Yuanfang Cecilia Sun (40396020)

Thought paper 2

Neuroscience and education

A better understanding of neuroscience on the part of the educators will inform them in their choice of teaching methods and reasoning behind its effectiveness. There is much flexibility within the curriculum for teachers to make decisions on how best to deliver the content based on the dynamic of the students. A wealth of information can inform the teachers decision, such as students prior knowledge, teaching experience, available resources and as will be discussed below recent research in neuroscience. These findings if combined with educational knowledge can be tested in the classroom to yield strategies to meet students needs (Coach & Ansari, 2009). Knowing how different regions of the brain are activated can help teachers decide on strategies in teaching math. Often the decision is to use memorization through drill and practice or to use conceptual understanding to teach a concept. The recent change in BC math curriculum focuses more on pictorial representation and manipulative indicating a shift away from primarily memorization. In Zamarian et al. (2009)s review, different regions of the brain are active during automated task, such as multiplication versus estimation tasks and visuo-spacial ones. This suggests that different task could be taught with different strategies. Finding strategies that work also vary significantly among students. But insights can perhaps be gained from mathematic experts, who uses different brain regions compared to non-experts as an indication of the strategies experts have developed (Zamarian et al., 2009). Certainly more testing is needed to validate these hypothesis but it offers possibilities in using neuroscience to inform our teaching. References: Coach, D. & Ansari, D. (2009). Thinking about mechanisms is crucial to connecting neuroscience and education. Cortex, 45(4), 546-7. Zamarian, L., Ischebeck, A., & Delazer, M. (2009). Neuroscience of learning arithmetic: Evidence from brain imaging studies. INeuroscience and Biobehavioral Review, 33, 909-925.