Introduction to educational neuroscience

Course goals

The course will introduce students to the field of educational neuroscience, its main research methods, its findings, and its implications. An aim of the course is to make student hands-on familiar with neuroscience research methods and experimental research designs. The course includes a work assignment in the form of the design and pilot testing of an experimental neuroscience study in our own lab. The work assignment is continued in EdSci 6 (actually conducting the experimental study) and expected to result in a research paper. Students who opt for a clinical degree will use the assignment for a study with a clinical case or in a clinical population under supervision of a licensed clinical teacher, using neuroscience diagnostic tools and theory and models of cognitive and affective neuroscience as an interpretative frame.

Content

The course aims to introduce students to the emerging field of educational neuroscience, its main research methods, its findings, and its implications. Starting with a brief introduction into the biology of the brain and the massive neural reuse hypothesis, the course focuses on the role of the brain’s mirroring systems, perception-action embodiment and statistical learning mechanisms, which are then applied to current issues in research on working memory and executive functions, language learning, bilingualism, literacy, mathematics, self-regulated learning and affective processes in learning. In the classes on these topics, students are challenged to connect the scientific insights and debates to learning and teaching in the real contexts of the family and the classroom. An important aim of the course is to make students familiar with neuroscience research methods and experimental research designs. About half of the course, therefore, is spent on a hands-on research assignment. The research assignment of EdSci02 is continued in EdSci06 and requires students to conduct a full (quasi-)experimental eye tracking study on individual differences in cognition and learning, using theoretical concepts, measures and procedures from educational neuroscience, with a focus on individual differences. In EdSci02 the study is designed and pilot-tested and a paper is written (introduction, methods and pilot results). The study is completed (i.e., data collected and analysed, results and discussion sections written) in EdSci06. For students who opt for the clinical track, the research assignment in EdSci02 consists of diagnosing a clinical case under supervision of a licensed clinical teacher, possibly using eye-tracking as additional diagnostic tool, and writing a report on this case.