About AIEN
Together we explore the development of the new interdisciplinary field of Educational Neuroscience on the island of Ireland.
Our project entitled, 'An All-Island Consortium to Foster Educational Neuroscience Research and Practice' (AIEN) is a co-creative project that invites the voices of researchers, parents, teachers, and policy-makers to contribute to the development of this field in Ireland.
Educational Neuroscience is a new interdisciplinary field that addresses real life research questions that go beyond the separate research domains of neuroscience and education. Through the establishment of an all-island educational neuroscience research hub we aim to address our first collaborative research questions focused on the first years of formal learning, to share ideas to improve practice and inclusion in classroom settings, form new collaborations, and to disseminate co-creative findings on the current understanding and management of inattention in the early classroom setting.
Our first research project is focused on mind-wandering in the first two years of formal schooling. However, we aim to create further research opportunities with the expansion of the AIEN project.
The current project has three objectives:
1) To establish teachers’ and parents’ understanding of mind-wandering in early classroom contexts.
2) To engage with stakeholders to enhance classroom practice and make for a more inclusive start across the island’s classrooms.
3) To establish an all-island educational neuroscience hub of researchers and practitioners
The main deliverables we hope to achieve through this initial project phase are:
● A qualitative paper targeted at education journal
● White paper report for online teacher dissemination.
● The establishment of an All-Island Educational Neuroscience hub
This event is funded by an Irish Research Council New Foundations Grant in partnership with
the Department of the Taoiseach as part of the Shared Island initiative.
