The focus of my research has been on the concept of learning, and especially in mathematical sciences like my own field of expertise, statistics. Years of teaching statistics at all university levels have taught me that students are different, and, hence, should also learn and be taught differently. By Dr. Helge Brovold at the National Centre for Science Recruitment, I have been introduced to an extremely interesting interdisciplinary research area which resides in the intersection between personality psychology, neuro-physiology and pedagogics. As a statistician I find great resemblance between my own field and this research area, because the functioning of the brain appears to be very statistical in the way information is collected, filtered, evaluated and knowledge is updated. However, there are individual differences between us all when it comes to which parts of the brain (circuits) that we exploit the most. This gives rise to differences in personality and also in favorite and most effective learning routines. A study we have conducted at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (www.nmbu.no) showed that certain personality types appear to be disfavored by the way undergraduate courses are taught. These findings show us that there is “no-size-fits-all” in teaching! This may very well explain why clever and smart students drop out of science subjects at schools and universities and why far too many struggle with math anxiety. Through close collaboration with Dr. Brovold and others I focus on how the learning experience in mathematical sciences can be adapted to the individual student, and with this aim, we need to take all aspects of cognition into consideration, from the level of neurons in the brain, via neuronal networks and the individual differences in cortical-subcortical circuits, to the level of personality psychology and adaptive pedagogics.
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Publikasjoner
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Forskning & prosjekt
Prosjekter
This project will address challenges regarding online classification of pork and the establishment of dissection by CT as reference method. The aim is to update the fundamental premises for valuation of pork by developing a new model for classification of lean meat, fat and bone in the carcasses.
Forskningsområder
Tema:
- Biovitenskap
- Realfag
Spesialområder:
- Bioinformatikk
- Statistikk
Forskningsområder:
- Matematikk og naturvitenskap
- Pedagogiske fag
- Psykologi