My school district, Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) in Maryland, has undertaken a careful, strategic turn towards Mind Brain Education (MBE)—the intersection of research in the areas of education, neuroscience and psychology—with a goal of ensuring that every educator understands how the brain learns, works, grows and thrives in order to improve outcomes for every learner.

With a thorough understanding of both the power and the limitations of the research around mindsets, we determined that MBE was a through line to our three systemic priorities—a focus on equity, high quality instruction and a collaborative process to monitor student progress. MBE could also be used as an anchor in discussing instruction, assessment, equity, social emotional learning, teacher evaluation and more.

While we gradually help our teachers understand its importance, we know that our students are already benefiting from the use of MBE built in to the curriculum design and materials. That’s why our courses for new teachers reflect our system’s value that each teacher should understand how the brain learns.

Three Board of Education members recently attended an MBE training alongside our teacher specialists to learn about specific MBE research and its connection to learning and wellbeing. When designing and facilitating professional learning experiences for teachers and administrators, our superintendent and deputy superintendent use and highlight MBE strategies. Recent sessions used retrieval to ensure that content shared last month wasn’t forgotten. These leaders don’t pay lip service to the work, they embody it. And they strive to be research-informed educators, too.

We recognize the link between emotion and cognition. Research will guide our work with learners, both children and adults. Our ship has sailed and we’re committed to keep learning.

Read the full article about understanding how the brain works to improve teaching by Margaret Lee at EdSurge.