Applying Research on the Brain to Learning

How smart is it really to apply brain research to learning?

For many years, I’ve had a fascination with understanding how the brain works, and using that knowledge to create better educational and training experiences for learners.   For this blog post, I decided to explore the other side of my bias and see what criticisms existed related to applying brain-based research to learning.

The New Horizon’s web-site offers some very thoughtful articles on the linkages between brain-based research and learning.  I particularly found value in an article by Dee Dickson where she poses a number of questions that she feels educators should be asking neuroscientists around how to apply their research to education.  She argues that historically, educators have used neuroscience as a way to support existing methodology and to create cases for approaches that they would like to use vs. actually using findings in meaningful and appropriate ways.

I also appreciated the editorial by Elsbeth Stern in Science Magazine titled “Pedagogy meets Neuroscience”.  Stern illustrates in this article that research in neuroscience can (and is) taken out of context when applied to learning – with only the portions of the research that “support” a learning methodology used.  She uses the example of the research findings on rapid synaptic development that occur early in life which has been used to create a case for teaching infants vocabularies and broad based facts with audiovisual materials.  She accurately points out that it is not clear whether there is a long-term benefit to infants learning so much un-related material early in life, and whether or not these children ultimately perform better than their peers.  In Canada, our educational priorities have shifted radically towards early years programs as a result of this same research.  Unfortunately, this focus on the first five years has been at the expense of programs for the remaining 60+ years of a person’s life. 

So, while I still whole-heartedly believe that understanding how the brain works can help us create better training and educational experience, I do also appreciate the danger of educators and educational policy makers relying only on brain-based research to make changes to current systems.  My hope is that as we move forward with further advances in neuroscience, that greater cross-over between the disciplines of learning and neuroscience occur.

References:

Retrieved from the New Horizon’s website:  http://www.newhorizons.org/neuro/front_neuro.html

Stern, Elsbeth. "Pedagogy meets neuroscience." Science 210.5749 (2005): 745. Expanded Academic ASAP.