About CANDLE
To date, what is happening in the brain has not been firmly connected to what is happening in the classroom. The mission of the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE) is to bring educational innovation and developmental affective neuroscience into partnership, and to use what is learned to guide the transformation of schools, policy, and the student and teacher experience for a healthier and more equitable society.
By inventing new study methods and launching a transdisciplinary conversation about the goals and processes of education in the modern era, CANDLE integrates research in schools and laboratory settings, leveraging the expertise of both practitioners and scientists. The Center also serves as a dynamic hub for translating this research back to educators and policy-makers.
Transdisciplinary Research
CANDLE conducts synergistic field and laboratory research to learn more about how educators and students think and feel, and how these thoughts and feelings are related to their brain development, deep learning, health and achievement in various contexts, now and over time. We document live teaching and learning while simultaneously capturing physiological data, and then follow up in the lab with interviews, authentic learning and teaching activities, and brain scans.
Putting Research into Practice
CANDLE provides a much-needed forum for scientists and educators to work together by facilitating in-depth conversations, professional learning institutes and scientific gatherings. The Center helps educators answer the “so what?” question about neuroscience—what neuroscience means for structures and practices in schools and how neuroscience informs the professional toolkit needed by teachers in contemporary classrooms. CANDLE also helps neuroscientists know what kind of work is needed most by educators in the field.
Driving Policy
CANDLE provides briefings, strategic advisement and resources for all stakeholders: teachers, school and district leaders, families, policy-makers, educator preparation programs and community organizations, to move the field toward educational policies that promote equitable, ambitious and context-sensitive schooling.