Bringing cognitive neuroscience into the classroom: Some challenges and many opportunities

TARA KIRAN KURRE, TEACHER EDUCATOR, AZIM PREMJI UNIVERSITY, INDIA Neuroscience, the study of the structures and functions of the brain, intrigues educators for its application in education. The insights provided by neuroscience on how we learn might help in planning effective pedagogies that will help teachers to create better learning experiences for students. However, several researchers argue that the bridge between neuroscience and education is too far. As Bruer (1997, p. 15) argued, ‘Neuroscience has discovered a great deal about neurons and synapses, but not nearly enough to guide educational practice.’ One of the challenges in the translation of neuroscience research to education, as Beale (2021) mentions, is that education is too complex and humanistic an affair, to which neuroscience research has little to offer (Perry et al., 2021). Another challenge is that education is not a branch of science, and therefore direct translation of theory to application in education is d