Neuroscience in the Classroom

About Us

Photos: Kathleen Scalise (left) and Marie Felde (right)

Kathleen Scalise:

An award-winning associate professor at the University of Oregon, Kathleen Scalise has served on numerous distinguished projects in science literacy for teachers and students. In 2013, she served a dual appointment as a visiting research scientist with Columbia University’s Department of Neuroscience and as a visiting scholar with Teachers College at Columbia. Director of the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Science for ETS, she has served internationally in science literacy and assessment efforts with OECD, IEA, and ATC21S, and nationally with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the NRC. She holds a B.A. in biochemistry, and the M.A. and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (2004).

Marie Felde:

Marie Felde is a veteran writer whose career as a daily journalist, editor, and university communications executive has focused on taking complex, often scientific and technical material and translating it into easy to read information that readers find engaging and useful. As Executive Director of Media Relations at the University of California, Berkeley, she led a team of experienced science and education writers at one of the world’s leading universities highlighting the value of learning and the creation of new knowledge.

Acknowledgments:

We want to thank the many contributors who have helped us, most especially Columbia University’s Department of Neuroscience, Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Teachers College at Columbia, and the College of Education of the University of Oregon, which together assisted to sponsor the collaborations that made this book possible.

We also thank the many scientists, cognitive psychologists, and educational researchers who contributed to each chapter, including assisting us with profiles and interviews. We also would like to thank the following reviewers of the manuscript who supplied us with valuable suggestions: Anne K. Bednar, Eastern Michigan University; C. Anne Gutshall, College of Charleston; Elizabeth K. Reed, Plymouth State University; and Linda Schlosser, St. John Fisher College.

Finally, we extend our gratitude to the teachers and principals who shared their stories with us, and all the educators who work with our children and young adults every day in our nation’s classrooms and schools. We hope this book will prove useful to them, and we invite their stories and feedback so we can grow in our work along with our readers.