What influences what? Does your brain and its unique structure affect the quality of your education, or is it your education that influences your brain and alters its structure? This is the question answered by educational neuroscience, which bridges the gap between brain science, psychology, and educational theory. Its goal is to provide explanations that clarify how learning occurs and to address obstacles in the learning process. For example, if you experience difficulty pronouncing a specific sound while learning a language, the problem might not lie with your speech organs, but rather with increased activity in the brain's visual processing areas. Another example is that when children reach the age of five and begin engaging in educational activities, their brains consume nearly 50% of the total calories their bodies burn, particularly in early childhood education settings such as preschools. This article presents simple insights into how education impacts the structure of your brain and how your brain's makeup influences your educational performance.
What is Educational Neuroscience?
Educational neuroscience is an emerging field that integrates basic research in neuroscience, educational psychology, and theories of education. It seeks to explore the relationship between different teaching methods and their effects on the brain's learning regions, aiming to develop more effective learning techniques and enhance the retention of information. This research is conducted through neuroscience studies and experiments, as outlined in papers published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
The Impact of Neuroscience on Education
Why should we care about educational neuroscience? Understanding how our brains function helps improve educational outcomes. This field also assists in accurately diagnosing problems and identifying the causes behind them. Numerous examples illustrate its impact, and we will present a few of them here:
Dyslexia in Children
Functional neuroimaging, which records brain activity during task performance, provides a unique opportunity to understand and visualize the neural circuits formed during reading and mastery of this skill. Despite a child's adequate intelligence, access to social and cultural opportunities, and traditional explanations, a small number of children fail to achieve age-appropriate reading skills. This is known as developmental dyslexia, which occurs due to a structural or functional disruption in the brain's reading network. If identified early, children with dyslexia can be provided with personalized, systematic instruction that helps them manage reading challenges—provided that these disorders are detected at an early stage.
Adjusting Lesson Schedules for Improved Education
Many schools have adjusted their daily schedules to benefit students and enhance their progress. This change came after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended delaying the start of the school day by 30 minutes, based on studies that showed that an additional 30 minutes of sleep for students could significantly improve their attention span during the school day.
Spaced Learning for Better Retention
Educational neuroscience has also highlighted another important consideration: spaced learning. Instead of delivering a dense, information-heavy lesson all at once, it is more effective to distribute the learning across multiple sessions, spaced out over time, with periodic reviews of previous lessons. This approach helps create new neural pathways, improving the brain's ability to absorb and retain information more effectively.
A Better Understanding of Early Childhood Development
In 2011, Batro suggested that educational neuroscience has reached a stage where we can objectively monitor the developmental trajectory of a child's brain and document how this path is shaped by parenting, education, and other environmental influences. This has been instrumental in improving teachers' understanding of young children's mindsets during their early years. It also helps educators grasp what motivates and guides them, enabling them to better address early developmental challenges. According to the Center on the Developing Child, many educators hold misconceptions about early childhood education. By leveraging the insights provided by educational neuroscience, we can bridge this gap in understanding.
Educational Neuroscience: An Emerging Field
Educational neuroscience is a nascent field that focuses on integrating neuroscience with various educational theories and psychology to develop new approaches that enhance students' ability to absorb information. While some educators have embraced this field, others have rejected it. Regardless of the varying opinions, educational neuroscience has contributed significantly to explaining educational challenges that were previously thought to be purely cognitive, revealing that many of these issues are, in fact, physiologically related to the brain's structure.
