Educational Neuroscience Research Articles

Activating the child’s own natural desire to learn: Using neuroscience as a way to understand key issues in early childhood development and education

Brains are built over time, and the foundations of brain architecture are constructed early in life (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016, p. 7). Therefore, the experiences a human being encounters during the first years of their life affect how the brain will develop. Furthermore, this means that aspects of the brain may be reinforced whilst others may be pared down. This evidences the importance of focusing on the educational journey offered to our youngest learners in schools. The introduction of a different approach to a philosophy of education revolving around inquiry-based learning through an emergent curriculum in Malta (MEDE, 2015) has allowed educators to tap into a child-centred pedagogy which allows the development of skills, knowledge, and understanding through active learning. This necessitates, however, an understanding of how learning occurs. The Universal Design for Learning framework may assist in this paradigm, as it provides a neuroscientific and psychological background to the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of learning (Meyer et al., 2014). The narrative inquiry in this research paper will outline the salient links between the science of learning and the creation of a meaningful learning journey, by acquiring and sharing the experiences of a kindergarten educator as a research participant implementing the emergent curriculum, and interviews with two key professionals in the area, linking educational neuroscience to flexible learning environments.

The Neuroscience of Emotions and the Role Emotions Play in Learning

The relationship between emotions and learning has always been of great interest in the field of educational neuroscience. Advancements in brain imaging techniques have given us better understanding on the role these affective components have in various cognitive processes including memory, attention, decision-making and social functioning (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007). As educators and researchers in the field of educational neuroscience, our main objective in this paper is to bridge the gap between education and neuroscience. Applying scientific research to the classroom is not a straightforward process (Shearer, 2020; Howard-Jones, 2014). However, we believe that educators can benefit a lot when exposed to scientific research in order to base their classroom practice on solid grounds. Additionally, educators have a lot to offer from their first-hand experience in schools, especially when it comes to the role of emotions in teaching and learning. A meta-analysis of current research in the field will be presented to highlight the important role of emotions in learning. By understanding this role, we aim to inform and transform educational practices in the local scenario and beyond.

Transfer from spatial education to verbal reasoning and prediction of transfer from learning-related neural change.

Current debate surrounds the promise of neuroscience for education, including whether learning-related neural changes can predict learning transfer better than traditional performance-based learning assessments. Longstanding debate in philosophy and psychology concerns the proposition that spatial processes underlie seemingly nonspatial/verbal reasoning (mental model theory). If so, education that fosters spatial cognition might improve verbal reasoning. Here, in a quasi-experimental design in real-world STEM classrooms, a curriculum devised to foster spatial cognition yielded transfer to improved verbal reasoning. Further indicating a spatial basis for verbal transfer, students’ spatial cognition gains predicted and mediated their reasoning improvement. Longitudinal fMRI detected learning-related changes in neural activity, connectivity, and representational similarity in spatial cognition–implicated regions. Neural changes predicted and mediated learning transfer. Ensemble modeling demonstrated better prediction of transfer from neural change than from traditional measures (tests and grades). Results support in-school “spatial education” and suggest that neural change can inform future development of transferable curricula.

A Place for Neuroscience in Teacher Knowledge and Education

ABSTRACTThe foundational contributions from neuroscience regarding how learning occurs in the brain reside within one of Shulman's seven components of teacher knowledge, Knowledge of Students. While Knowledge of Students combines inputs from multiple social science disciplines that traditionally inform teacher education, teachers must also (and increasingly) know what happens inside students' brains. Neuroscience professional development provides neuroscience principles that teachers can learn and apply to distinguish among pedagogical choices, plan lessons, guide in‐the‐moment classroom decisions, and inform the views of students. Neuroscience does not directly invent new pedagogies. Rather, knowledge of neuroscience guides teachers in choosing appropriate pedagogies, pragmatically informing teaching. By providing physiological explanations for psychological phenomena relevant to education, teachers benefit from neuroscience content in their training and professional development.

The education context for twice-exceptional students: An overview of issues in special and gifted education

Twice-exceptional children (2e) identified as having a disability and areas of high ability require a diverse range of support and enrichment services. However, services associated with special education and gifted programs present numerous barriers to the appropriate education of 2e students. In this manuscript, the author briefly recounts his experiences as a 2e child and shares experiences of 2e students and their families presented at the 2021 Summit on the Neuroscience of Twice Exceptionality. Challenges associated with the provision of special and gifted education to 2e students are also described. The role of neuroscience in education, as it relates to 2e students, is also discussed. Although many of the barriers to effective education for 2e children are systemic in nature, school-level reforms, as well as scientific advances, have the potential to improve services for this population.

Socioeconomic status and reading outcomes: Neurobiological and behavioral correlates.

In this chapter, we examine reading outcomes and socioeconomic status (SES) using a developmental cognitive and educational neuroscience perspective. Our focus is on reading achievement and intervention outcomes for students from lower SES backgrounds who struggle with reading. Socioeconomic disadvantage is a specific type of vulnerability students experience, which is often narrowly defined based on parental income, education level, and/or occupational prestige. However, implications of socioeconomic status extend broadly to a suite of areas relevant for reading outcomes including a student's access to resources, experiences, language exposure, academic outcomes, and psychological correlates. Underlying this constellation of factors are brain systems supporting the processing of oral and written language as well as stress-related factors. We review the implications of SES and reading achievement, and their intersectionality, for the science and practice of reading instruction.

The Effect of Design-Based Learning Integrated with Educational Neuroscience Instructional Model on Students’ Learning Outcomes, Executive Functions, and Learning Stress

The investigation examined the consequences of design-based learning integrated with the educational neuroscience instructional model (DEN) and conventional instructional model (CIM) for tenth-grade students’ learning outcomes, executive function, and learning stress. Since the physics curriculum is planned to prepare students for discovering complex scientific concepts through real-life experience, the use of the DEN model is necessary to measure its efficiency. The cluster random sampling method was used to select 63 out of 494 tenth-grade students from Numsomphittayakhon School, Thailand. The researcher administered seven tests and employed the pre-test and post-test control group research design. The experimental and control groups were taught using DEN and CIM, respectively. The data were analyzed by repeated measures of multivariate analysis of variance to study the consequences of both instructional models. The results indicated that students from both groups seemed to demonstrate no significant difference in all the pre-tests on the dependent variables before the treatment with the instructional models. However, MANOVA analysis discovered that the experimental group’s physics learning outcomes and executive functions were better than the control group. Moreover, students from the experimental group seemed to have a lower learning stress level than those from the control group. The results have successfully contributed to contemporary awareness of the efficiency of the DEN model to promote student learning outcomes and executive functions and reduce students’ learning stress. Conventional instructional model, educational neuroscience instructional model, executive functions, learning outcomes, learning stress

Innovative Approach to Assist Architecture Teachers in Choosing Practical Sessions

This article presents the first results of the project Architecture 360, which focuses on learning alternatives for developing working skills in higher education courses, and specifically construction competences for architecture students. The project aims to help teachers to choose the best learning solutions for their classes from numerous alternatives of strategies, dynamics and activities. The assistance is based on developing a new approach that combines several methods (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT); multi-criteria decision-making; Delphi; and the Knapsack problem) and draws from teachers’ experience, a panel of experts’ expertise, the revised Bloom Taxonomy and neuroscience for education. The new approach to assisting university teachers in choosing the best practical learning alternatives was successfully developed and validated for the case study of a course at Barcelona Architecture School. In general, the approach defined the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of 26 learning alternatives. In the case study, the following optimized set of alternatives were identified: blended learning, challenge-based learning, reflective learning, videos of real cases, case studies, site visits, interactive simulation and gamification. Moreover, 23 activities were analysed. It was concluded, for instance, that active alternatives would improve implementation, including teachers’ available teaching materials and dedication outside class.

Educational Neuroscience: Issues and Challenges

Learning is a process that causes neurophysiological changes in the brain because of electrochemical reactions. Therefore, it is crucial to considering the knowledge of the system through which the human brain operates for effective instructional design and skill development. Moreover, people actively use knowledge from different disciplines when designing teaching processes and determining pedagogical strategies. In this context, using findings from neuroscience studies for the design of teaching processes will provide information to all fields related to teaching—from creating course content to designing materials, identifying possible problems for individuals with learning difficulties, and suggesting solutions for them. In addition, this will make it possible to improve the learning performance of children with special needs who have learning difficulties as per the information obtained from the aforementioned neuroscience studies. The literature evinces an increase in the effects of these studies on the field of education. In this context, researchers attempt to integrate the information obtained from national and international studies into the field of education and determine new principles regarding instructional designs by considering existing pedagogical concepts in line with new information. Despite ontological differences between neurosciences that examine the brain dynamics at the biological, molecular, and systemic level, as well as educational sciences that aim to establish pedagogical strategies, it is unlikely to think that the ontological differences between these two disciplines would complicate the interdisciplinary cooperation. Understanding the structure of the neural system in which the learning and teaching procedures occur is of critical importance in terms of planning the teaching processes that cause neurophysiological changes therein. Thus, the findings of educational neuroscience studies that bring together the two varying fields at all stages of learning–teaching procedures should be carefully examined.

Impact of Educational Neuroscience Teacher Professional Development: Perceptions of School Personnel

There has been an increased focus on the importance of educational cognitive neuroscience for teachers, yet the research on the outcomes of teacher training in this area are minimal. We created and implemented an Educational Neuroscience professional development (PD) delivered throughout the 2020–2021 school year. This study was co-designed between researchers and school district partners. Participants were school personnel from a high school in Western Canada consisting of approximately 1,400 students and 75 teachers. All participants in the PD, including teachers and school staff, were invited to participate in interviews about their experiences during the PD. Seven in-depth structured interviews were performed to understand participants’ experiences, their perceptions of the value of educational neuroscience, and how the PD impacted their teaching practice. Through inductive coding and thematic analysis, we found that the PD had a positive impact on participants and their students. The sessions primarily increased participants’ knowledge of neuroscience concepts and provided them with practical and useful applications that they were able to employ in their classrooms in areas related to lesson planning, assessment, and student engagement. Participants described the remarkable impact that increased neuroscience knowledge had on their relationships with students and on students’ own understandings of neuroscience concepts. Overall, these findings provide further evidence on the significance of infusing educational neuroscience in teacher PD and highlight the importance of collaborative programs between researchers and educators to bridge the research to practice gap.

Teaching Informatics to Adults of Vocational Schools during the Pandemic: Students’ Views and the Role of Neuroeducation

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an extremely significant impact on the educational process. The need to continue the educational practice, albeit the restrictions imposed in movement, led to a change in the way students participate and learn, as well as in the way educators teach and communicate. The aim of the present research study was to record the perspectives and views of adult students of evening upper secondary schools of the informatics sector, in relation to the challenges, experiences and learning involvement in the online courses. The study was conducted using a questionnaire with open-ended questions given to all students of an evening vocational upper secondary school in a semi-urban island region. The findings show that the way students are taught, the distractions and responsibilities of the students as well as their feelings concerning the pandemic, were the major challenges they faced. Those challenges affected both their involvement and learning experiences from the educational process. Finally, it seems that the low interaction among students and educators, the technical difficulties, and the lack of a structured learning framework have had an impact on the effectiveness of online education, according to educational neuroscience principles.

Methodological Approaches and Considerations for Generating Evidence that Informs the Science of Learning

Educational neuroscience is field with the goal of applying what we know about the brain to improve education through improvements to teaching, learning, assessment, and curricular design. Applying neuroimaging and biometric methodology can help inform this field by understanding the mechanisms underlying a learner’s behaviours and cognitive processing. Advantages of these approaches include the ability to measure more acute or subtle changes that are not always indexed by overt behavioral changes. However, generating evidence that appropriately informs our understanding of the science of learning can be complex. Some of the challenges associated with traditional neuroscientific research protocols in educational research is that they have low ecological validity; neuroscientific tasks are typically short, decontextualized, and isolated while educational research tasks are lengthy, context relevant, and incorporate the complexity of the typical learning environment.I will highlight approaches we have used on our lab to overcome methodological challenges to generate evidence that informs the science of learning. Discussion will focus on four key areas. First, meaningful study design will be addressed using an example of a novice‐expert design examining visual expertise. Second, the importance of appropriately combining multiple data sources (electroencephalography and eye‐tracking) will be discussed and a tool to support data collection will be shared. Third, a data analysis strategy that addresses the problems with time variability during cognitive tasks will be explored. Finally, one of the greatest challenges is to translate findings in a way that informs educational practice. In this case, an example of an evidence‐informed application of research generated through a cycle of basic and applied research will be followed to illustrate the cycle between research and practice in educational neuroscience. Together, this series will inform practical considerations and promote a shared discussion amongst our community for the advancement of educational neurosciences in anatomy education.

The Current Trend in Educational Neuroscience Research: A Descriptive and Bibliometric Study

In the present study, 36 articles indexed in the Web of Science database were examined in order to reveal the current trend in scientific studies in the field of educational neuroscience. Therefore, the distribution of the articles was examined considering publication years, host journals, the most productive author(s), co-authorship, abstract keywords, collocated keywords, educational attainment of the samples, dependent variables, and the EEG devices used. The data were evaluated with descriptive and bibliometric analysis methods. The findings revealed that the publishing in the field gained an elevation in 2020; the papers were mostly published in Computers & Education; Mayer was the most productive author; Cheng, Lin, Yang, and Huang were those who produced the most collaborative studies in the field. In addition, it was found out that the keyword “cognitive load” was discussed more than the others; it was used with “attention” the most; studies were mostly carried out at university level; cognitive load and attention were the most examined dependent variables; the NeuroSky Mindwave was used in these articles the most. To sum, the present results have the potential to generate an overall perspective to educational neuroscience.

Researcher-practitioner partnerships and in-school laboratories facilitate translational research in reading.

Educational neuroscience approaches have helped to elucidate the brain basis of Reading Disability (RD) and of reading intervention response; however, there is often limited translation of this knowledge to the broader scientific and educational communities. Moreover, this work is traditionally lab-based, and thus the underlying theories and research questions are siloed from classroom practices. With growing awareness of the neurobiological origins of RD and increasing popularity of putative "brain-based" approaches in clinics and classrooms, it is imperative that we create more direct and bidirectional communication between scientists and practitioners. Such direct collaborations can help dispel neuromyths, and lead to increased understanding of the promises and pitfalls of neuroscience approaches. Moreover, direct partnerships between researchers and practitioners can lead to greater ecological validity in study designs to improve upon the translational potential of findings. To this end, we have forged collaborative partnerships, and built cognitive neuroscience laboratories within independent reading disabilities schools. This approach affords frequent and ecologically valid neurobiological assessment as children's reading improves in response to intervention. It also permits the creation of dynamic models of leading and lagging relationships of students' learning, and identification of individual-level predictors of intervention response. The partnerships also provide in-depth knowledge of student characteristics and classroom practices, which, when combined with the data we acquire, may facilitate optimization of instructional approaches. In this commentary, we discuss the creation of our partnerships, the scientific problem we are addressing (variable response to reading intervention), and the epistemological significance of researcher-practitioner bi-directional learning.

Influences and Implications of Affective Neuroscience in Children's Learning and Education

Recent research of affective neuroscience has shown that human emotion derives from neural network and system. How individuals feel, express and moderate emotions are grounded by affective neuroscience. However, the influences of affective neuroscience and emotions are usually neglected by educators in children education. Based on the brain as a platform, emotion is tightly associated with attention, motivation and cognition, influencing children's learning process. Emotion involves in the process of evaluating, reasoning and analyzing, which means different emotions used in learning may result in different performance. Thus, educators should focus more on the function of emotion in children education. Besides, "emotional thinking" can help educators understand that emotional and cognitive factors are interwoven, which interplay on learning. Therefore, affective neuroscience helps teachers and parents better understand the way in children's learning and cognitive process.

The Teaching Brain: Beyond the Science of Teaching and Educational Neuroscience.

OPINION article Front. Psychol., 08 March 2022Sec.Educational Psychology https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.823832

Dual-modes of creative thought in the classroom: Implications of network neuroscience for creativity education.

Dual-modes of creative thought in the classroom: Implications of network neuroscience for creativity education.

Project Introduction Supporting Materials (PRISM): Transforming Students’ Perceptions Towards Learning Chemistry

It is well known by educators that innovative pedagogical strategies will prompt students to learn better. If students’ learning is well supported by teachers, they will be able to have better perceptions on learning even towards difficult subjects like Chemistry. Project Introduction Supporting Materials (PRISM) was designed to transform students’ perceptions towards learning Chemistry. It was an action research project and grounded theory analysis was applied to investigate the effects of PRISM. It was inspired and built upon research findings in the field of educational neuroscience. At the end of the action research project, the PRISM Group students experienced a transformation in their perceptions towards learning Chemistry. A grounded theory approach was utilised to investigate the effectiveness of PRISM. From the qualitative analysis, three (3) categories emerged – (i). positive academic emotions; (ii). learning responsibility; and (iii). Connectedness. The approach administered the triangulation technique in order to ensure the credibility and validity of the qualitative data.

Neuroscience and Education

Educational neuroscience is a research field that seeks to translate research findings on neural mechanisms of learning to educational practice and policy and to understand the effects of education on the brain. The article looks at the systematic application of the new neuro-didactic principles as a guarantee for a successful and motivated classroom.

Retracted] Digital Effectiveness in Video Conference Methods on Internet Learning Environments of Higher Education

Information and communication technologies, especially modern transmission technologies, for instance, teleconferencing, widely known, provide premium educational and pedagogical opportunities, contributing significantly to the implementation of a collaborative learning environment. That the utilization of video conferencing differs significantly from conventional teaching should be emphasized in a way of leading adaptation to the requirements of the educational environment. In general, the digital efficiency of teleconferencing methods needs to be investigated as a very important factor when it is implemented effectively in online learning environments under the title of modern higher education. This paper has aimed at investigating the ways of effective utilization of video conferencing in an online learning environment and presents a case study following the principles of educational neuroscience and distance education that are related to appropriate utilization of available digital technologies to function as educational and learning means to promote the usage in the framework of higher education.