OECD promotes better brain and learning links
The organisation for economic cooperation and development (OECD) is supporting an initiative to promote links between brain research and learning sciences. 'Brain research has not yet found solid application in the learning field despite the remarkable progress in fundamental research over the last decade,' reports the OECD's Centre for educational research and innovation (CERI). 'The number of discoveries from brain research that have been exploited by the learning sciences is slim, perhaps due to the fact that there have historically been few direct contacts between brain and learning scientists, and little consensus on the potential applications of brain research to learning science.' In an effort to change this, CERI recently launched a project on 'learning sciences and brain research: potential implications for education policies and practices'. Consisting of three high level fora, the project aims to encourage collaboration between both learning sciences and brain research and researchers and policy makers. 'This project has high potential for better understanding learning processes over the individual's lifecycle, and important ethical questions are related to the topic,' CERI explains. 'There is a growing need for an informed public dialogue between brain specialists, learning specialists and policy makers,' it says. To complement the initiative CERI is supporting the third forum on 'brain mechanisms and early learning' in Tokyo, Japan, from 26 to 27 April 2001.