THE NEUROSCIENCE ASPECTS OF ADOLESCENT BEHAVIOUR AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

Education is considered to be a tool for providing knowledge, building character and promising a comfortable lifeto its learners. To ensure desired learning outcomes, a lot is being done in the areas of developing better curriculum, making state of the art institutions, improving teacher quality, providing digital platforms, enhancing parental involvement etc. However, when it comes to designing Pedagogical Tools based on the learning patterns of the brain, there is seen a wide gap between what is researched in laboratories and what is witnessed in our classrooms. Pedagogical practices not based on an understanding of how a learner’s brain works and what are its needs can lead to undesired behavioural consequences in them. This becomes more pronounced as learners enter into adolescence, a period in development marked with rapid changes at mental, physical, emotional and psychological levels.

This paper looks into various researches that have been done in Cognitive Neuroscience and their educational implications on adolescent learners. It explores why educational practices must take into consideration the cognitive aspects of an adolescent’s brain like role of reward system, enhancing Working Memory, providing multisensory stimulus, using memory strategies, understanding learner behavior and needs etc. This paper concludes by providing insights on how learnings from these Neuroscience researches can address the issue of high risk behaviour tendencies and mental disorders amongst adolescent learners.