Successful Engineering Lecturing Based On Neuroscience

Many engineering professors teach their classes without having received previous training in psycho-pedagogy and neuroscience. While a few of them have received some form of pedagogical training during their academic career, the vast majority have not acquired any training in the field of didactics, that is, in the science of teaching. Teaching is a difficult task, and teaching effectively is even more difficult. Much literature exists on different teaching-learning methodologies that have been empirically tested in engineering studies. However, practically none of these works make reference to the main factor in any learning process: how does the human brain learn? This paper analyses learning from the perspective of its three main phases (motivation, attention, memorization), and how these phases should be addressed in a lecture, since many of the Engineering classes at universities around the world are given as lectures. The current knowledge of neuroscience is used in the paper to provide twelve recommendations on how a lecture should be successfully given in Engineering Degrees. For the selection of these twelve tips, we use two criteria: they must be relevant in a lecture, and they must have a neuroscientific basis, which is explained in the framework of the paper. The relationship between the twelve tips and the seven principles of good practice in undergraduate studies enunciated by Chickering and Gamson has also been established. The relation of each tip with the learning phases to which it refers is explained, and an example of how to apply it in a lecture is given. This paper presents a new way of working in engineering education: how to apply the knowledge provided by neuroscience to the teaching-learning process. This work provides some ideas about how this can be done in a lecture, but it is also necessary to conduct experiments to validate the effectiveness of the twelve tips proposed herein. It is likewise necessary to carry out similar work for other teaching methodologies such as PBL, flipped classroom or service-learning. The future of education cannot be developed without taking into account the functioning of the human brain or by applying educational practices that are unsupported by scientific evidence of their effectiveness.