Departmental Seminar: Understanding children's learning in the real world

ABSTRACT

The scientific method encourages us to isolate and test possible causes for behaviours one at a time.  This leads to the creation of very rigorous but perhaps deceptively simple explanations of how learning is embedded in a complex real-world setting. In this talk, I will describe a series of work in which we have tried to move away from the well-controlled lab setting to more complex multi-sensory, multi-dimensional, and multi individual paradigms to address how children leverage different sources of information in parallel to achieve their learning goals. If time permits, I will also discuss lessons learnt from taking interventions developed in rigorous lab conditions into the real-word classrooms.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER 

Professor Denis Mareschal is Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck University of London. He obtained his first degree from Cambridge in Physics and Theoretical Physics, an MA from McGill in Psychology and AI, and a DPhil from Oxford in Psychology. His research focuses on identifying the mechanisms of learning and development across a broad range of cognitive and perceptual domains in infancy and childhood. He has been awarded a number of international prizes including the Marr Prize (Cognitive Science Society), the Young Investigator Award (International Congress on Infancy), and the Margaret Donaldson Prize (BPS Developmental Section). Recent monographs include Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition (OUP), and Educational Neuroscience (Wiley).

TO JOIN THE TALK

This is a hybrid event.  The seminar will be held at the Seminar Room, New Radcliffe House (2nd Floor) but can also be followed on Zoom.  

You can access the Zoom link via OxTalks at Understanding children's learning in the real world - Oxford Talks Or, email us at hod.office@psy.ox.ac.uk to request the link.