| The course aims to introduce students to the emerging field of educational neuroscience, its main research methods, its findings, and its implications. Starting with a brief introduction into the biology of the brain, from cells to structural brain anatomy, and from computational processes on the neuron level to the operation of higher brain functions, such as attention, working memory, and executive control, the course will focus specifically on neuro-constructivist approaches to brain-development and highlight experience-expectant and experience-dependent mechanisms. The basic neuro-cognitive and neuro-affective insights are applied to learning language, literacy, and math in the real contexts of the family and the classroom, addressing also the affective and social processes involved. An important aim of the course is to make student familiar with neuroscience research methods and experimental research designs. About half of the course, therefore, will be spent on a hands-on work assignment in the form of an experiment in educational neuroscience in the lab using eye-tracking and electrophysiological brain measures (EEG).
The course is also part of the clinical qualification track in the EDSCI programme. Students with an appropriate Bachelor or Premaster specialization Special Education (Studiepad / Premaster Orthopedagogiek) who choose for this track will do their work assignment in the Ambulatorium under supervision of a licensed clinical teacher, using eye-tracking and/or electrophysiological brain measures as additional diagnostic tools. The assignment will result in a report of the diagnostic examination and evaluation of a student with learning and school-behavioral problems (required diagnostic case study 1).
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