Niberca Polo

We live in an ever-changing world of information flows and global citizens. It is a restless landscape. Younger generations need to learn flexible ways of thinking, enabling them to organically and creatively adapt to unforeseen circumstances; ways of thinking that harness design-able, socially responsible, and resilient minds. Both neuroscience and design need to be at the core of educational systems in the 21st Century-neuroscience as the basis of understanding human innate capacities and design as the means to develop and enact such capacities. In doing so, imagination, creativity and independent thinking will become the academic backbone of instruction. My research study aims to re-think pedagogy based on neuroscience and the development of open-ended, cognitively flexible processes that propel robust, unconscious learning. Unconscious learning facilitates creative insight, or the "A-ha!" moment, through self-discovery and serendipitous thinking. 

This project seeks to demonstrate that the Osmotic Bubble, a transitional-learning space, could potentially provide conditions that enhance the brain's innate capacity to reach optimal learning. Consequently, it will enable the production, absorption, and retrieval of implicit knowledge. The desired outcome is a curricula influenced by a new pedagogy and a multi-sensory space that propels optimal learning through self-regulation, positive emotions, and intuition. Moreover, the ultimate goal is that educators of all age groups will be able to adopt this pedagogy in their classrooms, irrespective of their specific disciplines.