Milestones of Bioeducational Approach in Mind, Brain, and Education Research

Educational neuroscience, and its sister disciplines, neuro-education, and brain-based education, are innovative fields of study in which scientists and practitioners from neuroscience, educational psychology, and educational research come together to explore the networked world of mind, brain, and education. This possible alliance enables research to design educational settings in order to improve effective learning. Italian research on mind, brain, and education is represented by bioeducational sciences, which introduce the emerging theories of cognitive educability. Milestones of the bioeducational approach consist of five keys: diversity, modifiability, discontinuity, inte(g)ration, and collaboration. These key concepts concern the flexibility of education (the potential to change continuously) to deal with variable situations and the integrated action of education (the possibility given by explicit and implicit double track to manage the conceptual organization). The concept of flexible education is based on the idea that every cognitive system is rooted within dynamic networks of individual and social aspects. Educational research needs flexible models of tailored educability based on individual differentiation and adaptive variability. Learners diverge indeed in their intertwined cognitive processing, emotional, and bodily approach to learning content. Cognitive systems activate processes of adaptive interaction with the environment regulated by experience. These processes concern the modularity of individual cognitive functions and their evolutive sharing. The individual developmental psychological, biological, and social processes are integrated into holistic and interactive theoretical perspectives of educability.