Prevailing Neuromyths Every Teacher Should Know | Science of Learning

Duration: 8:22 1376 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

This resource introduces a critical examination of prevailing neuromyths in education, aiming to help teachers distinguish between evidence-based practices and common assumptions. Inspired by recent research on brain function, retrieval practice, working memory, and cognitive load, the guide focuses specifically on debunking myths such as learning styles or multitasking capabilities. The core objective is not merely to label statements as true or false but to encourage educators to actively question advice found in social media, commercial content, and even well-meaning colleagues. By exploring why these misconceptions persist—often because they feel intuitive, sound compassionate, or have worked once despite being outdated—the material emphasizes that scientific literacy is just as important for teachers as understanding neuroscience itself. The guide structures its approach into three distinct sections designed to foster deeper professional reflection and discussion within school teams. The first section invites educators to analyze ten specific myths by examining the available evidence, key research findings, and practical implications without simply providing answers upfront. This interactive method encourages staff development sessions where colleagues can debate claims together. Following this analysis, a second section utilizes a "traffic light" self-evaluation tool inspired by Department for Education publications, allowing schools to assess their current practices against these myths on a spectrum from left to right. These activities are intended to spark meaningful conversations during meetings and help institutions identify areas where traditional intuition may conflict with scientific fact. To ensure the information translates into practical classroom action, the final section provides tangible templates and resources for various stakeholders including staff, parents, and students. Educators can use these tools to create displays, run workshops, or implement misconception checks that promote factual accuracy regarding learning science. The resource also includes scorecards, blank templates for customization, reflection questions for continuous professional development (CPD), and a curated list of research portals for ongoing verification of claims. Ultimately, this comprehensive toolkit serves as both an educational update on neuromyths and a strategic plan for school leaders to integrate evidence-based strategies into their daily teaching contexts while maintaining the ability to verify information independently.

Read the full video transcript

Hello everyone, Ross here at Teacher Toolkit. Welcome to this month's membership resource. This is published in August 2026 and is inspired by chapter three in my new book, the Teacher Toolkit Guide to the Science of Learning. Quite a mouthful, but the science of learning, so think brain, think retrieval practice, think working memory, cognitive load, and also neuromyths. So, this title is about prevailing education myths. I think learning styles, for example. And what I do in the book is explore one of the biggest challenges facing teachers today, separating evidence from assumptions. And as teachers, we're constantly surrounded by advice, social media posts, commercial podcasts, conference presentations, keynote speaker, uh I was going to say slurs then, but phrases, bias, personal opinions, and well-meaning colleagues who have their own preferences. And some ideas might be brilliantly supported by research, whilst others are tradition, intuition, or pseudoscience. So, in this resource I've got for you here, let me just put this full size. I'm just going to move my camera out of the way. I'm fiddling here on two screens. Um So, three chapters inside. And as teachers, you know, we're constantly surrounded by lots of different things. So, I wanted to dispel some myths. It isn't about catching people out. It's about helping us as teachers in the schools ask better questions about what is available. So, in the first section, understanding the myths, rather than me simply telling you whether each statement's true or false, I want you to do it for yourself. So, there's some introductions. The video will be there once I've recorded this. And in the first section, we'll have uh you know, why do these neuromyths survive? So, let me bring myself back on. Let me pop out the slides. And then what I've got for you here is I've got 10 different prevailing myths. So, here's the first one as an example. Is it possible to multitask? So, I'm trying to read the screen, talk to you live, watch my camera on two screens. You know, am I multitasking or am I really good or quick at switching between these tasks? So, what you have just as this one example, and I won't go through them all for the video because I don't want to to ruin this publicly for other people watching, is I give you an answer. I quote the evidence at the back of the slide that you've got links to the actual evidence sources. I've given you an explanation here as to why it is a myth. Let me again move myself out of the way. And then a discussion that you could have back at school. So, for each of these claims, there are 10 uh all down the left-hand side here. I don't want to show you them all. You'll find the statement, a short summary of the available evidence, key research findings, references at the back of the slide deck, why the myth continues to survive, and then your practical classroom discussions and impli- implications, I should say. And one feature I'm particularly pleased with is the why does it survive because as teachers we're often interested in So, I've given you, just to show you one example, this little slide here, why that myth survives. Why is it so convincing? And as teachers we're often interested in whether something is true or false. So, I'm equally interested in this too, what you know, as as intelligent professionals, we continue to believe in ideas that might have been questioned for years. Usually it's because the idea feels intuitive, it sounds compassionate, or it worked once, but it might be outdated. So, that's why scientific literacy matters just as much as the neuroscience. Now, in idea two, I'm going to skip all these. At the back of every section, you have a key discussion question here as an example that you can talk about in meetings, in staff development sessions. In section two, we look at facts or myths. So, this is a bit more interactive, and rather than just reading the evidence first, invite colleagues, whole staff, maybe students to complete a quiz, and decide whether each statement is a fact or myth or somewhere in between. So, um I won't go through I won't I won't show them all here, but you've got a great traffic light resource here. Let me just put this full size and move myself out of the way. Now, this is a great document inspired by a publication from the Department for Education. So, I guess what you need to do here is where is your or department or school current practice? Are you left, middle, or right? So, go through each of these rows and kind of self self-evaluate yourself. And I guess the conversation started uh right, you know, and what we will have on the next slide is the myths. Here's the myths chart. So, I'm going to move away from that really quickly. Now, on the next slide, which I won't show you, is where I've placed my hat in terms of the slides. So, um I'm going to move on to idea three uh without showing you the answers here, cuz I I don't want to ruin that for people looking at the resource. Again, you've got a a question here to discuss in your teams. Idea three, again, where it gets a bit more practical, things that you can use uh in your teams or personally. So, this final section is about making it pragmatic. So, inside, I've given you some templates, classroom resources that you can use for staff classroom displays, parent workshops, student workshops, those kind of things. Let me show you an example. Let me put this full size, my self out of the way. So, in this one, we're just looking at a specific neuromyth. So, for example, learning styles, and then you might populate this resource. So, there is an example. Here it is. Now, I've just filled this right ones in here uh generically, but maybe look at a specific neuromyth, and then complete this in your teams. And again, work through these one at a time. I've also given you a scorecard that you can look at here, and a blank template for you to play around with. And there are many other things in there, too. Uh one that you can use with parents and with students is this misconceptions check here, uh where you can start to tackle or promote uh neuromyths, and make sure that people are factually accurate. So, that's the main resource. And as ever, um there are uh There's a summary slide from here. There are some reflection questions that you can discuss in your own staff CPD sessions. Let me just put these all for you here, so you can see the full slide deck. And while you're working through these, I'd recommend, you know, obviously complete the quiz first, return to the evidence. Then you've got these questions for discussion, and a whole set of references that I'd recommend that I used to read for myself to upskill my knowledge, but also some good research portals that you can come to time and time again to ensure that you've got these places to have to to to kind of hand, so they can always check any claims being made. Um other than that, as ever, the very back end, how would I I this whole slide deck as a CPD resource. Um this is my 5-minute professional development plan for school leaders watching and wanting to translate the whole slide deck into your own context. Um one slide that I've not added is the implementation plan, so that's going to be added in after the video, so you've got that all there. Other than that, that is a new resource for you to have a look at to upskill your neuromyth knowledge. I hope you find it interesting, provocative, and as ever, if you've got any feedback, anything that I've missed, then I would be very uh interested to hear from you. Other than that, thanks for using the website. Bye for now.