Neuroeducation: neuroscience-based learning

What is neuroeducation and how can we educate our brain?

In biology and neuropsychology laboratories it is possible to do research on how basic mental processes work: memory, decision making, discrimination between different stimuli, etc.

All these psychological functions tell us about the way our brain adapts to the environment and allows us to learn from our experiences. But... But what would happen if we were to investigate the way our brain learns beyond the laboratory? This is what neuroeducation is all about.

What is neuroeducation?

Neuroeducation is, in a nutshell, a discipline that bridges the gap between neurology and the educational sciencesin which educational psychology plays a key role.

This is a scientific development project that aims to bring together what we know about how the brain works with what we know about educational processes in the field. Normally, the area of focus of neuroeducation is education in school and academic settings..

The learning brain

The foundation of neuroeducation is a concept called brain plasticity.. Brain plasticity is the brain's ability to change physically to adapt to stimuli and habits in ways that are useful to the individual. Each time we consolidate a form of learning, it leaves an imprint on the way the brain's neurons connect to each other.

Neuroeducation serves to examine the traces that educational processes leave in our brain and draws relationships between this data and the way in which the individual behaves. In this way, the learning process is studied from the behavioral side and from the neurobiological side. and from that corresponding to neurobiology.

Learning and emotion in neuroeducation

One of the great discoveries that has been made through neuroeducation is that learning and emotion are not two separate worlds. We do not learn by storing data coldly as a robot would, but rather in our nervous system memories and emotion go hand in hand. In this way, meaningful learning becomes a fundamental aspect in education, since it links important data with sensations and feelings linked to pleasure that make us internalize them earlier.

In this way, neuroeducation emphasizes the need to use an emotional approach both in the classroom and in any context. The learning process takes place in the informal contexts in which we learn: family environment, workshops, work groups, sports teams, etc.

At the end of the day, the engine of learning is curiosity, something deeply emotional and linked to subjective concerns.

Neuroeducation and attention

Another of the main psychological aspects studied in neuroeducation are the attentional times, i.e., the periods of time during which the attention is focused on the learning process.that is, the periods for which a person can focus attention on a channel of information without becoming distracted or fatigued.

It is considered that the maximum time that most people can concentrate on a task is 40 to 45 minutes. Therefore, lectures that exceed this minute limit (most of them, by the way) are inefficient, as several minutes are wasted.

Attention problems, linked to disorders such as ADHD, are also very relevant, given that they affect many people and that, with relatively simple strategies, this part of the population could be helped to use their potential correctly by directing it to educational goals, especially during childhood (which is a key vital stage in psychological development).

Thus, neuroeducation must also respond to people with certain diagnoses that reflect special difficulties in learning certain skills, and attention problems are one such battlefront.

The future development of this field

As a bridging discipline, neuroeducation still has a lot of progress to makeAs a bridging discipline, neuroeducation still has a long way to go, as new discoveries can be made in the neurosciences and educational sciences.

Moreover, it is not always easy to combine the knowledge arrived at by both routes, so the progress that can be made through neuroeducation is not always agile or easy to realize. That is why it is considered that the potential of neuroeducation is still to be exploited.

On the other hand, it must be taken into account that the cultural and social context always has an impact on the way we learn and the contents we memorize and integrate into our worldview. This means that in order to investigate learning cannot do without analyzing the environment and the way we relate to it. and the way we relate to it.

As a consequence, neuroeducation cannot concentrate its efforts only on purely Biological elements, but must also take into consideration how we are influenced by the economy, the type of people we relate to, the cultural and ideological elements that are dominant, and so on.