What does Evolutionary Science tell us about how to engage young minds?
Gabrielle F. Principe, Ph.D.
Chair and Professor of Psychology, College of Charleston
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About Gabrielle Principe
Gabrielle Principe is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the College of Charleston, where she studies cognitive development in young children. Principe received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later completed a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University.
Principe has a deep interest in translating the latest scientific research about human development into information that parents and teachers can use to better rear and educate children. She blogs for Psychology Today on issues of childhood and serves as the education section editor for This View of Life, a general interest online magazine intended to expand evolutionary thinking beyond the biological sciences for higher education and public policy formulation. Her new book is entitled Your Brain on Childhood: The Unexpected Side Effects of Classrooms, Ballparks, Family Rooms, and the Minivan.
About the Education Webinar
As part of the Evolution Institute’s Urban Initiative and its Education Brown Bag Series, Dr. Principe will filter how we educate young children through the lens of human evolution.
– Has the education system in the U.S. been designed in ways that gel with how children’s brains have evolved to learn? Or is there a disconnect between children’s evolutionary past and their modern human present that makes today’s formal education system, with its emphasis on classroom learning, preplanned curricula, rote memorization, and standardized assessment, that leads to unexpected side effects?
– What are the implications of this?
– How can we better design learning environments to support learning?
– An evolutionary framework can provide keen insights into the sorts of instructional approaches, curricular materials, and educational contexts that best fit children’s natural dispositions and tendencies
