Due to its nature, neuroscientists have very limited abilities to conduct studies on human subjects. Also, the human brain is a very complex system which has a lot of individual peculiarities making it hard for the scientist to research it. As for the teaching, there is no clear consensus on the nature of learning, which contributes to the lack of studies on teaching and learning in the neuroscience field.

In his article “The practical and principled problems with educational neuroscience” Jeffrey Bowers points out another obstacle preventing using neuroscience in the classroom.

He states that cognitive capacities of children are usually categorized based on behavioral measures and not on the basis of brain measures, so the only way to see the results of learning becomes the observed behavior. Behavior lays in the realm of psychology; it doesn’t go beyond it and thus, cannot be used as guidelines for teaching.

Neuroscience deals with changes in the brain in response to learning, and not the behavior, therefore, according to Bowers,

“Neuroscientists cannot help educators, but educators can help neuroscientists”.

Nevertheless, many scholars believe that neuroscience can improve human learning abilities, as it may provide valuable information on how people learn. One of the main fields of its interest is memory.

I found an interesting overview of several studies called “Neuroscience and Learning: Implications for Teaching Practice” by Richard Guy and Bruce Byrne, that I would like to share.

This article discusses the findings of several studies which highlighted the importance of short-term memory in the learning process. Our brain is very complex and hard to study system, therefore it’s very difficult to find areas in the brain responsible for certain language or thinking functions. Nevertheless, there were some breakthroughs in that directions. For example, the scientists established connection between memory and the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

The main concern of teachers regarding memory in learning process has always been the process of transferring information from the short-term to the long-term memory. The capacities of the short-term memoriy were known to be limited and an issue of a cognitive workload has always been a crucial problem in learning.

Recent findings that prefrontal cortex may switch from maintaining current information to letting our short-term memory to update with new, relevant, information, provide insights in the role of short-term memory in educational process.

The way a brain stores information in the long-term memory, updates the connections between its elements and forms new semantic frameworks within it was also and important issue in learning. Neuroscience might provide insights on this topic as well, and, according to the author,

“From an educational point of view, an understanding of these mechanisms may help to support the suggested use of analogical reasoning as a means to strengthen associations between facts”.

Also, the anterior prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for abstract thinking, was found to be activated during abstract reasoning and metacognition. This information can be useful for educators, as it explains how use of graphical representations of concepts or “concept maps” influence learning.

Personally, I believe that neuroscience will contribute not only to the human learning but, through studying humans, it will make a huge progress in computer linguistic and teaching, and artificial intelligence.

References:

Bowers, J. S.(2016).The practical and principled problems with educational neuroscience. Psychological Review, 123(5), Oct 2016, 600-612

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26938449

Guy, R., & Byrne, B. (2013). Neuroscience and learning: implications for teaching practice. Journal of experimental neuroscience, 7, 39–42. doi:10.4137/JEN.S10965

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4089653/