Thursday, October 15, 2009

Brain Based Research

Brain based research is the idea that students learn more when material is presented in a manner that is easiest for the brain to process. Some of the common features that brain based research has, according to multiple websites that discuss the topic, are twelve core principles, they are as follows:
1. The brain is a parallel processor, meaning it can perform several activities at once, like tasting and smelling.
2. Learning engages the whole physiology.
3. The search for meaning is innate.
4. The search for meaning comes through patterning.
5. Emotions are critical to patterning.
6. The brain processes wholes and parts simultaneously.
7. Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral perception.
8 Learning involves both conscious and unconscious processes.
9. We have two types of memory: spatial and rote.
10. We understand best when facts are embedded in natural, spatial memory.
11. Learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat.
12 Each brain is unique (funderstanding.com).

The theory largely focuses on student centered learning, differentiated instruction and has three instructional techniques presented on the uwsp.edu website and others.

1. Orchestrated immersion: Learning environments are created that immerse students in a learning experience.
2. Relaxed alertness: An effort is made to eliminate fear while maintaining a highly challenging environment.
3. Active processing: The learner consolidates and internalizes information by actively processing it. Information is connected to prior learning (uwsp.edu).

Orchestrated immersion is the idea that students would actively do what ever it is that they are learning. If a student is learning Spanish the teacher would surround the students with Spanish culture, take trips to Spanish speaking neighborhoods, and their whole world would become Spanish. The goal of this is to engage as many senses and activate multiple processes of the brain at once, and engage in active student centered learning.

The goal of relaxed alertness is to encourage students to learn how they best see fit. If a student learns best by reading, another by building models, and another by physically doing an activity then the teacher will develop separate activities for each student and encourage them. Another goal of relaxed alertness is to eliminate fear. The teacher must create a positive and encouraging atmosphere.

Teachers must also make connections to prior learning and experiences held by students. This is the main objective of active processing. When students are able to draw on past experiences and information they can internalize the new data and better process it into something meaningful to them. The result is information that students can learn and understand more fully and utilize in real life situations.

Brain based learning has many positive attributes. First it reaches out to student interests, allows students to be hands on and get involved with an activity, it builds self-confidence in students, and allows students to control their own learning experience. Students will most certainly have more fun while doing brain based activities and will likely learn a skill or topic in much greater depth than a typical teacher centered classroom environment.

I also see many problems with brain based learning as presented in my sources below. First, school districts would have a difficult time paying for many activities as they require many more manipulatives, field trips, and materials than a typical classroom. Second, teachers would have a difficult time meeting all of the state standards for a grade level if they were spending the huge amount of time it takes to teach a single lesson. Third, while the approach may work in a small classroom size or with very self motivated students, I don’t believe that the approach in its purist form would work in a large classroom with unmotivated students.

As a teacher I do use and support brain based research, although I had never heard it called that before. Most classrooms use hands on activities for students, manipulatives, real life examples and situations, and varied student groupings to help meet the individual needs of students. I also think that if teachers did some big student centered project for every math concept and standard those teachers would not hit half of the state standards and would have problems with their supervisors. Therefore I believe a balanced approach that incorporates the basic principles of brain based research, some time management and efficiency as well as teacher discretion.

Sources:
http://www.uwsp.edu/education/celtProject/innovations/Brain-Based%20Learning/brain-based_learning.htm.
http://www.funderstanding.com/content/brain-based-learning
http://www.brains.org/
http://www.teach-nology.com/litined/brain_learning/

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