Perceptions of

perceptions of
education and neuroscience,
educational neuroscience
and
learning science
John Geake
Westminster Institute of Education
Oxford Brookes University
 Relevance of neuroscience to education

Saviour Irrelevancy
 Expectation of neuroscience for education
Professional
information

Saviour Irrelevancy

My class Monday
 Perceptions of neuroscience and education?
Professional
information

TLRP
seminars
Saviour Irrelevancy

My class Monday
 Perceptions of neuroscience and education
Professional
information

John Bruer

TLRP
seminars
Saviour Irrelevancy

My class Monday
 Perceptions of neuroscience and education
Professional
information

John Bruer

TLRP BERA
seminars
Saviour Irrelevancy

My class Monday
 Perceptions of neuroscience and education
Professional
information

John Bruer

TLRP BERA
seminars
Saviour Irrelevancy

Initial Teacher Training

My class Monday
 Perceptions of neuroscience and education
Professional
information

John Bruer

TLRP BERA
seminars
Saviour Irrelevancy

Brain based neuro-myths

VAK
brain gym
Initial Teacher Training
L & R thinking

My class Monday
 Limits of ‘new’ psychology

You make a great mistake … if you think that

psychology, being the science of mind’s laws, is
something from which you can deduce definite
programmes and schemes and methods of
instruction for immediate school room use.

Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art.

William James, Talks to Teachers, 1899

 Creating a ‘new’ learning science

More relevant and useful professional and

classroom applications of educational
neuroscience will become available as we
gradually come to understand more about brain
function through research which answers
educational questions about learning, memory,
motivation, and so on.

John Geake, Talking to Teachers and Scientists, 2006

 TLRP Discussion highlights
“You can’t hold back the future”

• Smart drugs – enhance cognition to levels

compatible with advances in IT and AI ?
• Digital kids – are their brains fundamentally
different from ours ?
• Neuroimaging-genetic profiling – a two-edged
sword ?
• What are the social costs of stupidity and
ignorance ?
 Opportunities to create a new
learning science 1

Translation between the ‘two languages, one

lexicon’ of education and neuroscience

teachers don’t need to be experts in science, but

neither should they be inadvertently misled
 Opportunities to create a new
learning science 2

Establishment of a methodology for educational

neuroscience

– education problem …
– science research question …
– science finding …
– education implication / application
 Opportunities to create a new
learning science 2

Establishment of a methodology for educational

neuroscience

– education problem …
– science research question …
– science finding …
– education implication / application
 Educational neuroscience 1

Neural dissociations
and connectivity
Overcome the
between concrete and
numeracy watershed of
symbolic
fractions
representations of
fractions
 Educational neuroscience 2

Neural dissociations
and connectivity
Design more
between orthographic
efficacious curricula
and phonemic
for second language
representations of first
acquisition
and second languages
 Educational neuroscience 3

Neural correlates of Optimise creative

fluid analogical thinking in school
reasoning
 Educational neuroscience 4

Neural fractionations Optimise general

of working memory academic performance
 Educational neuroscience 5

Neural distribution of Re-design assessment

long term memory tasks (rote recall
exams) to enhance
achievement
 Opportunities to create a new
learning science 3

Objective evaluation and badging of learning

science products

– an (inter)national scheme for determining

learning effect sizes for average, gifted and SEN
pupils
 Perceptions of
perceptions of
education and neuroscience,
educational neuroscience
and
learning science
John Geake
Westminster Institute of Education
Oxford Brookes University