Edited by: Michael Thomas, Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom
Reviewed by: Stylianos Mystakidis, Hellenic Open University, Greece
Liping Li, Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, China
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If the parent of one of your students asked you to explain what was going on in the head of their child, what would you say? You may panic and sputter something about “left brain—right brain” learning, or that a brain that is fed good nutrition is a brain that can learn, or maybe that most people only use 10% of their brain (a neuro-myth, by the way). If you are like me, when I was a classroom teacher, you would not be able to say much about the brain functioning of your students.
Though teachers are master observers who strive to create strong student–teacher relationships, behavioral observations only tell us so much. You might say, well, I can also do some standardized testing to figure out a bit more about how the child is processing information in their brain. That, too, only gets us so far. We need to go deeper, and yet, educators are reluctant to step up to the neuroscience plate. As Amen (
Teacher training programs do not typically address the brain. Even educational psychology courses fail to adequately discuss the brain and how it relates to affect, body states, and self-regulation. However, many provincial curricula specifically talk about self-regulation to adjust brain and body states. For example, in one province in Canada, British Columbia, the curriculum aims for students to develop “healthy personal practices” and “understand that physical, emotional, and mental health are interconnected” (Physical and Health Education K-10 -Big Ideas Grade K-1,
Some, such as Dr. Stephen Campbell, founder of the ENGRAMMETRON: Educational Neuroscience Laboratory at Simon Fraser University in Canada, would contend that it is essential for teachers to learn about neuroscience and the brain to maintain agency within education (Campbell,
At the very least, teacher training programs must include educational neuroscience in their curriculum. If teachers are better informed about the brain/body/behavior connection, they are less likely to believe neuromyths (Dekker et al.,
Another solution to the “bridge too far” common in interdisciplinary collaborations is to embed scientists in schools, jointly researching how neuroscience informs the learning and teaching process. One example of collaboration between educational neuroscientists and teachers is the Synapse School in California, which is connected to Stanford University's Educational Neuroscience Initiative. They created the Brainwave Learning Center within the school, and their educational neuroscientists play an integral role in the day-to-day functioning (White,
However, even if you do not have educational neuroscientists in your school, there are many other reasons to stand up and pay attention to the brain.
Science and education have come a long way from “right-brain, left-brain”. Every day, teachers are changing the brains of their students, and, at present, we have the technology to see how pedagogical choices impact the brain in different ways (Brult Foisy et al.,
Yet another application of neuroscience in education could be to measure brain health throughout a child's education, and in particular, if students are involved in physically demanding contact sports. Using EEGs, we could measure brain health in our student athletes at the beginning and end of each sport season, which is vitally important should they sustain any head injuries (Thanjavur et al.,
There are many realities that our students encounter, including digital technology. Numerous devices are available that can alter brain activity, such as the Muse (Science | MuseTM EEG-Powered Meditation and Sleep Headband, n.d.), which teaches the user to calm the brain and body, or more radically, a brain chip to implant memories (Hern,
As we plunge into this new reality, we are right to be cautious. Indeed, there are numerous ethical issues to consider. One of these issues relates to the use and security of the biometric brain data collected (Guidelines for Practice | ISNR | Neurofeedback Training and Research, n.d.). Another issue is using technology as an intervention, and there is a need to research the long-term impacts of devices such as the Muse, a neurofeedback device (Thibault et al.,
My challenge to you, as educators, is to learn as much as you can about the brain now, despite a potentially steep learning curve. This can be done by enrolling in a course in educational neuroscience, reading peer-reviewed journals, or finding out more about the work of neurotherapists and how they can complement the teaching and learning process. We can no longer ignore what is going on inside the heads of our students, and more importantly, we have the technology to do it!
KC: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
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