Speaker: Professor Kevin Niall Dunbar, Director Laboratory for Complex Thinking, Creativity & Educational Neuroscience University of Maryland College Park, Visiting Research Professor University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Education

Abstract

Educators and researchers are constantly addressing the issue of why some concepts are easy to learn, yet others are difficult. Many have argued that learners are dominated by simple perceptual or superficial aspects of a situation that block learning and understanding of new knowledge. This view has dominated theories of learning in adults and children alike, particularly in the field of Science Education. We have used an Educational Neuroscience framework to investigate these issues using multiple methodologies (Experimental, Observational, Neuroimaging) and multiple contexts (families in science museums, students in biology labs, scientists in their own labs). Our research has focused on two key processes underlying the learning of scientific concepts: Causal Reasoning and Analogical Reasoning. Most important, we have uncovered the roles of key neural mechanisms at the core of these reasoning processes that can sometimes facilitate and sometimes inhibit learning. I will close this talk with the implications that these findings have for schools and families.