We have reviewed the goals of education by approaching them from the direction of educational neuroscience; through education, we have to achieve transfer of learning in order to produce individuals who are better problem solvers and decision makers. To achieve this goal, learners will have to transform what they have learned explicitly into implicit memories and vice versa by attaching sense and meaning, ideally across multiple domain areas. Further, through education, we enhance learner consciousness and/or wisdom that give abilities to spontaneously recall retained memories readily, whenever necessary. A number of pedagogical practices that are useful in achieving the above goals are identified. When new contents are presented to learners, high-level, generalised concepts need to be emphasised; concepts are likely to penetrate through multiple domain areas and last longer in memory, thus helping learners to attach sense and meaning better. In order to reach out to multiple brain regions, inducing creativity, we need to get frontal lobes involved essentially, with an appropriate pace and form of presentation. The important task of motivating learners can be done by presenting learners with educational neuroscience facts that can be enlightening; even difficult content can be mastered by simply paying attention fully and through elaborate rehearsal; human brains have the feature of neural plasticity and neural networks can grow throughout the lifespan through effective learning. When setting assessment, we should focus on open-ended, novel and conceptual/generalised questions so that learners use their frontal lobes, engaging in a higher-order, divergent and/or inductive thinking process to provide answers.
We have identified goals of education by viewing them from the point of neuroscience; through education, we have to produce individuals who are better problem solvers and decision makers. To achieve this goal, learners will have to transform what they have learned explicitly into implicit memories and vice versa. Further, through education, we enhance learner consciousness and wisdom. A number of pedagogical practices that are useful in achieving the above goals are presented. When new contents are presented in a teaching-learning environment, high-level concepts need to be highlighted; the concepts are likely to penetrate through multiple domain areas thus helping learners to form better neural networks of knowledge. In order to reach out to multiple brain regions, we need to get the frontal lobe involved essentially and hence the pace of presentation has to be controlled appropriately; as the frontal lobe connects to many brain regions, the processing occurs relatively slowly. The important task of motivating learners can be done by presenting learners with neuroscience-based facts about learning; even difficult content can be mastered by simply paying attention elaborately; human brains have the feature of plasticity and through learning, neural networks can grow throughout the lifespan. Taking into consideration the phenomenon of binocular rivalry-human brains can concentrate only on one thing at a time fully-we should encourage learners to engage in the discussion in a teaching-learning session fully. When setting assessment, we should focus on open-ended, novel conceptual questions so that learners use their frontal lobes connecting many other regions as well.
The field of neuroscience has been evolving constantly and at a rapid pace in the recent past. Consequently, neuroscientists have put forth a wealth of knowledge in relation learning and education in general. In this context, how can we as educators benefit from the emerging evidence from neuroscience so that we can take a significant step forward in improving our pedagogical practices? We can take a deeper and reflective look at our existing pedagogical knowledge-base and engage in implementing necessary changes in such a way that we can guide our learners to reach their full potential. By reaching full potential, we mean enhancing creativity and wisdom in our day to day life operations, thus developing more empathic and content personalities devoid of psychological disorders. In the presence of emerging evidence, we can be better organised and take more educated decisions in planning our curricular, assessment and content delivery methods to achieve enhanced learning. We certainly face some challenges, especially in changing from some practices that were used widely and for a prolonged time. However, taking this courageous step forward would help us to be more sustainable in our educational systems as well as society at large. In this regard, this paper discusses some emerging neuroscience-based concepts relevant to learning and education in general, the significance of these concepts and some suggestions on how they can be incorporated in our pedagogical practices.
We can now get purposefully directed in the way we assess our learners in light of the emergence of evidence from the field of neuroscience. Why higher-order learning or abstract concepts need to be the focus in assessment is elaborated using the knowledge of semantic and episodic memories. With most of our learning identified to be implicit, why we should make use of the constructivist theory in assessing learners becomes quite evident. Why we need to deviate from setting assessment on the basis of veridical decision making and the need incline towards adaptive decision making become evident when we understand that most of our life decisions are adaptive in nature and human beings naturally possess creative instincts. When assessments are used to direct learners to use the frontal lobes, the organ of civilisation, more, the requirement of more carefully designing the timing component of assessment arises. After all, it is important to understand that enhancing learner consciousness and wisdom is key when we understand the prime goal of education is to enhance human development of learners so as to enable them to be better problem solvers.
Authentic learning is conceptualised as anindividualised experience learners undergo fulfilling their uniquepsychological as well as neurological needs. It provides a deep, more lasting experienceand ideally assessed through generic attributes that are related to individuallearners intrinsic characteristics, spanning throughout the life. Question-based lecture delivery, as authoridentified, is a promising methodology to engage learner in an authenticlearning experience. By forming thelecture as a series of questions, it essentially has a dialectic approach toteaching. Further this methodologyprovides a good pace for concept delivery allowing learners to engage inconstructing meaning. Additionally, itallows aligning teaching to assessment tasks more appropriately, improving thereliability of assessment. Another practicethat helps authentic learning, as highlighted in this paper, is onlyelaborating the most important concepts or material related to a study area,within the limited time available, and thereby, in the assessment as well. This contrasts from the notion that teacherhas to mention every single fact in the study area in front of the learners,possibly directing learners to strategic approaches to learning. The time factor in relation to assessmentcomponents is also an important issue, as some learners may be disadvantaged iftime is not allocated with careful thought. The significance of generalised, orhigher-order, learning in an authentic learning framework is presented, as theknowledge gained through this way is likely to last longer in learners memoryand at the same time, more useful to them in a generic way, or in day to daysituations. Such practices alsoinherently motivate learners to engage in a deep learning process. We furtheremphasise on motivating students by relating any study area or material to moregeneric processes we find in daily lives so that students get the notion ofwhat they learn will be useful to them in future in a generic way, but notnecessarily in a specific career. Use of practical work only in support of enhancingunderstanding of an abstract theory presented, but not otherwise, is also highlightedin promoting authentic learning experience.
With the emergence of a wealth of research-based information in the field of educational neuroscience, educators are now able to make more evidence-based decisions in the important area of curriculum design and construction. By viewing from the perspective of educational neuroscience, we can give a more meaningful and lasting purpose of leading to human development with enhanced consciousness or wisdom as the goal of a curriculum. We can better decide on the essential contents of a curriculum that is carried out within a limited time, using the emerging and validating information. Knowledge of educational neuroscience can also be used effectively for instructional design or conveying important messages to learners in the learning support material provided. Further, educators can be better directed in forming appropriate assessment so that learners are prepared for active and deep engagements in the teaching-learning process developing the skills of independence and discovery learning. Educational practitioners, as well as policy-makers, can also promote inclusive practices by directing, designing and constructing a curriculum appropriately especially taking into consideration the characteristics of right cerebral hemispheric oriented visual-spatial or gifted learners. Overall, education professionals can be benefited immensely to take more informed decisions in the process of curriculum design and construction by embracing emerging educational neuroscience principles.
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