Montessori in Action Podcast
Engaging conversations with Montessori practitioners
Season 4, Ep. 9:
Learning by Heart or with Heart
“Are you more curious to know or to understand concepts?” This is the question that opens the research done by a group of 5 researchers including Montessorian, Solange Denervaud Our final episode for this season is a conversation with Solange who helps us unpack the findings of Learning by Heart or with Heart: Brain Asymmetry Reflects Pedagogical Practices. This research shows that how children learn shapes the brain’s core mechanisms for learning. It looks at the brains of children schooled in traditional settings and compares them to those who attended Montessori schools. The results are fascinating.
After a Montessori diploma (2010) and a few years of teaching in a Montessori school, Solange Denervaud switched to science. After completing a degree in bioengineering from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), she did a PhD in Neuroscience at the University Hospital of Lausanne in Switzerland (CHUV-UNIL) investigating the impact of Montessori education on brain development. In 2021, she was awarded the Biaggi de Blasys prize for the best neuroscience thesis from universities in the Lake Geneva region of Switzerland.
Her current research focuses on the impact of the learning environment on the development of fundamental coping mechanisms in schoolchildren and adolescents. She explores error control, cognitive flexibility, creativity, and peer learning. Her work uses psychophysics, neuropsychology, electroencephalography (EEG), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).