LEARNING AND THE BRAIN

Teaching that Works:Issues in Vocational & Technical Education Instruction

Central Carolina Community CollegeNovember 17, 2005

Primary Sources

•Caine, Caine, McClintic and Klimek (2004)

•Leamnson (1999)

•Zull (2002)

THE BRAIN’S ABILITY TO VISUALIZE IS ARGUABLY THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ASPECT OF COGNITION. WHEN WE WANT PEOPLE TO LEARN, WE WANT THEM TO “GET THE PICTURE.”

James Zull (2002). The Art of Changingthe Brain, P. 138.

“Comprehension often requires us to make images out of language. This is possibly the ultimate in integration by the human brain.”

Zull, P. 171

Draw a pictureof your typicalstudent(s).

Then…add somedescriptivelanguage.

POWERFUL LEARNING

1. Use note cards2. Reflect about a powerful learning experience3. On the card: Briefly describe the experience. What did you do

that was powerful? Others do? Leader or teacher do?4. What was the ESSENCE of the experience?5. In groups at your tables: Consolidate the qualities and characteristics of your experiences onto the large sheet of paper.6. Put the sheet on the wall.

• Strategy: Museum Walk

What do you notice?

Powerful Learning

•What you learn…

•How you learn…

•Where you learn…

NATURAL LEARNING

What are powerful learningexperiences for your students?

What...•Personally meaningful•Challenging (and they accept the challenge)•Appropriate for developmental level

How…•In their own way, with choices and in control•Use what they already know…construct•Social interaction•Get helpful feedback•Acquire and use strategiesWhere…•Positive emotional climate•Environment supports the intended learning

PROCESSING…

Brandt, R. (1998). Powerful Learning.

BASED UPON OUR DIALOGUE ABOUT POWERFUL LEARNING:

•WHAT DO YOU WISH FOR YOUR STUDENTS? (In your discipline/area)

•WHAT DOES YOUR IDEAL STUDENT LOOK LIKE? SOUND LIKE?

PROCESSING…

•How well prepared are students to learn the content in your class?

•What are their interests?

•What are their learning profiles?

•What is their typical physical/emotional state when learning? How do they feel about themselves and their work?

DIFFERENTIATION…

What do we know about how the brainlearns and processes information?

Strategies:

•Note Cards

•Think/Pair/Share

VIDEO: DISCOVERY CHANNELThe Brain/Our Universe Within

Evolution and Perception

1997, Discovery Communication, Inc.

At your tables: What did you already know?What did you learn? What surprised you?

Listen for key ideas and words….

PROCESSING…

THINKING MEANS CONNECTING THINGS, AND

STOPS IF THEY CANNOT BE CONNECTED.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

•So what?

•Says who?

•What if…?

•What does this remind me of?

Four PowerfulQuestions

The brain searchesfor connections.

Adam Robinson (1993) What Smart Students Know.

What is brain-based learning?

•Expanded notion of what learning is that has been reframed by neuroscience research.

•Maximizes everything that is natural about learning.

•Involves acknowledging the brain’s rules for meaningful learning and organizing teaching with those rules in mind.

Caine & Caine, 2004

Zull, J. (2002). The Art of Changing the Brain

Teaching/Learning Academy: Valencia Community College

•Kolb: The Learning Cycle•Ideas for learning from the structure of the brain

Can’t Separate Can’t Separate Emotion and Emotion and CognitionCognition

Emotion and Emotion and Thought Thought Shape Each Shape Each Other — Other — Cannot be Cannot be SeparatedSeparated

Teaching/Learning AcademyValencia Community College

Creative SourcesCreative Sources

THE 12 PRINCIPLES OF BRAIN/MIND LEARNING

Geoffrey and Renate Nummela-Caine

The principles provide a framework for “…selecting the methodologies that will maximize learning and make teaching more effective and fulfilling.”

Caine & Caine

Three Interactive Teaching ElementsRelaxed Alertness

OrchestratedImmersionActive Processing

Relaxed AlertnessRelaxed Alertness (Emotional Climate)(Emotional Climate)

The learner is experiencing low threat and high challenge

The learner is both relaxed and emotionally engaged Is a psychopysiological state…can be temporary Optimal climate and state of mind for learner and

teacher

Once the physical patterns have been set by previous experiences, only new experiences can alter them.

Principles #2, 3 ,5, & 11

Creative SourcesCreative Sources

Orchestrated Orchestrated Immersion Immersion in Complex Experiencein Complex Experience (Instruction)(Instruction)

Key…to have the learners immersed in rich and complex environments as a way of life…

Principles #1, 4, 6, & 10

ACTIVE PROCESSING(Consolidation)

Principles #7, 8, 9 & 12.

•Digesting…•Thinking about…•Reflecting on…•Making sense of experience…

And consolidating learning.

•Brain imaging technology allows us to see Brain imaging technology allows us to see knowledgeknowledge

•Connections we make through our own experienceConnections we make through our own experience

•Experiences mapped in unique waysExperiences mapped in unique ways

•Complicated connectionsComplicated connections

•Networks unique to each learner and teacherNetworks unique to each learner and teacher

What is Knowledge?What is Knowledge?

Zull, James. League for Innovations Conference. March, 2005From: Teaching/Learning Academy, Valencia Community College

Relaxed-Alert State * Immersion in Complex Experience *

Active Processing

Best Practices:•Student-Centered•Experiential•Holistic•Authentic•Expressive•Reflective•Social •Collaborative•Democratic•Cognitive•Developmental•Constructivist•Challenging

Executive FunctionsThe ability to:•reason•assess risk•make sense of ideas and behavior•moderate their emotions•make a plan and develop a timeline•know when to ask for help and know how to

use resources•adapt their goals based upon new info or

understandings along their journey•think critically and creatively•reflect and be self-critical•understand their own approaches to learning•take other people’s points of view•anticipate potential problems and opportunities that effect the outcome of their goals•access their working memory to lead their

thinking and next steps in planning

Learning Capacities

Engage:

•Social Interactions

•The physiology

•Their search for meaning

•Capacity to master essential patterns

•Emotional connections

•Ability to perceive parts and wholes

•Focus attention/learn from peripheral content

•Conscious and unconscious processing

•Capacity to learn from memorizing isolated facts and bio events

•Developmental steps and shifts

•Reduce threat, enhance self-efficacy

•Individual styles and uniquenesswww.2perspectives.org

James Zull:•Sensory/Experience

•Integration

•Developing Abstraction/Exec Functions

•Active Testing of Abstractions/Application

Leamnson…

Learning: Stabilizing, through repeated use, certain appropriate and desirable synapses in the brain. Building new brain connections.

Leamnson, R. (1999). Thinking About Teaching and Learning.

PROCESSING…

•Energizers: Get up from the chair often.•Honor diversity: Use both variety and choice.•Use peripherals.•Set goals.•Provide a topic template or model (patterns).•Use positive suggestion.•Absence of threat is critical.•Smile.•Get global.•Engage emotions.•Build relationships.

IDEAS

Strategies/Skills

•WRITING & COMMUNICATION

•THE LECTURE

Creative SourcesCreative Sources

Fundamentals:Fundamentals: Relaxed alert state Experience Reflection/Consolidation Developing abstractions Active testing of abstractions A context rich in resources of all kinds Modeling and guidance, coupled with examples

of expert work Complexity that exposes students to both basic

and sophisticated performance

It’sa powerfulexperience!