More slippery slopes. Ethical issues in education & cognitive

research.And the search for strategies

REASONS & CONTRIBUTIONSSLIPPERY SLOPESSTRATEGIES

Vows for a good marriagebetween cognitive science and education

• Assess the common interests (reasons)

• Assess the dowry (contributions)

• Assess the slippery slopes (risks, misuses, potential and actual misunderstandings)

Learning- A natural adaptive function- The brain is not rubber-like- The ways it endures

modifications is prescribed by its properties and constrained by its own history

- Learning is not the only process for altering the brain’s functional architecture (knowledge acquisition)

Teaching- A teaching species with social

learning mechanisms for cultural transmission and for filling-in the cospecifics’ knowledge gap

Reasons

Learning- A natural adaptive function- The brain is not rubber-like- The ways it endures

modifications is prescribed by its properties and constrained by its own history

- Learning is not the only process for altering the brain’s functional architecture (knowledge acquisition)

Teaching- A teaching species with social

learning mechanisms for cultural transmission and for filling-in the cospecifics’ knowledge gap

Reasons

Learning Processes

Learning Constraints

Timing

Associated functions

Contributions: Knowledge basis

Contributions: More to know

Learning from others Teaching

AI

Cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive psychology

Developmental& Evolutionary psychology

Contributions: Methods & tools

Intutitions about teaching

ToM Scientific view of the mind

Scientific view of teaching

Contributions: A view

More slippery slopes. Ethical issues in education & cognitive

research.And the search for strategies

REASONS & CONTRIBUTIONSSLIPPERY SLOPESSTRATEGIES

1. Getting the science wrong, or: the trap of neuromyths 2. And the seductive

allure of neuroscience

3. Normative Fallacy4. And the Illusion of direct transfer

5. cargo-cult evidence

6. And empirical pointillisme

7. Triviality8. And lack of interest

9. Disciplinary restriction

10. And one-way road

More slippery slopes. Ethical issues in education & cognitive

research.And the search for strategies

REASONS & CONTRIBUTIONSSLIPPERY SLOPESSTRATEGIES

Questions for bridging the gap

• How to produce new knowledge that is useful and usable?

• How to make existing knowledge available and usable?

• How to build a new translational research field?

Translational medicineEvidence-based medicine

• (Evans Thornton Chalmers Glasziou 2011, p. 1)

Without fair – unbiased – evaluations, useless or even harmful treatments may be prescribed because they are thought to be helpful or, conversely, helpful treatments may be dismissed as useless. And fair tests should be applied to all treatments, no matter what their origin or whether they are viewed as conventional or complementary/alternative. Untested theories about treatment effects, however convincing they may sound, are just not enough. Some theories have predicted that treatments would work, but fair tests have revealed otherwise; other theories have confidently predicted that treatments would not work when, in fact, tests showed that they did.

EBM

• Tracing best evidence• Classification- Meta-analyses

• Disseminating best evidence• International collaborations for

the production and publication of meta-analyses and

• Journals dedicated to evidence• Centers EBM training

2 questions left aside:

• How to produce new evidence that is useful?

• How to favor adoption?

TM

• From bench to bedside• selection of knowledge for

pre-clinical and clinical trials• research aimed at

applications• From bedside to bench

identification of real needs of real patients in ecological conditions, including reasons of non-adoption

knowledge issued from human clinical trials is re-injected backwards

• (Marincola 2003)The purpose of translational research is to test, in humans, novel therapeutic strategies developed through experimentation. This concept is so popular that Bench to Bedside Awards were developed within the NIH to encourage collaboration between clinicians and basic scientists across institutes. But a more realistic approach would be to encourage opportunities to pursue Bedside to Bench research since our understanding of human disease is still limited and pre-clinical models have shown a discouraging propensity to fail when applied to humans. Translational research should be regarded as a two-way road: Bench to Bedside and Bedside to Bench.… Indeed, the scientist attempting to dissect scientifically human diseases as they evolve has to confront unique challenges related with the genetic polymorphism of our species, the extreme and evolving heterogeneity of some diseases (such as cancer or viral disease) and often external constraints posed by ethical and practical considerations. Thus, some prefer to pre-fabricate animal models resembling human diseases to enable the mathematical prediction of a given treatment outcome by simplifying its biology through standardization of the genetic makeup of animals and diseases. These models, however, do not represent the basic essence of human diseases…

(Brabeck 2008)Those of us who conduct educational research have a new paradigm to guide our work, if we choose to use it. Like other research initiatives, such as evidence-based practice, this model finds its genesis in the medical sciences, and is coined "translational research.” … In education, not unlike medicine, vital knowledge too often remains with the researchers and is unavailable to the professionals who are in positions to help children and youths-that is, the teachers. We have a similar "clinical lab to classroom" gap.

Similarities– …

Differences – evidence is much more spurious – organisms and journals for the

classification and dissemination of evidence are rare

– policies are national– training is not a priority– the profession is less valued– the profession is not

scientifically-literate

Education/Medicine