International Symposium on Science for Education: A Satellite Meeting to the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO); Rio de Janeiro, Brazil-July 5-6, 2015

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

As societies become progressively knowledge-intensive, they increasingly rely on human capabilities to learn and innovate. How each nation's education system succeeds or fails to prepare its citizenry to meet these challenges are topics of domestic and global interest. Learning and innovation are critical to the broader concerns of human and national development and the capacity of a nation to compete in a world of globalized economies and labor markets. A primary driver of educational innovation is basic research focused on how humans learn. The challenge is: how to more effectively use research about how people learn to inform educational policy and practice, and conversely, how to use knowledge and experience gained from educational practice to raise questions that test and refine research being conducted on learning. Dr. Patricia Kuhl proposes an international meeting on July 5-6, 2015 as a two-day Satellite Symposium to the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) 2015 World Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This meeting is expected to (1) foster the development, adoption. and adaptation of effective models of teaching that have proven successful in various countries, (2) establish new international research collaborations on learning that are interdisciplinary to advance methods and theory, (3) create an understanding of the value of learning research among policymakers and broader audiences across countries, and (4) create an understanding of the two-way street that exists between research and practice in the learning sciences. Sharing ideas and successes across countries offers the rare opportunity for a global community to be exposed to entirely new ways of thinking about the future of education. The objective of the meeting is to connect more deeply research studies on learning to educational policies and practice, in the belief that interactions and long-term partnerships between neuroscientists and educators (a "network of networks") will promote work that will alter educational practices worldwide. Specifically, this meeting will: (1) bring together an international group of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to deepen the connections between scientific research and policy and practice in education; (2) promote exchanges between neuroscientists and educators to foster action and work that will alter educational practices worldwide; and, (3) ignite interactions that lead to new research collaborations and opportunities to connect research to educational outcomes. The symposium is expected to facilitate interactivity among the U.S. researchers, researchers from South America and around the world, and education practitioners and policymakers, to stimulate the development of next generation instrumentation in multi-user facilities that will improve the measurement of brain responses during learning, and to develop theories with interdisciplinary input that will explain why particular approaches to learning are successful and promote an understanding of the basic brain mechanisms that underlie learning.