The ABCs of Brain-Based

Learning

Amber GeeSummer 2010

ED 837: Brain-Based Learning

ABOUT Thinking

The last of the four corners, this corner has everything to do with how one is metacognitive, or evaluates their own thinking.

The Brain-Compatible Principles that support this corner are as follows:

Three of Cambourne’s Conditions of Learning - Approximations, Response, and Responsibility - fall mainly in this corner.

The Search for Meaning is InnateThe Search for Meaning Occurs Through PatterningLearning Always Involves Conscious and Unconscious Processes

Brain Geography

From the top down, the brain is divided into three distinct sections.

The brain is also divided into left and right hemispheres by an exchange pathway known as the corpus collosum, which helps both hemispheres work in tandem to process input.

The HOPES Brain TutorialExplore the human brain and its parts.

Click HERE for a song about the parts of the brain.

Neocortex (thinking brain) – where higher-level thinking happensLimbic area (feeling brain) – where human emotions are processedBrain stem (instinctual or reptilian brain) – controls survival impulses

Cambourne’s Conditions of Learning

Brian Cambourne’s Conditions of Learning were developed based on his studies of literacy development in children. It just so happens that they link beautifully to the constructivist approach

to learning supported by brain-based research. Immersion

Demonstration

Engagement

Expectations

Responsibility

Employment

Approximation

Response

Dynamic vs Traditional Assessments

Dynamic Assessments

Traditional Assessments

Environment, Emotions, Expectations =

ClimateEnvironment – safe, positiveEmotions – low threat coupled with appropriate challengeExpectations – clearly stated

What makes for positive and inviting classroom climate?

FOR

The first of the four corners, this corner has to do with the climate created in the classroom. Teacher expectations, student emotions, and classroom environment all comprise this corner.

The Brain-Compatible Principles that support this corner are as

follows:

Two of Cambourne’s Conditions of

Learning - Immersion and Expectation - fall mainly in this corner.

Learning is Enhanced by Challenge and Inhibited by Threat Emotions Are Critical to PatterningLearning Involves Both Focused Attention and Peripheral Perception

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers help make the abstract more concrete by displaying thoughts in a visible fashion.

Students should be taught to select the organizer that most meets their needs.

Heredity vs Environments: Is it nature

or nurture? It’s 50/50, so both!

A rich environment that is full of opportunities for experiential learning (especially during windows of opportunity when neural plasticity is at a high), where learners

maintain a hydrated and balanced diet, has just as much to do with intelligence as one’s DNA makeup.

Intelligence Theories

Joking: Humor’s Effect on the Brain

Gelotology - the physiological study of laughter The frontal lobe controls emotional responses, but the production

of laughter involves multiple areas of the brain. A negatively charged wave actually ripples through the cerebral

cortex.

As a result of laughter, cortisol is reduced, immune system cells are bolstered, blood pressure is lowered, and endorphins are released among a whole host of other things. http://www.brainleadersandlearners.com/mita-approaches/expect/expect-brain-benefits-from-humor/

•The left side of the cortex analyzes the words and structure of jokes.•The brain’s frontal lobe becomes very active.•The right hemisphere of the cortex intellectually analyzes the joke so one can “get” it.•Brainwave activity spreads to the sensory processing area of the occipital lobe.•Stimulation of the motor sections evoked physical responses to the joke. http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-nature/emotions/other/laughter3.htm

Keeping Students

EngagedHow? Use Marcia Tate’s 20 Strategies that Engage

the Brain!Write

Tell StoriesUse Mnemon ic Dev i ces

USE VISUALS

Get Moving

Role Play

VISUALIZE

Incorporate Figurative Language

Teach ReciprocallyLearn Cooperatively

Utilize Music

Use Graphic OrganizersDRAW

Use Humor

DISCUSSPlay Games

Project-Based In

structio

n

Take Fieldtrips

INITIATE WORK STUDY

Use Technology

Use Manipulatives

Learning in Smart Groups

Topic: Nouns

Word Smart – Spin the spinners to select a noun from each of the four categories (person, place, thing, or idea) and write a short fiction story using those nouns.

Math Smart – Come up with three different nouns (from three of the four categories of nouns) to use in the creation of a real-life word problem requiring long division. Exchange problems with a group member and solve.

Picture Smart – Read a page of your choice out of your Harcourt story. Collaboratively web the different people, places, things, and ideas you found.

Body Smart – Select four nouns (one for each category) that you can act out in a game of charades with your team.

Music Smart – Choose four “idea” nouns and find music (or music clips) that you feel express those ideas.

Group Smart – Use the wiki to develop a group presentation that you will use to teach the class about the types of nouns. You must provide examples and use images.

Self Smart – Look through your journal paying close attention to the nouns you’ve used in the past. Which nouns do you most frequently use? Are they people, places, things, ideas, or a mix? How can you extend your use of nouns to make your writing more interesting? Take one of your journal entries and rewrite it using more specific or more interesting nouns. Add detail!

Nature Smart – Sit outside for 10 minutes and journal about what nouns you “see”. Be sure to include nouns from all four categories. You will have to think outside the box! Collect items, use pictures to represent what you saw in the form of a collage.

Microskills and Macroskills

Microskills Macroskills

•Specific skills in multiple areas

• These help students become proficient in concepts, some of which will be mastered

• Skills can be classified as individual or sets

•Simple tasks

• Sets of skills

• Used to help students learn knowledge and performance-type skills

•Require scaffolding

• Not individual skills but sets of microskills

•Can never truly be mastered

•Habits of Mind

•Complex tasks

Example: Collaboration Skills• Encourage others•Clarify ideas•Develop guidelines

Example: Industrial Arts• Electrical• Plumbing• Carpentry

Neurons

Neurons are cells that send and receive chemical “messages”.

Branched dendrites receive signals, send them through the cell body, and pass them along the axon.

From the axon, signals are sent through synapses and are received on a neighboring dendrite.

The transmission speed of information is directly related to the size of the axon. Because human axons are quite small, myelin sheaths are necessary for proper functioning. They act as insulators, providing even faster transmission of information.

Studies have shown that different forms of repeated practice actually thicken the myelin sheath. This means that practice makes retrieval of knowledge faster!

www.bris.ac.uk/synaptic/basics/basics-1.html

OF

The second of the four corners, this corner has everything to do with the learning of essential skills.

The Brain-Compatible Principles that support this corner are as follows:

One of Cambourne’s Conditions of Learning - Demonstration - falls mainly in this corner.

The Brain Has a Spatial Memory System and a Set of Systems for Rote LearningThe Brain Processes Parts and Wholes Simultaneously

Posner and Keele: Basic/Apprentice

Developmental Path of Skill and Content TrainingCategory Expert Proficien

t UserCompetent User

Advanced

Beginner

Novice

Writing Complete Sentences

Student writes extended pieces utilizing specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives throughout their work. He or she may also incorporate figurative language.

Student consistently uses specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives throughout their writing.

Student can use specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives consistently throughout their writing a majority of the time.

Student can put nouns, verbs, and adjectives together in very short, basic sentences, which are occasionally still incomplete.

Student can recognize nouns, verbs, and adjectives, practice those skills in isolation, but cannot combine them into a complete sentence.

Questioning Strategies

When trying to develop higher-thinking skills in students, LeAnn Nickelsen suggest three main questioning strategies:

• D.E.E.P (Domains for Elaborate and Effective Processing)

There are four domains: Awareness, Analysis to Synthesis, Application, and Assimilation.

•Six Hat Thinking • WHITE – Facts• RED – Feelings• YELLOW – Positive things• GRAY – Disadvantages or problems• GREEN – New, creative ideas• BLUE – Summary

• Bloom’s TaxonomyKnowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation

Reflection: Making

MeaningEducators help students learn to

think about their thinking by making engaging lessons that

are personally relevant, enabling students to construct their own knowledge, teaching for deep

understanding, and helping them generalize information.

Structures for Cooperative

LearningSome of my favorite structures/activities from Kagan’s Cooperative Learning Structures book:

TEAMBUILDING MASTERYGuess-the-Fib Flashcard GameTeamBoggle Turn-4-Review

CLASSBUILDING THINKING SKILLS

Find-Someone-Who Two-Box Induction

Inside-Outside Circle Blind Hand

INFORMATION SHARING COMMUNICATIONBlackboard Share Talking

ChipsThree Step Interview Match Mine

Twelve Brain Principles

Understanding How Transfer is

FosteredTransfer is fostered by using strategies that

challenge the learner to apply knowledge in different contexts.

Cognitive Mediation

Metacognitive Reflection

Direct Application

EX: Modeling theme, guiding students through identifying several themes in movies, getting students to think of other areas where they could find the idea of ‘theme’. PERSONAL RELEVANCE EX: Asking students to predict during a

text walk, to talk about their predictions during and after reading, to evaluate if their predictions were accurate, and to explain why they were or were not. KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUTIONEX: After a lesson regarding idioms, students begin to recognize idioms in writing and speech, and they begin to use them in their everyday conversations. DEEP UNDERSTANDING

Levels of Transfer: GENERALIZATION1) Ollie overlooks obvious opportunities.2) Dan duplicates – doesn’t deepen.3) Rachel replicates regularly.

4) Ian integrates interesting information.5) Marsha maps multiple meanings.6) India innovates intrinsically.

Vermillion: Why Asolescents See

Red so Quickly The limbic area of the brain has control over emotion,

and this area typically develops between ages 10-12. The frontal lobe controls rational thinking, but does not

fully develop until around 22-24 years of age.

Therefore, in adolescents, their emotional responses (driven by work of the amygdala) are not completely checked by their rational thinking because the orbitofrontal cortex hasn’t yet matured.

What does this mean? Emotional processes occur before cognitive ones, so kids tend to react before thinking.

WITH

The third of the four corners, this corner has everything to do with the construction of learning through engagement and experiential learning.

The Brain-Compatible Principles that support this corner are as follows:

Three of Cambourne’s Conditions of Learning - Engagement and Employment - fall mainly in this corner.

Learning Engages the Entire PhysiologyThe Brain is a Parallel ProcessorLearning is Embedded in Natural and Social SettingsEach Brain is Unique

EXperiential Learning

through Integration

Below are five types of integrated applications that help learners connect content to real-life and examples of each:

1) Performance Tasks - Create a car using the materials given. The object is to use what you know about force and motion in order to construct a vehicle that will travel as far as possible.

2) Thematic Units - In learning about the Ocean, we will be reading various books and magazines, mapping the ocean floor, researching an ocean animal, writing a report, creating a newscast regarding current ocean-related events, measure wavelengths, etc…

3) Problem-Based Learning - Tackle the oil spill problem in the Gulf. Research and gather data. Decide on the best method of cleaning up the spill. Present.

4) Projects/Service Learning - Create a flip book of the layers of the ocean.

5) Case Studies - Study scenarios relating to learning a foreign language in elementary school.

Memor

YSENSORY

STIMULI

SHORT-TERM MEMORY

Working

Memory

Short-term

Memory Buffers

LONG-TERM MEMORY

Procedural

Declarative

Episodic

Semantic

Loss through decay

Loss through

displacement

ATTENTIONREHEARSAL

AND CODING

ARM

Stimuli gets dropped from the ARM if it doesn’t have meaning. If there is an emotional tie to the information, then the it transfers into short-term memory. Minimally important things like phone numbers are stored in the memory buffers and drop out after 15-30 seconds unless enough attention is paid to them. Attention is what moves information into the working memory system. If the information is rehearsed, then it moves into the long-term memory system; otherwise, it is displaced. Oftentimes items in long-term memory are somewhat forgotten, but pulling them back into working memory and applying a little rehearsal, brings back the memory!

Automatic

Emotional

CsiksZentmihaly,: Advanced/Master

Flow. What is it? Your…

“A” Game!Rhythm

Groove

Peak PerformanceFlow is a state in which one is completely immersed in and enjoying the task at hand. It’s that “nothing can stop me” feeling that one tries to repeatedly recapture.

The End

Immersion

This occurs when students’ brains are stimulated by a rich environment in which learning becomes both a sensory and an intellectual experience.

Through new experiences, dendrites branch and connect to one another.

Through repeated experiences, the myelin sheath covering the axon thickens. This is thought to decrease the time it takes to recall information.

Demonstration

Modeling changes the brain. New learning is either connected to past knowledge through the branching of existing dendrites, or , if no past experience exists, then the brain creates new dendrites.

Engagement

Engagement happens when students decide to make a personal investment in their learning through active participation.

Since the brain processes with all four lobes, each student’s experience will form connections that are unique. This is why no two brains will ever be the same.

Expectations

When educators set realistic expectations they’re helping to create a positive and safe classroom environment.

In safe environments, the release of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, fuels a sense of well-being, which enables learners to attend better and, ultimately, learn and remember more information.

Responsibility

Differentiation provides choice for students and affords them the opportunity to make decisions regarding their learning. This personal investment leads to higher levels of engagement and learning.

Employment

Students need time to use what they’ve learned in order to make sense of what they think they know. Both teacher-led and student-led discussions, as well as opportunities for reflection and application, are vital in the assimilation of new information.

When students engage in the processes listed above, they are able to construct knowledge from those experiences.

Approximation

Since past experiences uniquely shape each learners brain, each brain processes information differently; therefore, what one student readily understands, another cannot.

As students wrestle with concepts and skills, they will invariably fall short of mastery. Classroom environments where mistakes are expected and accepted, where feedback and guidance are continuously provided, and where challenge is part of learning, support individual growth.

Response

When a student responds—either verbally, physically, mentally, emotionally—to external stimuli, his or her brain’s nerve cells are interpreting and passing signals (via hundreds of neurotransmitters) to one another. As these signals simultaneously travel to various parts of the brain, they “jump” the synaptic gap between dendrites. The potential is for billions of electrical circuits to be running at once. The connections that are made as a result of

both student and teacher responses are what create meaning.

The Brain Song