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.