Professor Curtis Kelly

 Kansai University, Faculty of Commerce, Professor

Mind Brain & Education

Teacher, speaker and writer, Curtis Kelly (EdD), is a Professor of English at Kansai University in Japan. He has spent most of his life developing learner-centered methods and materials for English learners, especially those with low confidence, low ability and low motivation. He believes learners should be pulled into English study rather than pushed. He has made over 330 presentations and written 29 books, including Active Skills for Communication (Cengage), Writing from Within (Cambridge), and Significant Scribbles (Longman).
Address: 3-6 Higashi Hana Ike-cho, Koyama, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8144 Japan

The Hidden Tool of Learning: The Social Brain

Curtis Kelly

Kansai University

Abstract:

Through FMRI research, Matthew Lieberman discovered a large network in our brain devoted to figuring out other people’s thoughts and intentions: the mentalizing network.  The social brain is also important for learning and is active anytime the working memory network, which we use for analytical thinking, is not.  Lieberman calls it our Superpower, but he also defines our Kryptonite: traditional education.  Educators tend to see the social aspect of learning as a frivolity, or ignore it altogether. For designing rich online classes, synchronous or not, the social brain has much to teach us, including why we experience “Zoom fatigue.”