Master of Educational Neuroscience

UNIT OVERVIEWS

EDED20515 Educational Neuroscience
Educators are brain changers through the learning experiences they create. They are neural architects working with students/clients. Having informed knowledge about the brain is critical to maximise learning and wellness. In this unit, you will learn how our social brain connects with others in ways that are core to our existence. You will learn about neurobiological fundamentals, how neuroplasticity drives the development of neural networks in learning and memory, the role of stress responses in learning, and how sleep, nutrition and movement are critical to a healthy brain. You will gain neuroscientific insights into contemporary and emerging evidence-based findings to enhance your practices and create optimal learning environments that underpin achievement and wellness.

EDED20516 Neuroscience-Powered Leadership
This unit examines the attributes of inspirational leaders from a neuroscientific perspective based on contemporary research. You will learn how as an inspirational leader you need to appeal to your team’s needs and inner motivations to inspire them to engage in personal and organisational growth. This unit uses a social cognitive neuroscience approach based on trust, rapport, and growth. Contemporary brain-wise interventions to enhance team engagement and optimise the cooperation of members are examined through a neuroscientific lens.

EDED20517 Neuroplasticians Research Project
Educators and other professionals quite literally change the brain of students/clients – they are ‘neuroplasticians’. You will learn how findings from Psychology, Education and Neuroscience (PEN) disciplines co-jointly support brain-friendly principles to improve both achievement and wellness and about the many neuromyths that abound and how to challenge and avoid those. The unit content is carefully selected from authoritative sources such as Tokuhama-Espinosa, Willis, The Science of Learning Research Centre (SLRC), Howard-Jones, Siegel and other prominent, cutting-edge researchers in Educational Neuroscience. You will learn about research-based findings that have immediate practical use with learners, including young people and colleagues. You will review contemporary brain teaching guidelines and use those to enhance your practices utilising integrative reflections.

EDED20513 Learning and Memory - A Neuroscientific View
Educators need an understanding of learning and memory informed by evidence-based research involving neural activation patterns. In this unit, you will engage with contemporary views on how the brain works and develops by responding to internal and external stimuli. You will learn about how information flows in the brain and how the brain creates, consolidates, stores and retrieves memories. The knowledge and skills that you develop in this unit may be applied immediately in your professional practice to enhance learning and memory.

EDED29448 Remote Learning Informed by Neuroscience
This unit provides professional upskilling in remote learning that uses contemporary neuroscientific understandings. You will transition your professional practices to this very different mode of engaging learners in remote learning. You will explore contemporary online platforms and technologies that facilitate user interaction with peers and groups using contemporary Web approaches in social networking, collaboration platforms, teamwork, and interactive applications. You learn how to choose the most appropriate online tools to create an enticing and high-quality remote learning environment for your context informed by educational neuroscience.

EDED20512 Advancing Educational Neuroscience Research
As a professional educator, you need to understand the underlying concepts and principles of contemporary Educational Neuroscience and the evidence-based research that informs it. Drawing upon the works of world-renowned researchers and other experts in the field, you will develop insights on how to use contemporary evidence-based knowledge to enhance your professional practice. In this unit, you will learn how to evaluate neuroscientific information and use it in an integrated and ethical manner. You will learn about selecting, analysing, adapting and applying Educational Neuroscience research immediately to your professional practice by using well-established criteria to judge the quality and limitations of conceptual and empirical studies. You will be able to communicate in an informed way to a range of audiences about research in Educational Neuroscience. This may lead you to do your own practitioner-based research later using robust approaches from Educational Neuroscience that you will study in this unit.

EDED20514 Capstone Research Project in Neuroscience
In this capstone unit, at the end of your course, you will plan a project that evidences the application of your specialised knowledge and skills in Educational Neuroscience. To do this, you will identify an educational issue with a key research question and design an intervention to address it that is methodologically rigorous and ethically sound associated with your workplace or intended workplace. Using evidence-based research and synthesising your learning from Educational Neuroscience, you will show the likely positive impact on, for example, the achievement and wellness of the potential participants. That will include background information on why you chose your project, its anticipated significance to influence practice and policy locally and possibly beyond, the likely timelines of your project should it be implemented and the intended research methods to be used.