Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience Michael S.C. Thomas on ”Educational Neuroscience: The Basics”

WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL OF EDUCATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE? British Physician, Ben Goldacre, 2013 says “I think there is a huge prize waiting to be claimed by teachers. By collecting better evidence about what works best and establishing a culture where this evidence is used as a matter of routine, we can improve outcomes for children, and increase professional independence.” Watch this interview on YouTube here https://youtu.be/Uh1BZOTGZQc On today’s Episode #269 we will cover ✔  Professor Michael S.C. Thomas' new book Educational Neuroscience: The Basics ✔  Where is educational neuroscience NOW? Where it began, and where it's going. ✔ How this book can help students improve how they learn.  ✔ How this look at Educational Neuroscience can help us to become better teachers. ✔ The difference between evidence-based and neuroscience-based. ✔ Where we should ALL begin. What IS the BASICS of Neuroscience? ✔ What makes something forgettable and another thing memorable? ✔ Ways to make learning easier.   Welcome back to The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast where we bridge the gap between theory and practice, with strategies, tools and ideas we can all use immediately, applied to the most current brain research to heighten productivity in our schools, sports environments and modern workplaces. I’m Andrea Samadi and launched this podcast almost 4 years ago, to share how important an understanding of our brain is for our everyday life and results. This season (Season 9) we will be focused on Neuroscience: Going Back to the Basics for the next few months, as we welcome some phenomenal pioneers in the field of Neuroscience, paving a pathway for all of us to navigate our lives with more understanding with our brain in mind. My goal with this next season (that will run until the end of June) is that going back to the basics will help us to strengthen our understanding of the brain, and our mind, to our results, and provide us with a springboard to propel us forward in 2023, with this solid backbone of science.  Today’s guest and EPISODE #269, I’ve been wanting to have on this podcast since I came across his work in the field of educational neuroscience around the time we interviewed Dr. Daniel Ansari, back in June 2021 for EPISODE #138.[i] I saw their Annual Research Review: (called) Educational Neuroscience progress from April 2019, written by Michael S.C. Thomas, Daniel Ansari and Victoria C.P. Rowland that provided a thorough overview of the origins of educational neuroscience, outlining where it began, the challenges it faces as a “translational field” and addressed it’s major criticisms.  I immediately wrote down Michael S.C. Thomas’ name, along with his email address, to reach out to him to learn more of his perspective in this field. Since I was interviewing Dr. Daniel Ansari, it brought something to light for me that the people who write these research reports that we find on Pubmed.gov, are working hard somewhere, and not completely out of reach if you really want to find them, and ask them some questions about their work.  When I finally emailed him, I was thrilled to hear he had a NEW book Educational Neuroscience: The Basics[ii] and am grateful to have this opportunity to speak with him about this new book. Before we meet our next guest, Michael S.C. Thomas, let me orient you to his work. Michael S. C. Thomas is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Birkbeck University of London. Since 2010, he has been Director of the Centre for Educational Neuroscience, a cross-institutional research centre which aims to further translational research between neuroscience and education, and establish new transdisciplinary accounts in the learning sciences. In 2003, Michael established the Developmental Neurocognition Laboratory within Birkbeck’s world-leading Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development. The focus of his laboratory is to use multi-disciplinary methods to understand the brain, including behavioural,