Brain Based Research
Strategies
Analisa Gerig-Sickles & Heidi Schubert
September 2011
Basic Brain Anatomy
Taken from: http://www.neuroskills.com/brain.shtml#map
Neurons
The terminals make contact with the dendrites of other neurons and
allow connections, or synapses, to form between neurons.
In this way, complex neural networks can be created.
Frontal Lobe:
Most anterior, right under the forehead.
Functions:
• Consciousness
• Initiation of activity in response to our
environment
• Judgments we make
• Controls our emotional response
• Controls our expressive language
• Assigns meaning to the words we choose & word
associations
• Memory for habits and motor activities.
Parietal Lobe:
near the back and top of the head.
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Functions:
Location for visual attention.
Location for touch perception.
Goal directed voluntary movements.
Manipulation of objects.
Integration of different senses to understand a
single concept.
Occipital Lobes:
Most posterior, at the back of the head.
Functions:
•Vision
Observed Problems:
•Defects in vision
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locating objects in environment.
with identifying colors
hallucinations/visual illusions
Word blindness
Difficulty in recognizing drawn objects.
Inability to recognize the movement of an object
•Difficulties with reading and writing.
Temporal Lobes:
Side of head above ears.
Functions:
•Hearing ability
•Memory acquisition
•Some visual perceptions
•Categorization of objects.
BRAIN STEM:
Deep in Brain, leads to spinal cord.
Functions:
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Breathing
Heart Rate
Swallowing
Reflexes to seeing and hearing
Controls sweating, blood pressure, digestion,
temperature
• Affects level of alertness.
• Ability to sleep.
• Sense of balance
CEREBELLUM:
Located at the base of the skull.
Functions:
• Coordination of voluntary movement (balance and equilibrium)
• Some memory for reflex motor acts.
Observed Problems:
• Loss of ability to:
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coordinate fine movements.
to walk
reach out and grab objects.
To make rapid movements.
• Tremors & dizziness
• Slurred Speech
12 Brain-Based
Learning Principles
Caine & Caine
These principles are interrelated.
The brain is a parallel processor
• The brain does many things at once
• However, there is the Cocktail effect– You cannot consciously focus on more than one
thing at a time
– Develop automaticity of tasks
• YouTube
Learning engages the entire physiology
• Things that affect learning:
– Healthy eating, emotions, physical activity
hydration, sleep
• Exercise allows more circulation
The search for meaning is innate
• Connections made with dendrites
• 1st lessons should have connections
• Need routine, but some curiosity invoked
The search for meaning occurs through
“patterning”
• Meaningful patterns and connections are
made
• Teachers can influence how students make
patterns and connections
Emotions are critical to patterning
How students feel affects their learning
Every brain simultaneously perceives
and creates parts and wholes
• Left and right brain work together at the same
time with different functions
• Each side has its own job (parts), to make
learning (whole)
Learning involves both focused
attention and peripheral perception
Brain absorbs direct information but also
sensory information
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Characteristics of Sensory Memory
It receives all information coming into the brain through the
senses.
It discards approximately 99% of this incoming sensory data.
Attends to relevant information
Learning always involves conscious
and unconscious processes
• We learn much more than we are consciously
aware of
• The brain and body learn physically, mentally,
and affectively
• Processing time, reflection and metacognition
are important in the classroom
We have at least two types of memory
• Spatial-where connections and meanings take
place
• Rote-where things are stored by
memorization
The brain understands and remembers
best when facts and skills are
embedded in natural spatial memory
Learning is given meaning when embedded in
everyday occurrences
Learning is enhanced by challenge and
inhibited by threat
Safe environment with learning challenges
Each brain is unique
Although processes are similar, every brain is
different
Group discussion
Read the Pat Wolfe article in your Cooperative
Learning Exercises packet.
With your group, discuss how Pat Wolfe’s
generally accepted list of potential classroom
applications of brain research correspond with
the 12 Brain-Based Learning Principles. How
are they similar and where do they diverge?
What are the classroom implications of both
lists?
Reading is an unnatural act
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Oral language is natural
Babies born able to hear abundance of sounds
Natural Pruning
People need to be explicitly taught to read,
not to speak
How do we learn to read?
• Plasticity-allows the brain to make new
connections among structures and circuits
originally made for vision or oral language
• Learning to read actually changes the brain
• Not in genetics- each person needs to learn to
read
The pathway for
language
The pathway for
learning to read
Phonological
Pathway
Pathway for reading
Direct Pathway
The pathway in the brain
for memorized words
Direct Pathway
Research on Dyslexia
Research on Dyslexia: 2 Studies
• Neural deficits in children with dyslexia
ameliorated by behavioral remediation:
Evidence from functional MRI – Elise Temple et
al. - with Fast ForWord program
• Dyslexia-specific brain activation profile
becomes normal following successful remedial
training – P.G. Simos et al – with Phono-Graphix program
& with Lindamood Phonemic Sequencing program
Caution!
• Much of current brain research is only of the
level 1 type – be careful that the research was
done in classrooms and check with which
types of populations the research was
conducted.
• Left brained/Right brained fiasco