About this Research Topic
Over the last decade, there has been growing interest in the support neuroscience can provide to education. This field of knowledge, also known as Mind, Brain and Education, is at the intersection of three main disciplines; neuroscience, cognitive psychology and education, and the derived sub-fields; neurobiology and neuroanatomy, psychophysics and educational psychology or pedagogy and didactics. This recent multidisciplinary field is termed as the so-called neuroeducation, or neurodidactics, in its applied form.
Since the definition of the field, multiple ideas and evidences have been reported that consider how neuroscience can contribute to improve student experience at school and in life-long learning, as well as on brain construction under different educational premises. Studies have found improvements in learning when students have knowledge about how their brain works, or that report the critical role of involving emotions to allow learning. However, numerous issues have still to be addressed, including the difficulty of matching neurobiological, psychological and educational concepts about learning, or the thriving of the so-called neuromyths at the school and other learning centers, that distort the understanding of the learning process from the cognitive and neurobiological point of view that the educational community preserves.
It is also urgent to explore the specific learning design that can be applied from the lab to the classroom to enhance both learning and the perception of learning itself, or the gathering of evidence that those interventions are really working.
This topic aims first to put together neuroscientific, psychological and educational quantitative and qualitative research that is conducted in the defined area of neuroeducation, focused in all the actors involved, i.e. students, teachers or any other members of the educational community, including educational policy makers. It also aims to explore which are the conditions, evidences and didactic interventions -from concrete initiatives to whole-planned school programs- oriented by neuroscience that are bringing improvements in students' learning, as well as potential issues and drawbacks that practitioners encounter on applying them. Finally, we aim to encourage new understandings on attending educational diversity of learning capabilities in the classroom, or the social implications that can derive into new proposed school and educational policies coming from evidence in the field.
We welcome empirical and theoretical articles, perspective, evaluation, CIP and policy articles, conceptual analyses and review papers that fall on one of the above -or related- areas.
Since the definition of the field, multiple ideas and evidences have been reported that consider how neuroscience can contribute to improve student experience at school and in life-long learning, as well as on brain construction under different educational premises. Studies have found improvements in learning when students have knowledge about how their brain works, or that report the critical role of involving emotions to allow learning. However, numerous issues have still to be addressed, including the difficulty of matching neurobiological, psychological and educational concepts about learning, or the thriving of the so-called neuromyths at the school and other learning centers, that distort the understanding of the learning process from the cognitive and neurobiological point of view that the educational community preserves.
It is also urgent to explore the specific learning design that can be applied from the lab to the classroom to enhance both learning and the perception of learning itself, or the gathering of evidence that those interventions are really working.
This topic aims first to put together neuroscientific, psychological and educational quantitative and qualitative research that is conducted in the defined area of neuroeducation, focused in all the actors involved, i.e. students, teachers or any other members of the educational community, including educational policy makers. It also aims to explore which are the conditions, evidences and didactic interventions -from concrete initiatives to whole-planned school programs- oriented by neuroscience that are bringing improvements in students' learning, as well as potential issues and drawbacks that practitioners encounter on applying them. Finally, we aim to encourage new understandings on attending educational diversity of learning capabilities in the classroom, or the social implications that can derive into new proposed school and educational policies coming from evidence in the field.
We welcome empirical and theoretical articles, perspective, evaluation, CIP and policy articles, conceptual analyses and review papers that fall on one of the above -or related- areas.
Keywords: neuroscience, teaching and learning methods, education practice, neurodidactics, neuromyths
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
