BRAIN BASED LEARNING
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Brain Based Learning
Carol Bell
The Master’s College
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Abstract
How do children learn? What theories of intelligence and learning impact their learning? How
this is practically seen in the classroom? This paper has two purposes: it describes the challenge
of meeting the needs of very different students who have unique learning styles and needs, and
also will discuss how to meet those children’s needs and help them have a greater depth of
knowledge, and higher order thinking skills.
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Brain Based Learning
Each student is unique. Not only do they look different and have different personalities,
they learn differently. Over the years, psychologists, neurologists, and researchers have tried to
understand how the brain learns. Good teachers are constantly doing informal and formal action
research projects on their students to see how they will best learn a new concept. As soon as the
teacher thinks they know how to teach a concept, a new student comes along that does not grasp
the concept and the teacher seeks new ways to meet that student’s needs. Understanding how the
brain learns can help a teacher understand how to best teach new concepts.
How Children Learn
Children learn in many different ways. They are influenced by their culture, environment,
and emotional state, but that does not necessarily determine how they will learn. Over the years,
researchers have studied the various aspects of the brain and have come up with their own
theories of intelligence and learning. Each researcher has brought value into the understanding of
how the brain learns, and one single theory cannot fully define intelligence.
Many of the theories of intelligence focus on one area of intelligence. I believe that,
Howard Gardner, in his Multiple Intelligences Theory, takes a well rounded approach. He
believed that people had different intelligences that were more extensive than what the IQ testing
at the time had determined. These intelligences all had different, sophisticated brain structures
that support that intelligence. Gardner believed that each person had some of each kind of
intelligence, that people can develop each kind of intelligence, that the intelligences work
together, and that people tend to be stronger in one or two of the intelligences than in the others.
He also believed that within the intelligence there are many different ways to show the
intelligence. (Armstrong, 2009)
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As with the theories of intelligence, each theory of learning tends to look at one aspect of
the child, and each theory brings value to understanding how a child learns. These theories
address the various factors that impact the child’s learning including maturation, behavior,
cognitive processing, social interactions, culture, or emotions. The important thing is to see the
student as a whole with many factors that impact their learning and plan lessons accordingly.
How Do You Know You Learned?
When something is learned it is remembered and retained. The brain takes information
from the senses and decides what information is relevant and should be stored and what
information is irrelevant and should be discarded. As a teacher, it is important to make new
information meaningful and relevant. This learning is made relevant by the exposure the student
has to that new concept, the way the information is attached to other learning, and how it can be
used outside the classroom in their real lives. When the students are interested in the new
learning, they remember it better, and learn more. When it comes to learning important concepts
there needs to be time set aside for both rote and elaborative rehearsal.
David A. Sousa (2000) discusses memory, retention, and learning in his book How the
Brain Learns. He discusses the various types of memory: nondeclarative and declarative.
Nondeclarative memory would include procedural memory, motor skill memory, and emotional
memory. Declarative memory includes conscious, explicit, episodic, and semantic memory.
Schools focus on declarative memory and tend to ignore nondeclarative memory.
Schools also tend to focus on learning when they should be focusing on retention.
“Retention, however, requires that the learner not only give conscious attention but also build
conceptual frameworks that have sense and meaning for eventual consolidation into the longterm storage networks” (Sousa, 2000, p. 84). There is a prime time and a down time for memory
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retention. The students tend to be the most focused at the beginning of the lesson, the least
focused in the middle of the lesson, and a little more focused at the end. As a result, it is very
important to teach the new material first, when the students are the most focused. Don’t let the
prime time get contaminated by the wrong information.
Emotions also have an impact on how much a student can remember. If a student is
distressed emotionally then they will not learn as much. When a student has positive experiences
they will remember the content better and learn more. The senses are important to remembering
different things, as well as thinking in different ways and using different parts of the brain. The
journal article, The Neuroscience of Joyful Education (Willis, 2007), discusses the importance of
keeping a positive learning environment and how strong positive emotions are connected to
greater retention of learning. The opposite is also true in that stress, boredom, confusion, low
motivation, and anxiety interfere with learning.
When a student has learned new information, the speed of retrieving the information is also
a factor in how much the students learn. Some students retrieve information quickly, other
students take longer to retrieve information. Unfortunately many teachers think of students who
retrieve information as being smart and those who are slower as being dumb. Teachers need to
give enough time for students to retrieve information because when the faster retrievers are
called on early, the slower retrievers give up and stop trying to retrieve the information. These
students tend to learn less.
How is this seen in the classroom?
In the classroom, the students show multiple intelligences all the time. Some love to sing
and if anything can be put to music, they will remember it. Other students need to move around
and make things with their hands. Others can remember something if they draw a picture or
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make some kind of art project to go along with what they are learning. When a teacher plans
lessons with the various intelligences in mind, the students will be more likely to remember the
content and have a deeper knowledge base. Another way teachers can increase the depth of their
student’s knowledge base is to increase the complexity of the questions and activities. Many
teachers look at Bloom’s Taxonomy for this purpose. In the past, differentiated activities that
involved higher order thinking skills were reserved exclusively for students who were identified
as gifted and talented. This may have been done because of misconceptions due to a
misinterpretation of Bloom’s taxonomy. “Educators have assumed that academic content at each
level has to be mastered before a student moves to the next level. As a result, at-risk mathematics
students are often required to remain at the “knowledge” level until they memorize their “facts.”
Yet for these students, memory may be their weakest asset.” (Chancellor, 1991). In my
classroom, when I do a variety of learning centers in the activities I teach, the students, based on
the various intelligences and learning styles, are more motivated to do the activities, and they do
a better job.
It is important for a teacher to keep a positive classroom environment so that the students
will learn more things. In my classroom, I keep a positive attitude and try to add humor
whenever possible. I tell funny stories that go along with the phonics lessons and try to keep a
positive outlook. As a result, I have found that the children learn better, retain the information
better, and are less likely to have behavior problems.
As a result of learning about how the brain learns I have spent more time presenting new
information in the very beginning of my lesson and less time having the students give
information, some of which is incorrect. I have moved my review of older concepts to the middle
or end of the lesson rather than doing that portion at the beginning of the lesson. As a result, I
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have noticed that the students seem to remember the new concepts better and they are able to
remember more during the review times.
Conclusion
Variety in teaching will help all students learn better. Variety will help create novelty in the
classroom. It will also help meet the needs of all learners no matter what intelligence they are
stronger in. The students thrive in a classroom that takes into consideration their learning needs.
Every lesson will not meet the specific needs of every student every time, but a variety of lessons
will ensure that specific needs are met every once in a while, and it will increase the depth of the
student’s learning. All the theories of intelligence and learning help the teacher teach at an
appropriate level and consider the needs of their students.
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References
Armstrong, T. (2009). Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom (3rd ed.). Alexandria, Va.: ASCD.
Chancellor, D. (1991). Higher-Order Thinking: A “Basic” Skill for Everyone. The Arithmetic
Teacher, 38(6), 48.
Sousa, D. A. (2000). How the Brain Learns: A Classroom Teacher’s Guide (2nd ed.). Corwin
Press.
Willis, J. (2007). The Neuroscience of Joyful Education. Engaging the Whole Child (online
only), Educational Leadership, 64.