Speaker: Professor Akaysha Tang, Director, Laboratory of Neuroscience for Education, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong; Former US National Science Foundation (NSF) Program Director for Program in Cognitive Neuroscience and for the China Program in the Office of International Science and Engineering

Abstract

A little over a decade ago, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) made a major investment in a then new interdisciplinary field of study, called science of learning. This cross-cutting field brought together researchers who study basic neural mechanisms underlying learning in animal models, who study human learning in the laboratories and in the real world, who build computational models that relate basic neural mechanisms to learning at the level of behavior, and who develop computational and data analytic tools to better observe and predict learning. Here, using the rat as a model system, I will demonstrate how findings from science of learning broadly construed can have simple yet powerful implications for how teachers teach in schools, how parents nurture at home, and how government invest society’s resource to achieve more effective learning in developing children. I will highlight how advances in mathematical algorithms and signal processing techniques can potentially transform the way learning is observed, predicted, and enhanced in the real world. Finally, I will present a vision of individualized learning enhancement powered by the next generation of neurotechnology.