Educational Neuroscience and the Future of Teaching and Learning in the United Arab Emirates: Thoughts and Reflections
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United Arab Emirates University, United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a young nation with incredible vision. Our visionary leaders are driving the kind of change that builds a reputation the world sees as creative, productive and transformational. Bringing the vision into reality, the nation is taking incredible leaps over expansive chasms in record time. Measured in only decades, the UAE has built one of the best infrastructure systems for healthcare in the world and has stimulated strong economic growth. Now the focus is on school reform with an aim to create a first-rate education.
Recognizing that education is at the heart of sustaining progress, the nation is initiating several policies that reflect its heavy investment in their education system. Through financial and human capital, the Nation is increasing high school graduation rate; lowering the dropout rate; providing parents with early childhood education; and lowering the need for Emirati students to complete foundation courses to qualify for university entry.
As the nation races toward the top with plans of leading the way, the time has come to consider neuroscience in education. The field of educational neuroscience has potential to provide critical insights for increasing the rate of change in achieving targeted educational goals. Neuroscientists are seeing advancements in their field and they seem eager to share their knowledge with educational policymakers and practitioners. Scientists want to expand their knowledge on how learning takes place in the brain by helping educators learn new technologies including real-time visual representations of brain functioning.
Disseminating knowledge to teachers is crucial for raising their awareness on the brain structure and cognitive functions that impact students’ learning. Yet, the question of how to bring neuroscience research to the classroom remains puzzling for educators. The challenge becomes one of learning a new language. Educators understand the terms and concepts of memorization and learning styles, but may not know what neuroscience researchers mean when they refer to similar and unfamiliar concepts such as learners’ working memory and sensory sequence (Coch & Ansari, 2009; Goswami, 2006; Sigman et al., 2014; Sousa, 2010).
In this talk, I will highlight the educational neuroscience’s role in the context of UAE education reform. The goals for this talk are to bridge the discourse gap and help the audience see the opportunities stemming from the field of educational neuroscience and the potential it has in creating a better understanding of how students learn. By the end of the talk, audience members will lean into the challenges created by merging epistemologies; one from emerging fields in science and the others from traditional fields in education will be discussed - with the hope in a future – bursting with possibilities.
References
Coch, D. & Ansari, D. (2009) Thinking About Mechanisms is Crucial to Connecting Neuroscience and Education, Cortex, 45, pp. 546–7.
Goswami, U. (2006) Neuroscience and Education: From research to practice? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7, pp. 406–413.
Sigman, M., Peña, M., Goldin, A. P., and Ribeiro, S. (2014). Neuroscience and education: prime time to build the bridge. Nat. Neurosci.17, 497–502.
Sousa, D. A. (Ed.). (2010). Mind, brain, and education: Neuroscience implications for the classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Keywords:
United Arab Emirates,
Education Reform,
educational neuroscience,
Teaching,
Learning,
classroom
Conference:
3rd International Conference on Educational Neuroscience, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 11 Mar - 12 Mar, 2018.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation (invited speakers only)
Topic:
Educational Neuroscience
Citation:
AlAleeli
S
(2018). Educational Neuroscience and the Future of Teaching and Learning in the United Arab Emirates: Thoughts and Reflections.
Conference Abstract:
3rd International Conference on Educational Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2018.225.00001
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Received:
25 Feb 2018;
Published Online:
14 Dec 2018.
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Correspondence:
Prof. Sara AlAleeli, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates, salalili@uaeu.ac.ae