The Brain Made Plain

One of the reasons I started doing The Brain Made Plain was for the undergraduate Cognitive Neuroscience class I teach. I stopped using a textbook a few years ago for various reasons and now the readings are all primary research articles.

(As somewhat of a side note, a major factor in my move to primary research articles was discovering Perusall, a website that supports collaborative reading of PDF files - that is, students can comment on the file, and Perusall assigns a grade for each reading based on overall engagement, which removed the need to develop quizzes or other incentives to ensure reading happened. It has been a game-changer.)

There were really two areas I wanted to improve my classroom teaching. The first was that I did not always give enough specific background for the primary research articles, and as a result, students (many of whom had little or no prior experience reading primary research articles) would sometimes get lost. The second was that many of the students are considering careers in research, and I wanted to expose them to scientists besides myself who study a variety of topics. Thus was born the idea of having a podcast where scientists talked about their work, generally, and also a specific research paper (which could be a paper we read in class).

I encourage students to use a Podcast app (like Overcast, or whatever is built-in to their phone) to download and listen to the podcasts, because one of my hopes is that they can listen to the podcast episodes while going for a walk and aren't tied to their computer.

Although it doesn't always work out this way, I generally plan on having at least portions of two assignments devoted to a topic. Let's say we are discussing Grahn and Brett (2007) which investigates the neuroscience of music (specifically, rhythm and beat perception in the brain). Here are two ways to structure class:

One class / two assignment version

• Before class: listen to Jessica Grahn's episode of The Brain Made Plain
• In class: cover music neuroscience generally, small group discussion, and anaswer questions that came up based on the podcast
• After class (before the next class) read Grahn and Brett (2007) on Perusall
• (The next class would be a great time for a quiz on the topic)

Two class / two assignment version

• Before class 1: listen to Jessica Grahn's episode of The Brain Made Plain
• Class 1: Cover music neuroscience generally, small group discussion on topics that will come up in the podcast (for example, music in nonhuman animals, or individual differences in music ability), anatomy of key systems (auditory cortex, motor cortex, basal ganglia)
• After Class 1: Read Grahn and Brett (2007) on Perusall
• Class 2: Small group discussion of Grahn and Brett (2007), answering any questions about the reading or podcast, and other music topics beyond rhythm and beat.
• (The next class would be a great time for a quiz on the topic)