A key challenge facing neuroscience and education is how to translate evidence from the laboratory into the classroom (Dommett et al., 2013). From the mid-19th century, similar challenges have faced the medical profession as it aspires to become a ‘natural science’ grounded in biology. Firstly, laboratories are not classrooms, just as the biological experiment is
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  1. Mr James Wilding

    I welcome this new scientific approach to what makes learning more effective. There is a danger that in trying to improve ‘clinical practice’ we are doing so to feed the accountability measures being used in English state Education, rather than to improve education per se. Let me give you an example from my current classroom practice.
    I am a graduate biologist/psychologist, in school leadership for 37 year, currently teaching Year 8 History to a group of boys in a school where we have 4 boys classes and 2 girls classes, with the girls taught 2 miles away. We are coming together for a Civil War day at a local mansion, working with a professional re-enactor team . The cost of the venue for the day is 0, as we work in partnership with the venue owners during the year on other mutual matters. The day’s activities include being harangued by a puritan cleric, working with weapons and armour, clothing and culture (to include Pepys), welcoming a visit to a surgeon of the period, carrying out a trepanning operation, as well as working together co-educationally. During the lunch break, young people will be able just to socialise, but we have a challenge set up for the 6 classes involved to enjoy ‘war gaming’ using paper soldiers etc. they have prepared this weekend for the event. None of the learning outcomes have numerical measures; the purposes are to build subject engagement and domain knowledge, skills of oracy and collaborative working, coupled with some deep learning about the period. Longer outcomes are to encourage recruitment into GCSE and A level, as the subject competes strongly with STEM and vocational options. The month of work prior to the day is spent building knowledge, skills and understanding about the power, money and religious issues of the day, and they have already written extensively about the causes that led to war this last week. In short, everything above has been tailored over years of experience in the department, using contacts and well rehearsed activities that the young people can lead with. The ‘wealth’ that the day brings nourishes our lessons for the next month until the end of term.
    In any analysis of effective teaching and learning, it’s quite clear that science meets art, and the learner’s experience forms part of the equation. Whatever the outcomes from controlled experiments in which all but one variable are being controlled, I have no doubt that the experiments themselves are likely to be less engaging than in real time in good schools!

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