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Running head: Thought Paper 2

Thought Paper 2: Neuroscience in Education

Gurpreet Koonar
University of British Columbia
ETEC 512 64A
Instructor: Jennifer Shapka
September 28, 2014

The interaction between neuroscience and education has been highly encouraged as
educational theory and developmental neuroscience laboratories attempt to engage in
interdisciplinary training. When visualizing Mind Brain and Education (MBE), Coch and Ansari
(2009) suggest a collaborative and iterative process of questioning, testing and enhancing
hypotheses. Given teachers curiosity in how students best learn concepts, it is obvious that there
is a natural relationship between education and neuroscience which should be further explored.
To strengthen the role of MBE, teachers and neuroscientists need to be given opportunities to
become more knowledgeable in the field of neuroscience and education. Effective educators look
to brain research in efforts to reveal the many ways in which students learn. Brain based
teaching allows for more systematic implementation of strategies which emphasize differentiated
instruction, movement, emotions and thematic instruction (Edutopia, 2014). Information
retained by rote memorization will not enter long term memory storage in the pre-frontal cortex
unless students are given ample opportunities to participate in authentic student-centered
activities and meaningful tasks which encourage higher thinking skills such as evaluation and
synthesis. If teachers had a better understanding of the neural connections which reflected their
students learning processes, teachers may feel empowered to develop a new curricular approach
to teaching.
By providing more training of neuroscience for preservice teachers, the field of MBE will
be able to help identify best practices in curriculum design and delivery. Dubinsky (2010) claims
that educators would feel empowered to share their learning about neuroscience as it would
allow them to view learning from a different perspective. Neuroeducational approach is one
source which will result in more effective pedagogy for educators but it is important to remember

that solely it will not create the conditions in which learning should occur as all learners vary in
style, language and culture.

References
Coch, D. & Ansari, D. (2009). Thinking about mechanisms is crucial to connecting neuroscience
and education. Cortex, 45(4), 546-7.

Dubinsky, J.M. (2010). Neuroscience education for prekindergarten-12 teachers. The Journal of
Neuroscience, 30(24), 8057-8060.

Edutopia. (2014). Three brain-based teaching strategies to build executive function in students.
Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/brain-based-teaching-strategies-judy-willis

Zamarian, L., Ischebeck, A., & Delazer, M. (2009). Neuroscience of learning arithmetic:
Evidence from brain imaging studies. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 33, 909925.