LEARNING AND THE BRAIN Teaching that Works: Issues in Vocational & Technical Education Instruction...
Transcript of LEARNING AND THE BRAIN Teaching that Works: Issues in Vocational & Technical Education Instruction...
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!