Neurodidactics

Research – Department of Teacher Education

Neurodidactics

Illustration of a brain. Photo

Goal

Our goal is to strengthen students' understanding of the nervous system, as well as to contribute neuroscience knowledge of relevance to other subject areas. To achieve this goal, we conduct research on- and development of content, teaching methods, teaching tools and teaching environments related to the topic of the nervous system in school. In addition, we investigate how knowledge about the nervous system can be applied in other subjects.

Background

The nervous system is the physical substrate for motivation, learning and memory. Anyone who offers education, regardless of subject area, will therefore benefit from a proper understanding of this system. However, two major obstacles to understanding the nervous system are its complexity and inaccessibility. The nerve cells are small, with thread-like structures extending long distances throughout the body (including the brain) and connect to thousands of other cells. In addition, it is the nerve signals and precisely where they spread throughout the network of nerve cells which are crucial for what we sense, perceive, feel, think, do and learn. These characteristic features make the topic appear abstract and difficult for most students. The teaching often becomes lecture-based, which can reduce student motivation and therefore also the learning outcomes. BUT THIS is what our group aims to CHANGE!

Projects

We can offer projects for doctoral, master's and bachelor's degrees in the following areas (ongoing and available projects):

Building brains: Development of a brain building kit consisting of pluggable, electronic nerve cells with the purpose of promoting practical learning activities
Testing of brain building kit in school
Measurements of students' learning outcomes, motivation and engagement related to the use of the brain building kit
Examine people's understanding / perception of the nervous system
Evaluate content on the nervous system in primary and secondary school textbooks
Ranking of concepts in neuroscience by level of difficulty
Ranking of neural networks by level of difficulty
Flipped teaching on topics related to the nervous system
Open projects (we are open to discuss students' own project ideas)

Publications neuroscience

Kvello, Pål. (2024) Mapping lower secondary school students’ conceptions of three aspects critical for understanding the nervous system. PLOS ONE 19(5): e0301090.

Kvello, Pål; Gericke, Niklas Markus. (2023) Didaktiska perspektiv på undervisning om nervsystemet. Bi-lagan nr 2Kvello, P., and Gericke, N. (2021). Identifying knowledge important to teach about the nervous system in the context of secondary biology and science education-A Delphi study. PLoS One. 21;16(12):e0260752.

Harstad, O. (2020). Å bli til med litteraturen. En metafysisk og nevrovitenskapelig forståelse av skjønnlitteraturens virkning. Nordisk Tidsskrift for Pedagogikk Og Kritikk, 6.

Kvello, Pål; Barstad, Stine Slaatsveen; Rønning, Bernt; Moen, Elin Tronsaune; Østerlie, Ove. (2020) Omvendt undervisning versus tradisjonell undervisning i naturfag på ungdomsskolen: En studie av elevers motivasjon, forberedelser og læringsutbytte. Acta Didactica Norden (ADNO). vol. 14 (1).