A Bit of Levity for the Weekend.

Can Electric Shocks To The Brain Improve Math Skills?

Categories: Disabilities, Research

05:58 pm

November 5, 2010





by Alix Spiegel

I was never good at math. Growing up, calculus might as well have been nuclear physics as far as I was concerned. It was all just one long nightmare.

Deep brain stimulation
St. Jude Medical

Can brain stimulation help math skills?

Which is why an article titled "Electrical Brain Stimulation Improves Math Skills," published in this week's Current Biology, caught my eye. Finally, I thought, hope for the mathematically challenged. Hope for people like me.


In an experiment, researchers from Oxford University used a non-invasive brain stimulation technique called transcranial direct current stimulation, or TDCS, with 15 test subjects for twenty minutes a day over a six-day period.

Basically, the scientists ran a mild electrical current across the skull of the volunteers focusing on the parietal lobes, the part of brain that matters most for numerical understanding. They also had a placebo group that didn't get the electrical current in the right place.

With the current running, they taught the volunteers a system of numbers the scientists had invented. Later, they gave the research subjects tests to see how well they were able to absorb the information.

What they found was that the brain stimulation improved participants' ability to learn the new numbers. The placebo group did significantly worse that the test subjects that had the correct placement of the electrical current. Also, six months later the volunteers who'd received the treatment still performed well.

Juicing your brain won't turn you into Albert Einstein, the authors of the study write. And it was a very small experiment. But if more and bigger studies produced the same results, the technique might be helpful to the 20 percent of the population that has moderate to severe numerical disabilities, called dyscalculia.

Should you try this at home? Bad idea. "We are not advising people to go around giving themselves electric shocks, but we are extremely excited by the potential of our findings," said Dr. Cohen Kadosh, a study's lead author.

And will the electric current spell the death knell for math tutors in the immediate future? It's doubtful.

Daniel Ansari, a neuroscientist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, told National Geographic News he doesn't expect the treatment to be available anytime soon. And, he said, "It doesn't necessarily show that it improves school-relevant learning skills" such as arithmetic.


Of course, with "Los Apagones" how will little Jose and Maria learn their math?

The deficiency that exist in math in DR is not based of any mental disability, it all comes down to education of a child that involves the kid, parent and teacher not making the full circle. I knew kids in DR public schools that would run laps around many students here in US even when they have the advantage. There are people who simply better at some task than others.

The problem in DR is not just funding of the school, even thought is badly under funded is more of a structure problem or a series of problem that even if we fund the 4% of the PIB to the school today we won't see much of a result because of many factors that affect how much of that 4% makes it into the classroom.

In many cases distance learning is better in countries such as India, DR.
Both at school and university level. Communities have poor transport, costs of conventional schooling and university education are high meaning poorer students are excluded.
Distance Learning in India
Distance Education in India

Although some people tend to equate Distance Learning with online education , a fine line exists between them. While all online degree programs can be termed as distance learning courses, it is difficult to call distance-learning courses as online courses.

This is because the technology used in both the mode may be different in some cases. And in India as its benefits are many, Distance Learning Courses in India are increasingly becoming popular. The availability of distance learning courses has assured that a person can pursue distance education from any state or university that he or she desires.

Distance Learning Institutes and Universities in India

As the course fee of these courses is much lesser than the regular courses, distance-learning courses in India have also become popular in the rural areas.

Thus the distance learning institutes are serving a very important cause by enabling the less advantaged sections of the society to pursue higher education of their choice.

The Indira Gandhi National Open University, IGNOU, which is a premier institute of Distance Learning in India, was established primarily to provide distance education to less advantaged sections of the society.


Of the 1.5 million students of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), lots of enrollment comes from rural areas. But these distance-learning courses are equally popular in the urban areas as the correspondence courses are helping them to improve their career options or engage in other important activities.

In many areas there is an acute shortage of good teachers and centrally prepared lessons are being adopted by more countries.

http://www.slideshare.net/jukkasormunen/video-broadcasting-as-practical-tool-in-distance-learning-2010

S.


S.

India has a lot of good ideas that DR can learn from and apply locally, of course those ideas must be modified. In india they have a schooling channel that broadcast for free to reach kids via TV where schools are not available.

DR just like any other country in the developing world has many structure problems and deficiencies. The main problem is in DR there is still too much Trujillismo living in the hand of the political power. Nepotism to me in DR is a major problem because it discourage kids from obtaining education.

I have serious doubts if a conventional system will work.
S.

There are national competitions in different subjects in DR, the problem with them is that nepotism just like in every other arm of the state in DR has a hold of who can win not who should win. Most of the ones picked to compete are close relatives of powerful figures and even when picked at local schools to go to the competition is also based on who you know or related to more than what you can actually accomplish. In example at Santa Rosa de lima school in SFM there was some students picked and I personally knew kids that were not the top notch of the school in fact there were many who out perform the ones picked yet the guy picked was closely related to the school principal. Now ask your self how does the other kids feel knowing somebody much dumber than them was picked base on his close relations to the principal and not his abilities to deliver. Even when the famous BECAS are given is all based on who you know not what you know. Is a system that discourage good students from achieving higher levels.

The school system in DR basically tells kid with nepotism.

"No matter how hard you try somebody with the right connections is going to get the prize at the end"


I have always said here nepotism in the school system is the biggest enemy right next to under-funds, who knows maybe a little higher. Personally nepotism in the school system must be fix before any funding would be effective else the the funding fix would just mean the same close related and well connected students would get more resources.

Before any funding gets effective we have to setup a system where kids feel that if they try hard they will succeed else every bandage or fix would be a waste of time and money.