A Search for International Educators Who Have Knowledge or Interest in Cognitive

Neuroscience

In his 2008 presidential address, Steven Klees extensively discussed why the economics-based methodology cannot adequately explain educational processes and outcomes. As a result, other traditions are increasingly used to develop causal relations for research and evaluation. These include participatory action, feminist, indigenous, critical ethnography, and critical race methodologies.

The one domain omitted thus far is cognitive neuroscience. And arguably it is the most important. Education is a product of how people process information: how memory works, what rules are used to classify information, how it can be best retained for the long term. Cognitive psychologists have learned a lot through experiments conducted for more than 100 years. Artificial intelligence programming arose from processing rules. And since the late 1990s, brain imaging technology has given a glimpse into the brain structures corresponding to the processes found through experimentation.

However, colleges of education rarely teach this research, and educators typically do not know it. One reason is technical complexity; many academics lack the background that would help them follow the research and draw implications and applications from it. To explain, predict, and control educational outcomes, it is critical that educators become more familiar with cognitive neuroscience. The challenge is how to make the material more accessible to educators.

In the 2008 CIES conference a panel on reading fluency was presented through the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. For the 2009 CIES, a panel could be included on cognitive neuroscience applications for international educators and development work. Students and professors are needed who have conducted research related to this topic, or are interested in cognitive neuroscience and could make presentations.

If you would like to participate, please contact Helen Abadzi at the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank (habadzi@worldbank.org). If you would like to learn more, you can receive at no cost the electronic file of a book that has been written in simple language on this topic ("Efficient Learning for the Poor: Insights from the Frontier of Cognitive Neuroscience").