Doctoral Thesis Addresses Keys to Neuroeducation

A teacher of Basic Education received her doctoral degree at the Universidad Católica del Maule, with a research on the experience of teachers who integrated emotion in their pedagogical practices.

The first empirical research in Chile on neuroeducation was presented by a student of the Doctorate in Education at the Universidad Católica del Maule (UCM), as part of her final thesis. Belén Valdés, a career professor, obtained an outstanding grade in the defense of her research on the impact of what is also called “brain science” on learning.

“We taught the teachers of an educational establishment in Talca some proposals with a socio-affective vision and they applied them. I accompanied the research as an observer and visualized the contributions that this discipline can have in education,” said the new doctor.

Neuroeducation is an approach that allows understanding how the brain learns, to form people in an enhanced and different way, integrating socio-affectivity. It is a tool capable of transforming pedagogical practices.

“We worked on skills such as self-regulation and empathy, through strategies that activated emotional skills, such as a role-playing war that took place when the class was already underway and which basically sought to regain the students’ attention. We had another ‘gamified’ or game dynamic, which was the mirror dynamic, where one student was the mirror and the other was the reflection and had to imitate the classmate; the teacher said ‘change’ and the students replicated the activity in reverse. With this we worked on skills such as attention, which contributed to the reading comprehension of the Language and Communication subject,” said Valdés.

The thesis, entitled “Teachers’ perceptions of socio-affective neuroeducational principles for the development of reading comprehension in Chile”, was directed by Mariana Lazzaro-Salazar, PhD in Linguistics, a member of the academic committee of the doctoral program offered by the campus.

“This is the first empirical research on neuroeducation. There was application of questionnaires to know people’s perceptions, but no implementation in the classroom. It is a very incipient topic, but it is already entering the training of new teachers,” she said.

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