Explorations in Learning and the Brain : On the Potential of Cognitive Neuroscience for Educational Science

This volume presents a short review study of the potential relationships between cognitive neuroscience and educational science. Conducted by order of the Dutch Programme Council for Educational Research of the Netherlands Organization for Scienti c Research (NWO; cf. the American NSF), the review aims to identify: (1) how educational principles, mechanisms, and theories could be extended or re ned based on ndings from cognitive neuroscience, and (2) which neuroscience prin- ples, mechanisms, or theories may have implications for educational research and could lead to new interdisciplinary research ventures. The contents should be seen as the outcome of the ‘Explorations in Learning and the Brain’ project. In this project, we started with a ‘quick scan’ of the lite- ture that formed the input for an expert workshop that was held in Amsterdam on March 10–11,2008. This expert workshopidenti ed additional relevant themesand issues that helped us to update the ‘quick scan’ into this nal document. In this way the input from the participants of the expert workshop (listed in Appendix A) has greatly in uenced the present text. We are therefore grateful to the participants for their scholarly and enthusiastic contributions. The content of the current volume, however, is the full responsibility of the authors.

The past decade has witnessed efforts on the part of research, education and policy communities to create a dialogue about the potential relationship between cognitive neuroscience and the science and practice of education. The upsurge of interest in neuroscience in general has given rise to increased attention to the role of the brain in learning. As a result, several major initiatives have been undertaken to examine the viability of bringing the fields closer together.

However, much of the debate has been dominated by extremes. Some purport to offer a panacea to many of the problems in education and educational research on the basis of data from cognitive neuroscience while others perceive the gap between the fields as untenable. Explorations in Learning and the Brain takes a different stance in the sense that developments within neuroscience are not the starting point but rather sets off from major questions dominant in educational research, notably instructional systems design and related fields within the educational sciences. The book identifies interfaces between neuro-scientific and educational research, and informs on potentially interesting additions to educational research and viable interdisciplinary ventures. By drawing on empirical findings from both disciplines, the following general questions are addressed:

-Which principles, mechanisms and theories studied in educational research can be extended based on findings from cognitive neuroscience?

-Which principles, mechanisms and theories studied in cognitive neuroscience might have implications for educational research?

-What are these implications and what research questions can be developed?

-What form could an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary research program take?