Can neuroscience contribute to the science of learning?

The Centre for Educational Neuroscience (Centre for Educational Neuroscience, n.d.), a collaboration between UCL/IOE and Birkbeck, quote a Royal Society Report: ‘Education is about enhancing learning, and neuroscience is about understanding the mental processes involved in learning. This common ground suggests a future in which educational practice can be transformed by science, just as medical practice was transformed by science about a century ago’ (Royal Society, 2011). The Centre tells us that their researchers are investigating the neural mechanisms of reading, numerical cognition, attention and their attendant difficulties, including dyslexia, dyscalculia and ADHD, as they relate to education. Geake and Cooper (Geake and Cooper, 2003), excited by such possibilities, described an imaginary future parents' evening, where a teacher shows a mother that her son has a weak short-term memory circuit for number solutions. The teacher says that this explains the boy’s poor mat