Bloomsbury Doctoral Training Centre Studentship Applications are now invited.
Applications are now open for ESRC studentships via the Bloomsbury Doctoral Training Centre, which offers a training route in Educational Neuroscience. Further details on the application process are available on the DTC website here.
The closing date for applications is Friday 5 February 2016.
Members of the CEN have been taking part in an event organised by the Wellcome Trust to allow teachers and the public to ask neuroscientists about education related questions.
See here for the enthusiastic debates that have been raging (I’m a scientist, get me out of here!) and here for recent coverage of the event in the Guardian.
Learnus and the CEN ran a stimulating session on ‘Neuroscience and Education: The new dialogue’ at the recent London Festival for Education. Richard Newton-Chance, Jeremy Dudman-Jones and Michael Thomas spoken to an audience packed to the rafters, on the exciting times ahead for educators and neuroscientists alike. The subsequent discussion was passionate, with some embracing the idea that the new learning sciences had much to offer education, others keen to reject neuroscience as fostering ‘reductionism and determinism’ (‘Not true!’ cried MT), and others with specific questions about current knowledge of the effects of training working memory.
A new paper published by Amar Sarkar, Ann Dowker, and Roi Cohen Kadosh has shown that identical transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) exerts opposite behavioural and physiological effects depending on individual trait levels. Recent studies have suggested that non-invasive brain stimulation can accelerate skill acquisition in complex tasks and may provide an alternative or addition to other training methods. However, the Sarker study suggests that zapping your brain might make you better at maths tests – or worse. It depends how anxious you are about taking the test in the first place. See here for the Sarker paper and here for a recent commentary in the New Scientist about a new meta-analysis which has struggled to find out what actual physiological effect tDCS has on the brain.
(Note, this image is Doc Brown from the film Back to the Future, not actual tDCS!)
See the latest article from the Centre for Education Research and Practice asking ‘Can neuroscience inform education?’
The CERP ‘brings together expertise in education and assessment, with a particular focus on research on high stakes qualifications such as GCSEs and A-levels.’
Researchers have found evidence that youngsters who speak two languages maintain their focus better. A study has found bilingual primary school children learn more effectively than monolinguals within noisy environments like classrooms. Bilingual Article
Anglia Ruskin University’s Dr Roberto Filippi carried out research in Cambridge primary schools, focusing on children aged between seven and 10. Michael Thomas, from the CEN, was a co-author on the study. The study found bilingual children were more able to maintain focus on a main task, which in this case was the identification of the subject in a short sentence in the presence of noise.
Pupils who only speak one language did not reach the same level of efficiency, showing that noise negatively affects their ability to sustain attention, especially when comprehending more difficult sentences.
Dr Filippi said: “Previous research has shown that bilingualism has a positive effect on cognitive abilities, but there were no studies investigated whether these advantages extended to learning in noisy environments.
“Primary schools are the key stages for the development of formal learning in the first years of life. However, they are also remarkably noisy. Therefore the ability to filter out auditory interference is particularly important within the context of an educational environment.”
Dr Filippi was joined by international researchers from Birkbeck in London and the Northwestern University in Chicago. The study provides further evidence of the importance of learning a second language early in the UK educational system. The research is in line with previous research in adult second language learners, which implicated the cerebellum as the neural structure involved in mediating language interference when the bilingual focuses on a single language.
The CEN was among six projects in educational neuroscience funded by a joint initiative between the Education Endowment Fund and Wellcome Trust to develop and test educational interventions based on latest neuroscience findings.
The CEN’s project is called UnLocke and targets the learning of counterintuitive concepts in maths and science in primary age children. It aims to test the benefit of training pupils to suspend their pre-existing beliefs when it comes to solving mathematical or scientific questions, for example correcting the seemingly logical notion that a heavy object will fall faster than a light one, or the impulse that the cells that make up an elephant should be bigger than those that make up a mouse.
The project team is led by Prof. Denis Mareschal (Birkbeck) and includes Prof. Michael Thomas, Dr. Iroise Dumontheil (both Birkbeck), Prof. Andy Tolmie, Dr. Kaska Porayska-Pomsta, Dr. Emily Farran, Dr. Sveta Meyer (all from Institute of Education) and Prof. Derek Bell (Director of Learnus).
For further information, see Birkbeck, Wellcome Trust, Education Endowment Fund.
Listen to Denis talk on this morning’s Radio 4 Today Programme (scroll through to 2:47:00!)
Primary schools are being recruited to take part in the research. For more information contact unlocke@psychology.bbk.ac.uk.
Here at the CEN, we are excited to get cracking on this innovative project!
Members of the CEN attended the launch of Learnus at the House of Lords on 11 June 2014. Learnus is a lobby group, dedicated to bringing together teachers and those who specialise in the study of the brain, the mind and behaviour in order to bring the insights gained from the scientific study of learning to the practice of teaching. The CEN and Learnus have a strategic partnership aiming to advance dialogue and translation between neuroscience and education.
From left to right, Prof. Denis Mareschal, Dr. Irois Dumontheil, Dr. Chloe Marshall, Prof. Michael Thomas.
At the Learnus launch, Professor Dame Uta Frith, DBE, FRS, FBA gave a keynote speech where she compared the enterprise of linking neuroscience and education with the construction of the Channel Tunnel – long-term, involving many resources and thousands of people, but with the potential of a great and enduring benefit. See here for a text of her speech.
On May 14, the American Association for the Advancement of Science hosted a one day symposium on neuroscience and education: “This day-long symposium, co-sponsored by AAAS and the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, exposed the AAAS Fellows, and other attendees, to the emerging field of Educational Neuroscience (also known as Mind Brain and Education or Neuroeducation) and how new research in neuroscience and psychology can make a difference in how we teach and learn. Neuroscience and its relationship to policy has also been a popular topic in the media recently, as seen by the multiple articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, Science, etc. following President Obama’s announcement of the BRAIN Initiative.”
The keynote presentation was given by Mariale Hardimanand speakers included Laura-Ann Petitto, Guinevere Eden, Brett Miller, Laurie Cutting, Robert Slavin, and Layne Kalbfleisch.
The program for the symposium can be found here, and materials from the symposium, including videos and slide presentations, can be found here.
CEN researchers Iroise Dumontheil and Michael Thomas are part of a team which this week launched a study to investigate the effects of mobile phone use in teenagers. The study, led by Imperial College, was commissioned by the Department of Health and funded by Government and industry. It will will investigate whether mobile phones and wireless technologies affect children’s cognitive development. The study will track 2,500 11- and 12-year-olds from September, examining their cognitive ability – thinking skills, memory and attention – and then repeat the tests in 2017. See here for BBC coverage of the study launch.