For 20 years, I have been advocating for integrated learning interventions that combine traditional learning (e.g. mathematics, reading, engineering, science, etc.) with what I call meta-learning (e.g. cognitive, emotional, social, creative, and metacognitive factors). Back in 2008 I founded Augniscient, an edtech startup using Ai to “end high-stakes testing” by measuring individual student growth directly from learning experiences. I loved what we built 20 years ago (even if no one truly wanted such a radical change), but the more I learned about learning, the more I understood that traditional learning was only part of the story…and not even the largest part. Our research showed that the biggest factors in the longer-term life outcomes of little kids weren’t algebra skills or or science facts—the biggest factors were the foundational cognitive, emotional, and social “traits” that build a person.

I called the collection of these traits meta-learning, the factors that serve our ability to learn how to learn. Around those same years a growing body of research (including my own as chief scientist of Gild) showing these same factors predicting life and career outcomes in adults. Two of the best used UK Biobank data: “Life skills, wealth, health, and wellbeing in later life” and “Leading a meaningful life at older ages and its relationship with social engagement, prosperity, health, biology, and time use”. This body of literature agreed that success in traditional learning is more a result of meta-learning than its own path to an amazing life.

So, do we ignore traditional learning? Absolutely not. In fact the development of meta-learning is best achieved by integrating it into traditional learning (though “traditional” learning also needs an active, collaborative, applied facelift). Traditional learning is the carrier; meta-learning is the signal. Together they are stronger than either alone.

I call this approach holistic learning interventions. One might might integrate a semester-long resilience intervention into science pedagogy. Another integrates working memory development into grade-level reading and writing lessons. In this week's Mad Science Solves… newsletter we’ll review a paper that finds that one holistic learning intervention produces better traditional learning as well as greater integration of the meta-learning and transitional material. We’ll also look at a powerful new analysis showing how foundational meta-learning is in unlocking hard skills, as well as how life experiences, good and bad, lay foundations for meta-learning…or erode them to ruins.

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Research Roundup

“Holistic Learning Interventions”

Education and talent leaders: you should integrate traditional learning experiences together with meta-learning (resilience, perspective taking, self-assessment, and more). I call these “holistic learning interventions” and research shows that they improve outcomes more than either alone.

A new study developed “an integrated [executive function] and mathematics intervention” which was applied to “193 four-year-olds”. The kids that received the holistic learning intervention “improved more than the control group in overall numeracy” and they “showed greater interconnectedness” between executive function and math by generalizing their improved control to new math experiences.

Unsurprisingly, “disadvantaged children” showed “greater gains” as they started with a lower foundation in meta-learning and executive function in particular. Without taking time away from traditional learning, holistic learning interventions give us a generation ready for a future where facts are free but creativity is priceless.

Skills Like White Elephants

Despite the beliefs of many policy makers and parents, elite skills don’t earn elite wages. They are only valuable when built atop a foundation of meta-learning.

An analysis of 70 million job transitions reveals how “specific skills and knowledge are often built upon broader, fundamental ones”. Importantly, “human capital development and career progression [following] this structured pathway” require more education but earn higher wages and are more robot-proof.

While meta-learning has likely always been crucial to unlocking the value of specialized skills, the “nested structure has become even more pronounced over the past two decades”.

Being robot-proof means being human first.

This Is Your Brain on Life

I’ve been writing about how foundational (meta-learning) factors unleash more traditional skills in education and career. Now it’s time to understand how everyday life lays this foundation…for good and bad.

Family and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) affects brain development and, consequently, on cognitive function, personality, and emotional well-being. New research reveals associations between improved family SES and the connectivity and volume of medial prefrontal cortex, which in turn increases cognitive function and ”openness to experience”. Positive early life experiences shape the very architecture of our brains, influencing our cognitive abilities and our disposition towards novelty and exploration.

In contrast, early adverse experiences, both in the family and broader neighborhood, were linked to increased neuroticism and anxiety, while simultaneously decreasing agreeableness, conscientiousness, and perspective-taking. The very factors necessary for an amazing life (and a productive neighbor)—embracing new ideas and experiences—are lost before those lives can even get started.

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SciFi, Fantasy, & Me

I just finished The Spear Cuts Through Water. I was absolutely taken with its highly stylized prose and unconventional structure, and the core story, a classic quest narrative infused with Filipino folklore, was evocative, both visually and emotionally. As an audiobook, however, the dense, poetic language and frequent shifts in perspective created distance between the story and me, making it difficult to fully lose myself in its world. I definitely recommend it—unique texts always deserve our celebration—but wait until it can have your full attention.

Stage & Screen

• I had an amazing global double-header LinkedIn last week were we talk about...everything!
• March 21, Diablo Valley: I'm talking entrepreneurship right in my own backyard.
• March 27, Lawrence Berkeley Labs: Scientific innovation and the value of thinking differently.
• May 7, Chicago: Innovation, Collective Intelligence, and the Information-Exploration Paradox
• May 8, Porto: Talking about entrepreneurship at the SIM conference in Portugal
• May 14, London: it time for my semi-annual lecture at UCL.
• June 12, SF: Golden Angels
• June 9, Philadelphia: "How to Robot-Proof Your Kids"
• June 18, Cannes: Cannes Lyons
• Late June, South Africa: Finally I can return. Are you in SA? Book me!
• October, UK: More med school education

If your company, university, or conference just happen to be in one of the above locations and want the "best keynote I've ever heard" (shockingly spoken by multiple audiences last year)?

Vivienne L'Ecuyer Ming