Teaching, Learning and the Human
Brain
1
Placing Teaching in the Context
of Learning
 “The human brain/mind is like a
dynamic kaleidoscope. The
neurosciences are telling us that,
energized by genetics, experience and
culture, students literally learn from
everything.”
 Caine et al., p. 1
2
Placing Teaching in the Context
of Learning
 As educators and future administrators, we have begun
to see what this generation of students is learning
beyond the classroom and is unlike anything that past
generations have experienced due to the technological
revolution…
 We often find ourselves caught between the world of
the past that has a sense of order and security for us,
and the world of the future that is filled with
ambiguity and uncertainty….
 Thoughts taken from Caine et al. for slides 3 -19
3
A Definition of Learning Based on 12
Principles
 All learning is physiological.
 The brain/mind is social.
 The search for meaning is innate.
 The search for meaning occurs through patterning.
 Emotions are critical to patterning.
 The brain/mind processes parts and wholes
simultaneously.
4
A Definition of Learning Based on
12 Principles Continued
 Learning involves both focused attention and
peripheral perception.
 Learning always involves conscious and unconscious
processes.
 There are at least two approaches to memory:
archiving isolated facts or making sense of experience.
 Learning is developmental.
 Complex learning is enhanced by challenge and
inhibited by threat associated with helplessness.
 Each brain is uniquely organized.
5
From Learning to Teaching
 1. Relaxed Alertness: Creating the Optimal Emotional
Climate for Learning
 2. Orchestrated Immersion in Complex Experiences:
Creating Optimal Opportunities for Learning
 3. Active Processing of Experience: Creating Optimal
Ways to Consolidate Learning
6
Brain/Mind Learning Capacities
Creating an Enriched Environment for
Learning
 Engage the physiology in learning
 Engage social interactions
 Engage their innate search for meaning
 Engage their capacity to recognize and master
essential patterns
 Engage emotional connections
 Engage their ability to perceive both detail and the
larger view
 Engage both their ability to focus attention and learn
from the peripheral context
7
Brain/Mind Learning Capacities
Creating an Enriched Environment for
Learning
 Engage both conscious and unconscious processing
 Engage their capacity to learn from memorizing
isolated facts and biographical events
 Acknowledge and engage developmental steps and
shifts
 Reduce threat and enhance self-efficacy
 Engage their individual style and uniqueness
8
What are we after as teachers and teacher
leaders? Developing the Executive Functions
 The key to reaching and sustaining high standards of
learning, and continually raising those standards over
time…
9
Executive Functions
 Individuals with highly developed executive functions
have mastered the ability to:
 Plan and organize their thinking
 Use reason
 Engage in risk assessment
 Make sense of ideas and behavior
 Multitask
10
Executive Functions
 Moderate emotions
 Work with longer time horizons
 Think critically
 Access working memory
 Reflect on their own strengths and
weaknesses
11
Executive Functions
 These functions of the brain go way
beyond discrete, memorized skills or
information.
 This is often sabotaged by children’s
social/emotional environment and is
often bypassed by traditional
teaching…
12
Scaffolding the Journey Three
Instructional Approaches
 Instructional Approach 1
 View of Learning: Memorization of
facts and skills, and veridical decision
making
13
Instructional Approach 1
 Instruction: Largely focused on teacher
presentations followed by repetition and practice
 Academic Goals: Completion of assigned work,
high grades based on teacher judgment and
standards
 Assessment: Standardized Tests
14
Scaffolding the Journey
Three Instructional Approaches
 Instructional Approach 2
 View of Learning: Intellectual
Understanding supplemented by
memorization, with some
opportunities for adaptive decision
making
15
Instructional Approach 2
 Instruction: Teacher-led experiences
orchestrated around concepts and meaning;
include student choices and input on
assignments, class rules and assessment
(example: rubrics)
 Academic Goals: Mastering, Curriculum
and Standards
 Assessment: Authentic assessment
supplements standardized tests
16
Scaffolding the Journey
Three Instructional Approaches
 Instructional Approach 3
 View of Learning: Understanding in
order to make sense of experience,
with strong emphasis on adaptive
decision making and development of
executive functions
17
Instructional Approach 3
 Instruction: Real-world projects with curriculum
embedded, driven by student choices and interests
 Academic Goals: Going beyond academic school
standards through ongoing, authentic questioning,
investigation, and documentation based on
experts in the field
 Assessment: Authentic performance of all kinds
18
Idea is for teachers and teacher
leaders to walk the path from
Instructional Approach 1 to 3
 This is a transformational process…
 Engage students in cooperative projects that require
research, higher order thinking, problem solving,
planning and participating in defining and reaching
the highest standards.
 Include additional abilities such as dealing with
emotions to help become socially mature and adept…
19
Doing Math Kindt et al, 2006
 How much do all 3 chickens
weigh? Each chicken?
20
Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Lee Shulman, 1986, pp. 9-10
For the most regularly taught topics in one’s subject area:
 The most useful representations of ideas
 The most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples and
demonstrations
 Ways of representing and formulating the subject that
make it comprehensible to others
 A collection of resources of alternative forms of
representation
 Understanding of why certain concepts are easy or difficult
to learn
21
Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching
Deborah Ball & Hyman Bass, 2000
 “a kind of understanding ..not something a
mathematician would have, but neither would be
part of a high school social studies’ teacher’s
knowledge”
 “teaching is a form of mathematical work…
involves a steady stream of mathematical problems
that teachers must solve”
 Features include: unpacked knowledge,
connectedness across mathematical domains and
over time (seeing mathematical horizons)
22
Mathematical Knowledge for
Teaching






Trimming- making mathematics available yet retaining
mathematical integrity
Unpacking-making the math explicit
Making connections visible- within and across
mathematical domains
Using visualization to scaffold learning
Considering curricular trajectories
Flexibly moving among strategies/ approaches
adapted from Ferrini-Mundy et al, 2004
23
Technological Pedagogical Content
Knowledge (TPACK)
 “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge
(TPACK) attempts to capture some of the essential
qualities of knowledge required by teachers for
technology integration in their teaching, while
addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated
nature of teacher knowledge. At the heart of the
TPACK framework, is the complex interplay of three
primary forms of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy
(PK), and Technology (TK).” See Figure below. As must
be clear, the TPACK framework builds on Shulman's
idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge.
24
TPACK
www.tpck.org
25
Polya’s Ten Commandments
 Be interested in the subject
 Know the subject
 Know about ways of learning
 Let students learn guessing
 Let students learn proving
 Look at features of problems that suggest
solution methods (Polya, 1965,p. 116)
26
Polya’s Ten Commandments
 Read faces of students
 Give students “know how”, attitudes of mind, habit of
methodical work
 Let students guess before you tell them
 Suggest it; do not force it down their throats (Polya, 1965,
p. 116)
 http://orangemath.blogspot.com/2009/08/ten-commandments-for-
teachers-george.html
27
References
• Ball, D.L. & Bass, H. (2000). Interweaving content
and pedagogy in teaching and learning to teach:
Knowing and using mathematics. In J.
• Burrill, G. (2004). “Mathematical Tasks that
Promote Thinking and Reasoning: The Case of
Farmer Jack” in Mathematik lehren
• Caine, R. N.,Caine G., McClintic, C.,& Klimek, K.
(2005). Brain/Mind Learning Principles in Action.
 Ferrini-Mundy, J., Floden, R., McCrory, Burrill, G.,
& Sandhow, D. (2004). Knowledge for teaching
school algebra: challenges in developing in
analytic framework. unpublished paper
28
References
 Kindt, M., Abels, M., Meyer, M., Pligge, M. (2006).
Comparing Quantities. In Wisconsin Center for
Education Research & Freudenthal Institute
(Eds.), Mathematics in context. Chicago:
Encyclopedia Britannica
 Polya, G. (1965). Mathematical discovery: On
understanding, learning, and teaching problem
solving.
 Shulman, L.S. (1986). Those who understand:
Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational
Researcher. 15 (2): 4 - 14.
29