By: Kelli, Lisa, Diane, Danielle,
Emily
The brain is “hard-wired” to do…
Vision
 Language
 Attention
 Emotion
 Motor skills
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 All
of these are stimulated through individual
experiences.
What do we know about how the
brain learns?
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The brain is a vastly complex and adaptive system with
hundreds of billions of neurons and interneurons that can
generate an astronomical number of neural nets, or groups
of neurons acting in concert, from which our daily
experience is constructed.
Experience affects the brain’s potential and keeps
modifying the brain for learning.
The brain thrives on activity.
Brain research has confirmed that emotions are linked to
learning by assisting us in recall of memories that are
stored in our central nervous system.
The brain learns best when confronted with a balance
between stress and comfort.
What are some general understandings about
how the brain works?
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The brain is a parallel processor. It does many things at one
time.
Learning engages the entire physiology. The brain is an
organ that functions according physiological rules.
The search for meaning is automatic. This is survival oriented
and basic to the human brain.
The search for meaning takes place by patterning. The brain
is designed to perceive and generate patterns, and it resists
having meaningless patterns imposed on it.
Emotions are critical and at the heart of patterning. We do
not simply learn things. What we learn is influenced and
organized by emotions.
The brain processes parts and wholes simultaneously.
There are significant differences between the left and right
hemispheres of the brain; however, in a healthy person the two
hemispheres are interactive.
Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral
perception. The brain absorbs information of which it is directly
aware and information that lies beyond the field of attention.
Learning always involves conscious and unconscious
processes. We learn much more than we ever consciously
understand.
What are some general understandings about
how the brain works..Cont.
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We have at least two different ways of organizing
memory: a spatial system and a set of systems
for rote learning. The spatial system does not need
rehearsal and allows for instant memory of
experiences. Facts and skills that are dealt with in
isolation are organized differently. Our brains have a
system to store unrelated information.
We understand and remember best when facts
and skills are imbedded in natural, spatial
memory. Items are given meaning when embedded
in ordinary experiences.
The brain downshifts under perceived threats
and earns optimally when appropriately
challenged. Under threat the brain will narrow the
perceptual field. The brain learns best when the
atmosphere is low in threat and high in challenge.
Each brain is unique. The same sets of systems are
integrated differently in every brain. The brain
changes with learning so the more we learn the more
individual we become.
Activity
Optical Illusion-Brain Teaser
Activity-Brain Quiz
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Please take the Brain Quiz to see if you
are more left or right brained!
Results
Left Brain
Good at remembering names
Right Brain
Good at remembering faces
Likes to do several things at once
Likes to do things one at a time
Likes to keep feelings to himself/herself
Is not a risk-taker, careful, does not like
to make mistakes
Likes to let people know how he/she
feels
Is good at thinking up funny things to
say and do
High tolerance for clutter, disorganized
Fairly long attention span, good listener
Short attention span, daydreamer
Will ask many questions before making
a decision
Likes to guess at the answer in
problem solving situations
What are some of the implications of what we’re
learning about the brain for teaching and the school
environment?
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Elementary schools should provide classes for five year olds of no
more than 10 or 12. Teachers should construct learning programs
which combine in the child's mind as well as theirs an understanding
of both content and process in ways which make children's thinking
visible to themselves. This will significantly change the role of the
teacher making it essential for them to model the very techniques of
good learning that children will need for themselves. While good
teachers will remain essential it is clear that successful learning for
all will require substantially more than just the technology of teacher,
chalk and talk. As a policy, investment in the technologies of learning
should increase with the child's age.
Implications Chart
Recent Research Suggests
Teaching Suggestions
The brain performs many functions simultaneously.
Learning is enhanced by a rich environment with a
variety of stimuli.
Present content through a variety of teaching
strategies, such as physical activities, individual
learning times, group interactions, artistic
variations, and musical interpretations to help
orchestrate student experiences.
Learning engages the entire physiology. Physical
development, personal comfort, and emotional state
affect the ability to learn.
Be aware that children mature at different rates;
chronological age may not reflect the student's
readiness to learn.
Incorporate facets of health (stress management,
nutrition, exercise) into the learning process.
The search for meaning is innate. The mind's natural
curiosity can be engaged by complex and
meaningful challenges.
Strive to present lessons and activities that arouse
the mind's search for meaning.
The brain is designed to perceive and generate patterns.
Present information in context (real life science,
thematic instruction) so the learner can identify
patterns and connect with previous experiences.
Emotions and cognition cannot be separated. Emotions
can be crucial to the storage and recall of
information.
Help build a classroom environment that promotes
positive attitudes among students and teachers
and about their work.
Encourage students to be aware of their feelings and
how the emotional climate affects their learning.
What does current brain research have to
do with classroom learning?
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One thing you’ll never find is a single, definitive study that "proves" brainbased learning is better. Why? You would have to do the following:
1. Train teachers in brain-based learning, then insist and guarantee that
they’ll use the strategies during the study. (That won’t happen)
2. Have a "control" school to compare with that is using NO brain-based
strategies. That would mean a school with threats, constant confusion,
mismatched curriculum, no arts, P.E. or fair social structure. Teachers would
be unskilled, all lecture and no processing time for the kids. (What parent
would allow their kids in that school?)
3. Create a fair assessment. What do you want to assess? Do you want
higher state and federal mandated test scores? Or do you want a healthier,
happier, more self-reliant human being with confidence, lifelong learning
skills and a sense of fairness, honesty, confidence, humility and in support
of diversity? (That assessment won’t happen).
4. Use double blind and longitudinal studies. Ones in which neither the
researchers or the classroom students or the teachers knew which methods
were being used. That can’t happen— it’s too obvious and the teacher
methods would bias the results. Doing studies over time is better but who
would fund this—these take hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund. In
short, none of this will happen.
Who are some current researchers in the area
of the brain and learning, and what unique
positions do they take?
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Eric Jensen: co-founder of SuperCamp, The Brain Store, and Jensen
Learning Corporation. He is a member of the Society for Neuroscience and
New York Academy of Science. He is author of over 22 books including
Brain Compatible Strategies, Principle-Driven Learning, and Brain-Based
Learning.
Renate Caine: Dr. Caine received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at
the University of Florida. She is co-author of the book Making Connections:
Teaching and the Human Brain. She and her husband Geoffrey Caine
founded the Caine Learning Institute in California. The institute is
dedicated to “expanding the family of those working with the Brain/Mind
Learning Principles.
David Sousa: Dr. Sousa received his masters in teaching at Harvard and
hid Doctorate at Rutgers University. Dr Sousa is an international
educational consultant and has published numerous articles in leading
educational journals on science education and brain research.
How can teachers utilize in the classroom current information
about how the brain learns? For example, it is said that much of
what we learn comes to us indirectly. What does that say about a
“stand and deliver” style of teaching?
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Present-day teachers are extremely unique in that the research done on the
brain and how we learn continues to progress. However, this information
provides greater responsibility for educators in that they now have the
knowledge to reach the various forms of learners that enter their
classrooms. If classrooms are to be places of learning, then the brain
should be understood and accommodated.
In “What is Brain-Based Learning” by Lisa Chipongian, she quotes Leslie
Hart (author of Human Brain and Human Learning) who argues the
importance of brain-based learning: “All around us are hand-compatible
tools and machines and keyboards, designed to fit the hand. We are not apt
to think of them in that light, because it does not occur to us that anyone
would bring out some device to be use by human hands without being sure
that the nature of the hands was considered.
Continued..
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A keyboard machine or musical instrument that called for eight
fingers on each hand would draw instant ridicule. Yet we force
millions of children into schools that have never seriously studied
the nature and shape of the human brain, and which not surprisingly
prove actively brain-antagonistic.” Hart also argued that if educators
used brain-based learning more frequently, then the school would
become an exciting center where there is a constant encounter with
the richness and variety of the real world as opposed to those
classrooms that are almost empty of anything real one might learn
from.
What would a brain-compatible classroom look like?
What would brain-compatible instruction be like?
(a chart comparing a brain-compatible classroom and a brain-antagonistic
classroom)
Brain-Antagonistic Classroom
Brain Compatible Classroom
Teacher threatens with rewards and punishments Absence of threat
Learning is individual
Appropriate emotional arousal
Low emotional impact
Global, unified, thematic, real life
Fragmented, sequential study
Utilizing and expressing energy
Suppressing learner energy
Multiple intelligences served
Lecture, more didactic
Emphasis on context, meaning
Subjects taught separately
Often rich with talking, activity
Emphasis on quiet learning
Intrinsic motivation evoked
Forced driven by grades
Best learning difficult to measure
Delayed, indefinite, vague feedback
Use of totally positive language
Out-come based, mandated learning
Search for questions
Quest for a single answer
Music, sights, aromas, movement
Starve the brain for stimulation
Learner input on topics
Brain-Antagonistic Classroom
Single topic only by presenter choice
Teach for the test, with stress
Extended presenter lecture time
Finish when time’s up
Belief that learning is difficult
Infer, tell, demand
Abrupt exposure to topic
Sit at desk and limit interactions
High stakes testing
Minimal opening and closing time
Brain Compatible Classroom
Learn for joy of learning and life
Alternate focus activities
Finish with celebration
Easy, fun, creative
Suggest, tell, ask
Purposeful, consistent exposure
Mobility, partners, groups
Realistic, multiple assessments
Long open/close, shorter middle
Brain-compatible Instruction
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Use metaphors like cartoons, stories, and broad, general representations of context.
Use color. Don’t use it to a distracting and excessive level. The learner has to be able
to figure out why you are changing the colors and what patterns you are using. You
can use a new color for each point or one color for heading and another for details.
Use a graphic organizer. The right-brained students need it and the others like it.
Present similar information that can be easily confused at least a day apart. On the
second lesson, when introducing similar but different material, emphasize the
differences.
Change the method of presentation every 10 or 15 minutes to refresh the cycle of
learning.
Find out what motivates your students and apply the topic to that area of interest
when possible.
One-third of kids learn best when they are in motion. Walk with them and get them
moving.
Make sure you have sunlight or full-spectrum light in your classroom. Add a desk
lamp, open the blinds, and enjoy the light which changes the chemicals your nervous
system secretes.
Keep the lights on whenever possible. Dimming lights or turning lights off during a
video promotes the release of chemicals in the brain that makes students sleepy.
Use music and motion in classroom lessons.
Students’ learning is affected by
five main factors:
Immediate environment
2. Own emotionality
3. Sociological preferences
4. Physiological characteristics
5. Processing inclination
1.
What factors inhibit learning?
Too much stress
 Limited activities and options
 Lack of motivation
Activities that don’t connect to students’ lives
 Constant failure
 Lack of support
 Rigid Instruction
 Paper/pencil assessments
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Attitudes that limit learning for
all kinds of learners:
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There is usually one correct answer and one best way of
finding it.
Students will have an opportunity to show what they know on
the test.
Faster is better. Doing things faster means you are smarter.
Mistakes mean you haven’t learned or studied carefully
enough.
The best students are independent. They don’t need or ask
for assistance.
There are some things that individual students just can’t learn.
Some students just don’t have what it takes.
It’s not fair to make accommodations just for some students.
Attitudes that promote learning
for all kinds of learners:
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There are many different ways to learn. There are
advantages to thinking in different ways.
All students can become capable, achieve at a high
level, and improve in an area of weakness.
There are many ways to succeed.
Students will have many opportunities and ways to
show what they have learned.
It is not how quickly but how well you learn that
counts.
Mistakes are natural steps in learning and can point
the way to success.
Good students are interdependent. They ask for and
give help.
Students can improve, even in their areas of
weakness.
How can I encourage learning in
the classroom?
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Learner-centered
environment
Variety of activities
Reasonable number of
choices and opportunities
Cater to different learning
styles and multiple
intelligences
Help students succeed Challenging but
attainable goals
Encourage risk taking,
creativity, and ingenuity
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Be caring and
cooperative
Provide safe environment
Motivate every student
(internal locus of control)
Allow students to share
their ideas and how they
solved the problem
Real-life applications
Integrated learning
Group work
Link indoor and outdoor
places
Quotes
“The closer the match between students’ learning styles and their
teachers’ teaching styles, the higher the grade point average.”
“Discipline systems that focus on behavioral consequences of
rule infractions distract students from the real business of
classroom learning and are themselves doomed to failure
because of negativity.”
“When a classroom is run on children's natural motivation,
emphasis is on learning and being part of the environment, not
on rewards and other external reinforcers that take away from
the essentials of school.”
“Children learn better and remember more when their studies are
mixed with music and drama, experience, emotion and realworld context. The more regions of the brain that are involved
and the more we engage our emotions, the more means we
have for recalling information.”
Bibliography
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The Brain-Compatible Classroom
www.buffalostate.edu
Hemispheric Dominance Inventory Test: Brain Wave Entertainment Technology
www.brain.web-us/brain/braindominance.com
Southwest Educational Development Laboratory-How can research on the brain inform
education? http://www.sedl.org/scimath/compass/v03n02/brain.html
21st Century Learning Initiative-Learning to Go with the Grain of the Brain
http://www.21learn.org/publ/edcanada.html
12 Design Principles Based on Brain-based Learning Research
By Jeffery A. Lackney http://www.designshare.com/Research/BrainBasedLearn98.htm
Hitchhiker’s Guide to Brain Science http://drawingwriting.com/HichHike.html#Tip1
The Brain-Compatible Classroom – General Characteristics
www.xnet.rrc.mb.ca
D’Arcangelo, M. (November 1998). The Brains Behind the Brain. Educational
Leadership, 56 (3), 20-25. Retrieved November 9th, 2005, from the World Wide Web:
http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd
Knowledge of Student Characteristics. (2001). INTIME. Retrieved November 9th, 2005,
from the World Wide Web: http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/teacher/teac1summary.html
Bibliography Cont.
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Do You See What I’m Saying? The Role of Gestures in Learning by Sara Latta, July
2000 www.brainconnection.com
What is Brain-Based Learning? by Lisa Chipongian, 1999 www.brainconnection.com
http://courses.fgcu.edu/~189/upload/Right-Left Brain Exploration(1).doc
http://www.brainconnection.com/
http://jlcbrain.com/what.html What & Who is Jensen Learning?
http://cainelearning.com Who are We?
http://www.mainesupportnetwork.org/handouts/html/Approach.htm Understanding a
Brain-Based Approach to Learning andTeaching.
http://www.corwinpress.com/author.aspx?aid=505118 David A. Sousa