The Australian Science of Learning Research Centre

The Australian Science of Research Learning Centre (SLRC), established as a special initiative of the Australian Research Council in 2008, brings together neuroscientists, psychologists and educators to work collaboratively towards improving classroom outcomes. Research at the SLRC is organised into three broad themes: “understanding learning”, which focusses on the basic neurophysiological and psychological processes involved in learning “measuring learning”, which aims to develop novel techniques to quantify learning as it occurs dynamically in the classroom and “promoting learning”, which takes the insights of the other themes to formulate novel strategies to improve learning outcomes. SLRC projects have examined such phenomena as mathematics anxiety, the role of feedback and Bayesian approaches to learning and the brain. The chapter also addresses recent scepticism about the utility of using neuroscientific insights to improve classroom learning.