The Science of Learning
We believe that the process of education should be informed by findings from scientific research and that scientific research about development and learning should be informed by educators. If we want to understand how children learn and how best to teach children, then researchers and educators need to collaborate and share knowledge.
In particular, we believe that teacher training should include learning about the brain and that training of developmental researchers should include learning about the classroom and the process of education. Teacher and researcher training are twin bridges between the fields of education and developmental cognitive neuroscience. It is clear that learning and teaching change the brain – that the brain is affected by education – and it should be the case that the brain (or what we know about the brain) can change learning and teaching. Those responsible for facilitating learning should know at least a little bit about the organ that they are transforming and those who investigate how the brain develops and works should know at least a little bit about how that knowledge could be useful in an educational context.
This is the kind of approach to education and research taken in many courses for the Minor in Education at Dartmouth, including EDUC 50: The Reading Brain: Education and Development and EDUC 64: Development in the Exceptional Child (ORC descriptions).
