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    Brain Based Learning 1

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    Chan Hau Ching
    Brain-based learning is an educational approach based on research about how the brain naturally learns. It connects learning to students' real-life experiences and incorporates techniques like mastery learning, learning styles, and experiential learning. The brain-based learning movement emerged from discoveries in neuroscience about how the brain processes and retains information. Core principles include that the brain is a parallel processor, learns through patterns and meaning-making, and develops through social interaction and challenge rather than stress. Best teaching practices derived from these principles include orchestrated immersion, relaxed alertness during active processing, and optimizing learning through music, art, and diverse forms of assessment.

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    Brain Based Learning 1

    Uploaded by

    Chan Hau Ching
    140 views6 pages
    Brain-based learning is an educational approach based on research about how the brain naturally learns. It connects learning to students' real-life experiences and incorporates techniques like mastery learning, learning styles, and experiential learning. The brain-based learning movement emerged from discoveries in neuroscience about how the brain processes and retains information. Core principles include that the brain is a parallel processor, learns through patterns and meaning-making, and develops through social interaction and challenge rather than stress. Best teaching practices derived from these principles include orchestrated immersion, relaxed alertness during active processing, and optimizing learning through music, art, and diverse forms of assessment.

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    BRAIN BASED LEARNING

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    Brain-based learning is an educational approach based on research about how the brain naturally learns. It connects learning to students' real-life experiences and incorporates techniques like mastery learning, learning styles, and experiential learning. The brain-based learning movement emerged from discoveries in neuroscience about how the brain processes and retains information. Core principles include that the brain is a parallel processor, learns through patterns and meaning-making, and develops through social interaction and challenge rather than stress. Best teaching practices derived from these principles include orchestrated immersion, relaxed alertness during active processing, and optimizing learning through music, art, and diverse forms of assessment.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    140 views6 pages

    Brain Based Learning 1

    Uploaded by

    Chan Hau Ching
    Brain-based learning is an educational approach based on research about how the brain naturally learns. It connects learning to students' real-life experiences and incorporates techniques like mastery learning, learning styles, and experiential learning. The brain-based learning movement emerged from discoveries in neuroscience about how the brain processes and retains information. Core principles include that the brain is a parallel processor, learns through patterns and meaning-making, and develops through social interaction and challenge rather than stress. Best teaching practices derived from these principles include orchestrated immersion, relaxed alertness during active processing, and optimizing learning through music, art, and diverse forms of assessment.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 6

    Brain-Based Learning Highlights

    Andrea Spears and Leslie Wilson

    Definition

    Brain-Based learning is a comprehensive approach to instruction based on how


    current research in neuroscience suggests our brain learns naturally. This
    theory is based on what we currently know about the actual structure and
    function of the human brain at varying stages of development. This type of
    education provides a biologically driven framework for teaching and learning,
    and helps explain recurring learning behaviors. It is a meta-concept that
    includes and eclectic mix of techniques. Currently, these techniques stress
    allowing teachers to connect learning to students’ real life experiences. This
    form of learning also encompasses such educational concepts as:

     mastery learning,
     learning styles,

     multiple intelligences,

     cooperative learning,

     practical simulations,

     experiential learning,

     problem-based learning,

     movement education.

    History

    For 2,000 years there have been primitive models of how the brain works. Up
    until the mid 1900’s the brain was compared to a city’s switchboard. Brain theory
    in the 1970’s spoke of the right and left-brain. Later the concept of the triune
    brain ( a term coined by Paul McClean that refers to the evolution of the human
    three part brain) was introduced. In this theory McClean hypothesized that
    survival learning is in the lower brain, emotions were in the mid-brain, and
    higher order thinking took place in the upper brain. Currently, we embrace a
    whole systems, complex brain model.

    During the last two decades neuroscientists have be doing research that has
    implications for improved teaching practices. Neuroscience is based on
    information obtained through autopsies, experiments, and different types of
    scans -- MRIs, EEGs, PET and CAT scans, as well as the most recent brain
    research lab studies in neuroscience. Neuroscientists construct clinical studies
    that use double blind, large, diverse, multi-age, multicultural groups of people to
    gather reliable information. This information has helped determine how human
    learning actually occurs. In essence these scientists have been peering into the
    “black box” in order to determine how the brain processes and retains
    information. Thus, technology in medicine has paved the way for many new
    learning innovations.

    Specifically based on conclusions from research in neuroscience, professors


    from major universities have taken this information and incorporated it into
    books about learning. In accordance with these suggestions classroom
    practices can be modified by teachers applying new theories of teaching and
    learning based on recent findings. Some noted authors in this area are Marian
    Diamond, U. C., Berkeley; Howard Gardner, Harvard University; Renate and
    Geoffrey Caine; Thomas Armstrong; Candace Pert, Eric Jensen; etc.

    Core principles directing brain-based education are:

    1. The brain is a parallel processor. It can perform several activities at once.


    2. The brain perceives whole and parts simultaneously.

    3. Information is stored in multiple areas of the brain and is retrieved through


    multiple memory and neural pathways.

    4. Learning engages the whole body. All learning is mind-body: movement,


    foods, attention cycles, and chemicals modulate learning.

    5. Humans’ search for meaning is innate.

    6. The search for meaning comes through patterning.


    7. Emotions are critical to patterning, and drive our attention, meaning and
    memory.

    8. Meaning is more important than just information.

    9. Learning involves focused attention and peripheral perception.

    10. We have two types of memory: spatial and rote.

    11. We understand best when facts are embedded in natural spatial memory.

    12. The brain is social. It develops better in concert with other brains.

    13. Complex learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by stress.

    14. Every brain in uniquely organized.

    15. Learning is developmental. (Caine)

    What then can educators do to enhance learning in classrooms?

    Implications for best teaching practices and optimal learning

    There are interactive teaching elements that emerge from these principles.

     Orchestrated immersion: Learning environments are created that immerse


    students in a learning experience. Primary teachers build a rainforest in the
    classroom complete with stuffed animals and cardboard and paper trees
    that reach to the ceiling. Intermediate teachers take students to a school
    forest to explore and identify animal tracks in the snow and complete
    orienteering experiences with a compass. Junior high teachers take a field
    trip to an insurance company to have students shadow an employee all day.
    High school teachers of astronomy have students experience
    weightlessness by scuba diving in the swimming pool.

     Relaxed alertness: An effort is made to eliminate fear while maintaining a


    highly challenging environment. Teachers play classical music when
    appropriate to set a relaxed tone in the classroom. Bright lights are
    dimmed. Vanilla candles are used to calm students and peppermint scents
    are used to stimulate the senses. All students are accepted with their
    various learning styles, capabilities and disabilities. A relaxed accepting
    environment pervades the room. Children are stretched to maximize their
    potential.

     Active processing: The learner consolidates and internalizes information by


    actively processing it. Information is connected to prior learning. The stage
    is set before a unit of study is begun by the teacher preparing the students
    to attach new information to prior knowledge so the new information has
    something to “latch onto.” (Jensen, Caine)

    Twelve design principles based on brain-based research

    1. Rich, stimulating environments using student created materials and


    products are evident on bulletin boards and display areas.
    2. Places for group learning like tables and desks grouped together, to
    stimulate social skills and cooperative work groups. Have comfortable
    furniture and couches available for casual discussion areas. Carpeted
    and areas with large pillows who prefer not the work at a desk or table.

    3. Link indoor and outdoor spaces so students can move about using their
    motor cortex for more brain oxygenation.

    4. Safe places for students to be where threat is reduced, particularly in large


    urban settings.

    5. Variety of places that provide different lighting, and nooks and crannies.
    Many elementary children prefer the floor and under tables to work
    with a partner.

    6. Change displays in the classroom regularly to provide a stimulating


    situations for brain development. Have students create stage sets
    where they can act out scenes from their readings or demonstrate a
    science principle or act out a dialogue between historical figures.

    7. Have multiple resources available. Provide educational, physical and a


    variety of setting within the classroom so that learning activities can be
    integrated easily. Computers areas, wet areas, experimental science
    areas should be in close proximity to one another. Multiple functions
    of learning is our goal.
    8. Flexibility: This common principle of the past is relevant. The ‘teachable
    moment” must be recognized and capitalized upon. Dimensions of
    flexibility are evident in other principles.

    9. Active and passive places: Students need quiet areas for reflection and
    retreat from others to use intrapersonal intelligences.

    10. Personal space: Students need a home base, a desk, a locker area. All
    this allows learners to express their unique identity.

    11. The community at large as an optimal learning environment: Teachers


    need to find ways to fully use city space and natural space to use as a
    primary learning setting. Technology, distance learning, community
    and business partnerships, all need to be explored by educational
    institutions.

    12. Enrichment: The brain can grow new connections at any age.
    Challenging, complex experiences with appropriate feedback are best.
    Cognitive skills develop better with music and motor skills.
    (D’Arcangelo)

    Optimizing learning through different mediums:

    Music: Music can lower stress, boost learning when used 3 different ways:

     as a carrier - using melody or beat to encode content,


     as arousal - to calm down or energize,

     as a primer - to prepare specific pathways for learning content) impacts the


    immune system, and is an energy source for the brain.

    Art: Art is an important part of brain-based education in that it provides many


    learners with avenues of expression and emotional conduits for learning and
    retaining information. Art is important in technology to aesthetically create
    pleasing power point presentations and multi-media displays to showcase work.
    Multicultural awareness is improved through the study of art. Due to the diverse
    power of art, some educators think the “arts” should be named as the fourth
    “R.”
    Diverse forms of assessment: Maintaining portfolios is important for reflective
    improvement and self-assessment. These help teachers, parents and students
    observe demonstrated growth over time. Teachers also need to maintain
    appropriate content mastery through regular testing programs. And,
    demonstrations, writing and art are ways of assessing students’ progress, as are
    pre and post surveys and tests useful in assessing students’ progress. Both
    verbal and written self-assessments are important parts of proving academic
    growth, and interdisciplinary and cross-curricular projects provide realistic
    assessment tools. In essence, students should be exposed to multiple
    assessment methods. (Jensen)

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