Teachers learning to apply neuroscience to classroom instruction: case of professional development in British Columbia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Little is known about the integration of current neuroscience knowledge to classroom teaching, although many teachers rely on neuromyths to shape their pedagogies. Through a professional development approach, the learning study, we explored how teachers learned to apply neuroscience to teaching instruction. The teachers collaborated to design, enact and evaluate neuroscience-framed lessons as part of classroom research. Theories relating to neural plasticity, including the neural network hypothesis for memory and learning, hierarchical relational binding theory, and attention and awareness acted as the theoretical frame for the study. Borrowing phenomenographic methods, we drew on a variety of data sources to construct categories describing the teachers’ engagement with neuroscience. Findings highlighted the pivotal role analogies played in the teachers’ interpretation of neuroscience content and its application. Through the analogies of the ‘rose’, ‘butcher on the bus’, ‘deepening the trenches’, and ‘walking the pathway’, we illustrated how teacher learning manifested as the teachers’ deepened understandings of knowledge construction, moving away from didactic forms of instruction and increasing the use of multiple modalities, and creating coherent student learning experiences. Findings suggest how neuroscience holds the potential to support teachers’ development of theoretical coherence in their understandings of learning and pedagogy. Implications are discussed.