You are warmly invited to take part in the upcoming, second instalment of an exciting digital and e-learning collaboration between UCL-IoE and Hong Kong University.

The CEN Research Group, which is open to those interested in the latest developments in educational neuroscience, meets weekly at 4pm on Thursday afternoons.

Our autumn schedule is now available here. The first meeting is on Thursday 15th October, with a journal paper presentation from Emily Farran. On 22nd October, Sarah Punshon will be talking about her new Wellcome-Funded project: “Getting stuck, going wrong and being stupid: could a theatrical adventure impact children’s beliefs about their mathematical brains?”. On Thursday 29th October, Dr. Ben Shaw from the University of Westminster will present his research on “Children’s Independent Mobility: how much freedom do our children have to get about by themselves and does independence affect child development?”

The CEN Research Group is open to faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, and students at Birkbeck and UCL (especially those on the Educational Neuroscience and Developmental Sciences masters, and PhD students studying relevant topics). It is also open to educationalists, educational psychologists, and interested teachers. Meetings aim to enable an atmosphere of informal discussion of the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology, and their relevance to education. If you would like to attend, please contact us at: centre4educationalneuroscience@gmail.com

Michael Thomas, Director of CEN, and Dr. Emma Meaburn, will give the Inaugural Annual Learnus Lecture, on the topic of Genetics and Education, on 18th November at 6.30pm, at Harvey Goodwin Suite, Church House, Dean’s Yard London SW1P 3NZ. The lecture will explore the potential contribution of modern genetic methods and findings to education. Here’s the flier:

Learnus Inaugural Annual Lecture

Professor Yi-Yuan Tang, visiting from Texas Tech University, USA, will give a seminar at the the CEN on Wednesday, 12-1pm on August 5th, at Birkbeck (Room 153, Malet Street building), with a buffet lunch afterwards.

The seminar will be on “Training Attention and Self-regulation: Brain Mechanisms and Applications”.

Abstract: “Attention and self-regulation play an important role in learning and education. It remains largely unknown how to train these capacities effectively. This talk will introduce two types of training methods – state training and network training. Network training involves practice of a specific task (e.g., attention, working memory) repeatedly and thus exercising its specific brain network. State training uses practice (e.g., physical exercise or mindfulness meditation) to develop a brain state that may influence the operations of many networks. State training certainly involves networks, but it is not designed to train networks using a cognitive task. Research has shown that both types of training can improve attention, cognitive control, emotion regulation and neuroplasticity. I will discuss the brain mechanisms and applications of these types of training in learning and education.”

All welcome.