Meeting the needs of students is essential when creating a learning environment that promotes higher order thinking. Understanding how the brain works is a crucial component of meeting individual student needs. Brain research provides teachers with insight to the brain’s inner workings and complexity.
The Effects of Brain-Based Learning on the Academic Achievement No two students learn the exact same because no two brains are the exact same. Bilal Duman suggests in his article that Brain Based Learning understands that the brain works in unity, but it contains different sections that have different purposes. The right side is concrete and the left side is abstract, and within it four lobes provide different functions. If teachers use brain-based learning, they are providing students with academic achievement opportunities that are individualized for each student. “The development of learning activities catering for all the components of an individual’s learning style requires the design of teaching-learning models that can stimulate all the senses and the lobes of the brain” (Duman, 2010). Duman also proposed that students should be categorized into four learning styles from Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory: accommodators, divergers, convergers, and assimilators (Duman, 2010). Each category incorporates a method of grasping experience and a method of transforming experience. Accommodators rely on concrete experience and abstract conceptualization when learning
Keywords: left brain, right brain, brain, hemisphere, learning styles, brain dominance, teaching style, formal education, brain-based learning
In the article, “Building a Better Brain is within Every Student’s Power” author Judy Willis states that when people empower themselves with a basic understanding of how their brain learns and remember it gives them the most potent keys to success in school, careers, relationships, and every other aspect of their lives. Many things help the brain learn like influences on intelligence, emotional state, a positive emotional state, incremental progress, and knowing how to construct patterns.
1. Brain Based Research: What does this tell us about young children 's brains and how they best learn? What ideas do teachers of young children need to keep in mind?
I believe that even though students have the same opportunities and environment in the same exact classroom, they are all still not receiving the same education. This all depends on their mental capacities, the amount of attention they give, and if they understand the assignments and lectures. Everyone can have different experiences and take in different information even though being in the same
We all learn in diverse ways, inclined by the combination of our past educational experiences, study practices and personal approach to particular tasks. This can be designated as our learning style, defined as ‘particular ways of gathering, processing and storing information and experiences’ (Cuthbert, P.F., 2005).
Every human being can learn. Brain-based learning offers some new direction for educators who are looking for a more aimed and informed teaching. This paper will present information on how brain-based learning works. In addition, the paper will discuss how brain-based learning is improving student test scores. Also, the paper will provide research outcomes on the benefits of brain-based learning. Creating stress-free environments, improving complex cognitive skills, and understanding memory become important in brain-based learning. Receiving, encoding, storing, and retrieving information make sense as the memory routes are defined. Assessing student learning becomes the simple
As an experiential cognitivist I delineate the process of learning through experience, and learning through
It can be argued that the more modalities employed and presented to students, the greater their chance for successful learning becomes. As educators, if we appeal to all strategies of learning, we are more likely to enhance the learning of everyone in our target audience. This may be challenging as we ourselves tend to flock to a particular learning style, and in turn, tend to teach the same way. It also may be a challenge to address each individuals learning style, as it may be difficult, or even impossible to know each and every one of their learning preferences. However, the first step in overcoming that challenge is to be well versed in our own learning preferences. If we are well versed in our own
Research is playing with puzzles, making sense of the nonsensical piece by piece. What’s a greater puzzle than the brain? In middle school, to procrastinate, I watched videos on why we dream, why we feel, why we forget. The more I saw, the more I wanted to know. So, in high school, I enrolled in AP psychology. When I read the syllabus, my stomach cartwheeled at knowing I would have to dissect a sheep brain. As I reluctantly walked into the lab, the fresh formaldehyde smell battered my nostrils. Little tool kits of torture were lined up on every table. While the rest of my group used them to emphatically scissor away, I simply observed, hands paralyzed to my side. Then, the teacher commanded each of us look at the hippocampus. When I picked up the grooved grey blob, I realized my slightly shaking forceps held most of that sheep’s knowledge, memories, and
Our education system today is in a state of flagrant disrepair. Educators rely on outdated modes of instruction to teach children. Instead of examining these methods administrators spend time and effort developing more intensive assessments in hopes of fueling more intense learning. In order to successfully impact learning teachers must begin teaching in ways that guarantee to impart new knowledge. Brain-based learning is a newer concept in education that addresses the specific needs of a learner’s brain in order to maximize learning. Brain-based learning as defined by author and educator Eric Jensen is “the engagement of strategies based on principles derived from an understanding of the brain,” (2010, p.4). Because educators do not
Kolb’s theory (1984) is based on a four-stage learning cycle in which the learner contacts all the stages. These stages include first, concrete experience (how an individual encounters a situation), second, reflective observation (what an individual thinks about the situation), third, abstract conceptualization (how the individual analyzes the situation), and fourth, active experimentation (how the individual’s use of the conclusions in a situation change or prepare for another situation) (p. 21). Kolb also understood that individuals have different learning styles. Some individuals learn by observing while others learn by hands-on experience. Therefore, Kolb created side cycles to explain where in the learning cycles an individual’s learning style would fall. Although Kolb’s theory is a
In this chapter I learned about my learning style and how different learning styles impact our lives.
Learning is a multifaceted perception unique to each individual. In looking to address the intricacies of learning, there have been a multitude of learning theories established over the centuries. To this day new theories are developed and traditional theories continue to be developed and expanded upon. (Swinburne Online, 2016)
Although this limitation can become a barrier for the experiential learning theory Rogers’ developed, it is possible for this to overcome this with patience. As the main purpose of this theory is to allow personal growth within the student, we must note that personal growth appears differently for each individual learner. The role of the facilitator is to help engage all types of students in self-motivated learning to help them improve their overall growth from significant information.
These twelve principles are not intended to be comprehensive, but to offer participants the ability to explore implications in an open, reflective way. In addition to the twelve principles for learning there are specific conditions for complex learning to take place in the classroom, according to Caine and Caine, these conditions help in the overall system of brain-based learning. First of all, students should feel a relaxed