2. What does neuropedagogy bring to teachers?

In the scientific literature of the field in question, it is very common to find different results: studies that show the effectiveness of one method and others that reflect the opposite. Sometimes, it is unfruitful to compare educational methods because everything depends on the details, that is, on the multiple variables that come into play in each method. However, we usually classify didactic methods according to one of their variables, and it is usually not this variable that determines their effectiveness. Therefore, when we go to educational research, we must differentiate between studies that inform us about the presumed effectiveness of some methods with respect to others, and research that directly tries to find out which factors are those that share the methods that end up being effective. Many of these factors have to do with how the brain learns.

There is no infallible recipe for everything, it is the teacher who will have the last word when it comes to adjusting the methods to achieve the best results. And for this it is crucial that you know the principles of learning supported by scientific evidence. In this sense, rather than talking about evidence-based teaching, we should talk about evidence-informed teaching (Hattie, 2012). It is not a question of strictly applying specific methods that science has analyzed in specific situations, but of planning and adjusting the methods according to the particularities of the situation, with the help of what science can tell us about what factors lead to better learning from the knowledge that neuroscience gives us.

Since scientific advances in how the brain develops and learns have reached the general public, multiple pseudoscientific myths have crept into education, which have arisen from the misrepresentation or misinterpretation of scientific findings. These myths are a problem because they confuse us and lead us to make decisions and devote efforts in favor of practices that do not have any evidence. In general, they entail a waste of time that we could have dedicated to more effective activities, and, in the worst case, they can have a negative impact on learning. Some of these pseudoscientific myths about learning are (Sousa, 2011):

• People learn best when they receive information in their preferred learning style (auditory, visual, etc.).
• Environments that are rich in stimuli improve the brains of preschoolers.
• Certain differences in the dominance of one cerebral hemisphere over the other help explain some of the differences between students.
• We only use 10% of the brain.
• There are critical periods in childhood after which it is no longer possible to learn certain things.

There are eleven key aspects of the brain that allow us to deepen educational practice (Battro, Fischer & Léna, 2008):

1. Education alters the connections of the brain, so depending on how education is, it will generate more critical and reflective people, impulsive or submissive.
2. Positive reinforcement is key in learning.
3. Educational strategies that generate positive emotions should be used, so that learning is associated with pleasure.
4. A learner who is allowed to decide, evaluate, relate, etc., and who feels the motivating need to do so, will establish a better neural substrate, which will allow him to better assimilate new learning.
5. Collaborative and cooperative learning is more meaningful and involves the activation of many more neural networks.
6. The richer and more plural classes, which incorporate innovative and surprising elements, allow to improve the attention as it matures.
7. Stimulating the motivation of students and showing them models to learn to motivate themselves, is key to maintaining attention and the trigger of the competition of learning to learn.
8. The attitude of the teacher is key in the perception of the students about what they learn and the very fact of learning and must act as a model.
9. Transversal learning that includes intellectual, artistic, psychomotor, etc. activates wider areas of the brain, so there is a better fixation of learning and a greater ability to apply them.
10. It is essential to respect the maturing times of the brain and not to get ahead, as it can have counterproductive effects in the learning process.
11. Chronic stress is the worst enemy of learning since it contributes to forming impulsive people with a lower capacity to make decisions autonomously.