Summary Of This Is Your Brain On Math By Kevin Hartnett

In the article “This is your brain on math,” from The Boston Globe, Kevin Hartnett writes about the math functioning parts of the human brain. He also talks about the research that scientists are doing to improve kids in math by testing their brains. In this article, he quotes Tanya Evans, lead author of the research published in the Journal of Neuroscience in August, saying, “Our goal is to utilize brain research to inform us about the areas that are important for skill development and allow us to be able to design interventions for kids who are struggling” (Hartnett, 2015). She states that they are testing and researching brains in order to find how to develop and improve a child’s brain. They did a study on 43 kids where they followed them

In this article, he examines the process your brain takes while solving a math problem. A team of scientists, lead by John R. Anderson, a professor of psychology and computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, did research on the brain and the process the brain takes from understanding a problem, to solving it. Carey states, “The imaging analysis found four stages in all: encoding (downloading), planning (strategizing), solving (performing the math), and responding (typing out the answer” (Carey, 2016). John Anderson and his team of researches did a study on a group of 80 men and women, where they taught them math symbols that they had not ever learned. They then tracked the brain in two areas, the neural firing patterns, and the shifts from one mental state to the other, while the subjects worked out simple math problems. The results were great, and they decided that the test would actually help out teachers and schools stating, “Knowing how they play out in the brain should help in designing curriculums, especially in mathematics” (Carey, 2016). Doing scientific tests on the brain can be good because it enables us to be able to see how we can improve our school’s teaching, and learning