Su Morris
I have recently completed a Masters in Educational Neuroscience at Birkbeck and UCL-Institute of Education, and am now in my first year of my PhD at UCL-Institute of Education and Birkbeck, which is fully funded by a Bloomsbury Colleges Studentship.
I am examining relationships between global and local processing, and success on
a range of different maths and science problems. Global processing refers to the perception of the whole stimulus, while local processing describes the perception
of individual elements of the whole. When there is a global precedence or global bias,
the global level is perceived more quickly and is less affected by an incongruent local level. The study is driven by research highlighting the relatively high proportion of people working in STEM industries who have close relatives with autistic spectrum disorders, or who are autistic themselves. Research has shown that people with autism can exhibit enhanced local processing abilities, as well as an ability to use global processing when the task requires. However, the link between local / global processing and success on maths and science problem solving has not been previously explored. This fascinating area of study could lead to practical applications in the classroom to support children’s problem solving at primary school.
In general, I am interested in the contribution educational neuroscience can make to furthering our understanding of teaching and learning. Educational neuroscience is an emerging field bringing together education, neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science in order to develop understanding of how we learn. This may enable us to develop our understanding of why particular teaching and learning methods are successful, integrate behavioural and neuroimaging research to better understand why some children find some activities more challenging, and perhaps longer term, develop resources, training or support which can be used in our schools.
Last updated November 2015
I have recently completed a Masters in Educational Neuroscience at Birkbeck and UCL-Institute of Education, and am now in my first year of my PhD at UCL-Institute of Education and Birkbeck, which is fully funded by a Bloomsbury Colleges Studentship.
I am examining relationships between global and local processing, and success on
a range of different maths and science problems. Global processing refers to the perception of the whole stimulus, while local processing describes the perception
of individual elements of the whole. When there is a global precedence or global bias,
the global level is perceived more quickly and is less affected by an incongruent local level. The study is driven by research highlighting the relatively high proportion of people working in STEM industries who have close relatives with autistic spectrum disorders, or who are autistic themselves. Research has shown that people with autism can exhibit enhanced local processing abilities, as well as an ability to use global processing when the task requires. However, the link between local / global processing and success on maths and science problem solving has not been previously explored. This fascinating area of study could lead to practical applications in the classroom to support children’s problem solving at primary school.
In general, I am interested in the contribution educational neuroscience can make to furthering our understanding of teaching and learning. Educational neuroscience is an emerging field bringing together education, neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science in order to develop understanding of how we learn. This may enable us to develop our understanding of why particular teaching and learning methods are successful, integrate behavioural and neuroimaging research to better understand why some children find some activities more challenging, and perhaps longer term, develop resources, training or support which can be used in our schools.
Last updated November 2015
Publications
Tolmie, A. K., Ghazali, Z. and Morris, S. (2016), Children's science learning: A core skills approach. British Journal of Educational Psychology. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12119
Tolmie, A. K., Ghazali, Z. and Morris, S. (2016), Children's science learning: A core skills approach. British Journal of Educational Psychology. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12119
