Knowledge Transformation and Distance Learning for Secondary Education Students - The Role of Educational Neuroscience

Online distance education has been around for quite some time, yet it is still often treated as a second-best version. In the beginning of 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire educational world has had to resort to a version of online education so that schools and universities could continue to offer their courses to their students. This version of online education, which has already been referred to as Emergency Remote Teaching, draws on online education practices, but, as explained in this article, does not share principles or instructional design and planning models since it has been recruited more or less to ‘save the day’. Drawing on the findings of educational neuroscience with regard to the way the human brain learns and develops as well as on online education principles, this article sets out to suggest ways neuroscientific findings in combination with online education practices can inform Emergency Remote Teaching and to propose that both neuroscience and online education can and should inform teacher practices so that students’ minds can be better served and better educational practices can be attained.