and Anna Wilson and Stan Dehaene.
Ed Interviewed for NBC 15 News Story on Summer “Brain Drain”
Ed was interviewed for the local NBC 15 Newscast about the summer “brain drain” which aired at 10 pm on July 1st. The story (both video and text) is reposted here. The UW-Madison School of Education new page also has a short write up here.
Ed to Speak About Education and Neuroscience at ASA
Ed will be speaking about education and synesthesia about the American Synesthesia Association in Toronto today, hosted at OCAD University. The conference brings together synesthetes, artists, musicians, and scientists to share information and ideas about synesthesia. The conference itself got a nice write up in this weeks New York Times events section.
Dani and Christina to Present in Bio 152 Poster Session
Dani and Christina will present their project, “Numerical Understanding in Mind, Brain,and Education Relations (N.U.M.B.E.R.)” in the Bio 152 Poster session on Tuesday, May 7 from 5-7 pm – in Union South. For more details, see the Bio 152 announcement here.
Ed in San Francisco
Ed is in San Francisco for the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association where he is chairing a session titled Contributions of Basic Cognitive Processes to School-Based Mathematics Learning: Uncovering the Neural Pathways. The program includes Justin Halberda (Johns Hopkins), Ed, Miriam Rosenberg-Lee and Kristen Pilner Blair (both Stanford), and builds from an understanding of the approximate number system (ANS), to how symbols link with the ANS, and then on to understanding the role of working memory in math, and how children might use an understanding of symmetry to better understand negative numbers.
Jen and Christina to Present in the Undergraduate Research Symposium
Our two Undergraduate Research Scholars, Jen Hathaway and Christina Tran will be presenting in Talk session III (3:45 – 5:00 pm) in the Wisconsin Idea room this Thursday, April 18 as part of the Undergraduate Research Symposium: http://www.learning.wisc.edu/ugsymposium/ Please attend to support all undergraduate research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Ed. Neuro. Lab Welcomes First PhD Student!
The Educational Neuroscience lab is excited to welcome our first PhD student, Liz Toomarian! Liz comes to us from U.C. San Diego, where she did her undergraduate studies in Cognitive Science, with a specialization in Neuroscience. As an undergrad, she worked on intervention projects to help children with dyslexia, and has been a research assistant in UCSD’s Developmental Neuroimaging lab for the past three years. With Liz’s combination of experience, skill and interests, she’s a great fit for educational neuroscience, and we’re very excited to have her join us here in Madison. Welcome Liz!
Ed to give Psychology Department Colloquium Talk 4/4
Ed will be giving the Psychology Department Colloquium this coming Thursday, April 4. The talk will start at 3:45 in the Berkowitz Room (338) of the Brogden Psychology Building. The title of his talk is Integration of quantities, symbols and space in parietal cortex: Implications for education.
Congratulations Colleen!
Congratulations to Colleen, who will be starting graduate studies in Speech and Language Pathology at the University of Minnesota this fall! We will obviously miss her around the lab, but we are very proud or accomplishments, and happy to see her moving on to the next step of her career. Way to go!
Wednesday Nite @ the Lab Video Now Posted
The video of my presentation on “Experimental Epistemology: Twas the Night before Pi Day” is now available here. Just go down to the pull down menus below the video and select by date; look for 03/13/2013 – Wednesday Nite at the Lab – Edward Hubbard.