Learning & The Brain Podcast

Ellen Galinsky joins us in discussing the importance of executive function and social connection in the learning process. She shares takeaways from her work observing students as they engaged in "projected play," a process in which they envisioned their ideal school, and draws upon the disconnect between their ideal learning environment and current school systems today. Galinsky emphasizes the importance of teaching executive function to students to make them whole learners. Her work reveals what young people themselves say they need to thrive — and challenges educators to close the gap between the schools students imagine and the ones they actually experience.

In this episode, Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Dr. Roberta Golinkoff sit down to discuss some of the narrative shifts in education today, and share their work in promoting deeper learning through interactive experiences and guided play. They emphasize the importance of strong relationships in schools and cite research that underscores the importance of experiential learning processes. Drawing on decades of research in developmental psychology, they unpack why playful, hands-on engagement isn't a departure from rigorous learning but often the pathway to it — and what that means for how classrooms are designed and how teachers build trust with students.

Mary Helen Immordino Yang EdD joins us to kick off our first episode on what it means to redefine meaningful education. Drawing on decades of research at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and education, Mary Helen makes the case that deep learning happens through doing - through lived, embodied experience - far more than through mechanical repetition. She explains why bridging research and practice requires taking a community's cultural context seriously instead of treating it as a variable to control for. Follow Mary Helen's Work: CANDLEBook: Emotions, Learning, and the Brain