Education Shortform
Brain and Education
In a nutshell…
There are no shortage of people who will tell you that educators need to understand the brain better, or that their preferred education ideas are ‘brain based’.
Of course, the brain does underlie all of a student’s learning and behaviour; it is the thinking organ, and therefore responsible for everything that goes through our minds.
All the same — or, perhaps, because of this very fact — claims that techniques are ‘brain based’ should be treated with scepticism, even though they often appear convincing.
Every learning process that students engage in must involve the the brain… but so what?
We can’t scan the brains of learners while they are in class, and we have no way of knowing if the latest fad is having more of an effect on their brains than the previous one did.
Perhaps we should focus more on what a learner can do, rather than speculate about processes inside their brain.
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This is one of a series of shortform education articles. You can download a simplified summary of my ‘A–Z of Educational concepts’ here.
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