Course description:
This course provides an overview of a potentially foundational new area of educational research. It will introduce new quantitative perspectives to areas of qualitative research in education concerned with cognition, affect, and learning. The course has no prerequisites, but is specifically aimed toward graduate students in education, and graduate students in the cognitive sciences with a humanist interest.

Prerequisite(s) (or special instructions):
Enrollment with consent of instructor, with an enrollment limit of 12 (max. 6-8 preferred)

Objectives:
The course will enable students to (a) understand the emergence of educational neuroscience as a new scientifically-grounded evidence-based approach to educational research in context with the emergence of cognitive neuroscience, and to differentiate it from more popular “brain-based” educational initiatives (b) engage theoretical issues and orientations of concern to educational neuroscience, and (c) provide opportunities to become familiar with methods of educational neuroscience through hands-on study.

Rationale for course offering:
The instructor has received funding to establish an educational neuroscience laboratory that will be operational Fall 2005. This laboratory will be equipped with integrated high-density electroencephalography, eye-tracking, biofeedback, and related systems for quantitatively augmenting clinical qualitative behavioural studies. This course has been designed to allow interested graduate students to become familiar with the many possibilities of educational neuroscience and to conduct studies in this lab.