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Welcome to www.brainandlearning.eu

The website www.brainandlearning.eu has been designed to offer information about the relationship between the mind, the brain, learning capacity and education. The website has been established by the Centre for Brain & Learning at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. This centre, recently founded by the Brain & Behaviour Institute at Maastricht University, is a research, knowledge and expertise centre on this specific domain. The centre’s aim is to make scientific information about mind, brain and learning available to those who are interested. Therefore, this site has been created for not only professionals, such as scientists and educators, but also for policy makers, administrators, students, parents and essentially anyone who is interested in the link between brain and behaviour and the field of education. Clearly, the intention of this website is to inform both professionals and laymen alike.

This website is currently under construction and will be expanded in the near future. We endeavour to provide, on this website, up-to-date information on recent findings from the scientific literature, evidence-based as well as practice-based educational interventions, developments in educational policy and other news which might be relevant for those who are interested in the topic. The feature “Latest News” will cover relevant developments in the scientific literature as well as the possible implications of these developments for educational settings.

On behalf of the Centre for Brain & Learning and the Brain & Behaviour Institute,

Prof. Jelle Jolles,
Neuropsychologist,
Cognitive Neuroscientist
Director

BRAIN LESSONS

Summary

The significant advances in brain science and cognitive science in recent decades have helped us map the workings of the human brain better than ever before. In the Netherlands, recognition of the potential of these new insights on brain and learning for the improvement of educational policies and practical teaching methods has generated a number of important initiatives. In 2002 the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), in consultation with the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, set up the Brain & Learning Committee. This committee organized an invitational conference around the theme Brain, Learning & Education. The results of the 2004 invitational conference have been gathered in the present report, Brain Lessons. This report also expresses the Brain & Learning Committee's vision of the direction in which the Brain, Learning & Education theme should be developed in the years to come. Although the insights it contains are based on the situation in the Netherlands, the authors are convinced that the report contains information of interest to all those who are currently considering how to further develop the theme with regard to fundamental and applied research as well as to implementation into educational practice. Therefore, this report has been made available in English, in the hope that scientists and educators in other countries will benefit from it and that it will contribute to the international debate.

The report focuses on the lessons learnt during the 2004 invitational conference in order to lay a foundation for, and contribute to, the future success of a trans-disciplinary project on Brain, Learning & Education. It contains an introduction into the importance, approach and aims of this project, as well as a summary of the discussions inspired by the six workshops held at the conference and a discussion of the results. Thus, this report surveys the terrain that must be covered by a trans-disciplinary project and identifies some of the obstacles it may encounter as well as the targets it must set. Due to the scope of the report, the Brain & Learning Committee considers the insights it contains also relevant within a wider, international context. The committee's chair, Prof. Jelle Jolles, believes that the work done by the committee could benefit all those who are currently considering how to further develop the Brain, Learning & Education theme in their own country, and that the report will contribute to the international debate on these issues.

Publisher: Hard copies of the book can be requested at neuropsy.publishers@np.unimaas.nl (€11 including postage).