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8 - Dynamic cycles of cognitive and brain development: Measuring growth in mind, brain, and education

from Part II - Brain development, cognition, and education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Edited by
Antonio M. Battro ,
Kurt W. Fischer  and
Pierre J. Léna
Antonio M. Battro
Affiliation:
National Academy of Education, Argentina
Kurt W. Fischer
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Pierre J. Léna
Affiliation:
Université de Paris VII (Denis Diderot)
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Summary

Overview

Since the seminal work of Jean Piaget on the relation between knowledge and general biology, researchers have started to understand the basic neurocognitive processes in the unfolding of human development. In particular, recent dynamic growth models illuminate the complex, interrelated changes that take place during brain growth, cognitive development, and learning. Neurocognitive development should be conceived not as a ladder of successive stages but as a complex network of interactions and attractors, convergent and divergent paths, nested cycles, stabilities and instabilities, progressions and regressions, clusters of discontinuities and stable levels of performance. Cycles of cortical development and cycles of cognitive performance seem to be related. In particular the relationship becomes most visible with optimal functioning of the cognitive system, such as when a good teacher or textbook supports a student's performance. A series of discontinuities in optimal cognitive growth define a ten-level developmental scale, which has many potential educational implications. More generally, the systematic growth cycles of cognition and brain have many implications for education, which are sometimes not straightforward. It is essential to the future of education that teachers become involved in neurocognitive research and neuroscientists discover the great theoretical and practical challenge of working in schools.

The Editors

Most scientists and teachers find it obvious that cognitive development and brain development go together, and the enterprise of connecting mind, brain, and education starts with that assumption, as evident in most chapters of this book.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Educated Brain
Essays in Neuroeducation
 , pp. 127 - 150
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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