Brain-to-Brain Synchrony in the STEM Classroom

Abstract

Recent advances in portable electroencephalography (EEG) now allow researchers to collect brain data from groups of students in real-world classrooms. This Essay highlights how this emerging line of research can open new opportunities for collaboration between discipline-based education researchers and cognitive and social neuroscientists.

Attention Matters: How Orchestrating Attention May Relate to Classroom Learning

“…, 2017 ). Future research in this domain may further inform us about how brain synchrony differs depending on the teaching strategy implemented (see Davidesco, 2020 , in this issue).…”

The Teaching Brain: Beyond the Science of Teaching and Educational Neuroscience

“…Despite the instrumental constraints necessary to preserve the scientific-methodological rigor in the application of neuroscientific tools in an educational naturalistic context, it is necessary to conduct more neuroscientific studies to deepen the relationship between teacher and student and the TB perspective. With respect to what Davidesco ( 2020 ) pointed out, namely that these methods can integrate other types of measures (such as performance tests, self-reports, and think-loud interviews) and can deepen our understanding of the learning process, we add that they can be supportive also, in the analysis of the other perspective, that is of the teaching processes. The increase of research in this context would also favor the refinement of the application of wearable and wireless tools to ensure the naturalness of the interactive dyadic exchange.…”

“…Without claiming to be exhaustive, the following paragraphs will describe the studies that, in line with the new trends in cognitive neuroscience, aimed to apply the neuroscientific tools outside the laboratory, directly in the classroom, and which used the hyperscanning paradigm to grasp the interactive dynamic between teacher and student. Unlike the two recent essays by Davidesco ( 2020 ); Davidesco et al ( 2021 ), this contribution focuses on hyperscanning studies involving the figure of the teacher. The findings reported below might be particularly interesting for a better understanding of the TB perspective.…”

“…Accordingly, although the provocation of the French philosopher (i.e., Meirieu), still feeds widespread neuroscepticism (see for example the Editorial, 2005 ; Bowers, 2016 ; Krammer et al, 2021 ), it finds some opposite positions and evidence in several recent studies that support the blending of neuroscience and education as an engine of knowledge (Thomas, 2019 ; Davidesco, 2020 ; Davidesco et al, 2021 ). According to this view, the knowledge of how the brain works and its anatomy could contribute to (i) the understanding of teaching-learning processes, and (ii) the identification of learning environments oriented to promote and support neuroplasticity and that could be facilitators of the learning process.…”

Toys for children with the concept of STEM: study of the result from children’s playing activities

“…Used the development of the draft idea by selecting three toy product patterns for children as the concept of STEM through brainstorming and considering the relationship of the design by taking the result of the assessment in the selection with the designed principle from bringing the two patterns for the model product development in the final level before testing with the children group and the parents who were interested in the promotional development of the children as the concept of STEM+A (Art) (Davidesco, 2020;Smith et al 2013).…”