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Metropolitan Omaha Educational Consortium
Teaming for Quality Education
Developed by the Combined Elementary Task Forces of the Metropolitan Omaha Educational Consortium (MOEC), Omaha, NE: University of Nebraska at Omaha, 1999
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Brain is a Parallel Processor
Learning Engages the Entire Physiology
The Search for Meaning is Innate
The Search for Meaning Occurs Through "Patterning"
Emotions are Critical to Patterning
The Brain Processes Parts and Wholes Simultaneously
Learning Involves Both focused Attention and Peripheral Perception
Learning Always Involves Conscious and Unconscious Processes
We Have at Least Two Ways of Organizing Memory: A Spatial Memory System and a Set of Systems for Rote Learning
We Understand and Remember Best When Facts and Skills are Embedded in Natural, Spatial Memory
Complex Learning is Enhanced by Challenge and Inhibited by Threat
Every Brain is Uniquely Organized
Additional Resources on Brain Research and Learning
Websites
Classrooms and Schools Practicing Brain-Based Learning
Brain-Based Learning Committee
MOEC Membership
MOEC
The emerging brain research is obviously of interest to anyone concerned with learning. Researchers caution about making sweeping changes without thoughtful consideration, but the information and its implications are too important to ignore. The following are principles of brain-based learning formulated by Regate and Geoffrey Caine, who have consolidated much of the brain research referenced later in our discussion. The implications for educators are particularly valuable.
In keeping with brain-based theory, the committee attempted to provide just enough information to interest, but not overwhelm the reader. We offer a sample of the research via the principles. The additional resources allow you to choose how you best make sense of information; through reading the additional resources, and/or by viewing the sites practicing brain-based learning, or by talking and listening to those engaged in practice.
If we truly care about what "works" for quality teaching and learning, we must include the following in our dialogue.
1: The Brain Is A Parallel Processor.
Thoughts, emotions, imagination and predispositions operate concurrently and interactively as the entire system interacts and exchanges information in the environment.
Implications for educators:
Teachers need to use a variety of strategies and techniques to engage the students’ brains. No one method or technique can adequately encompass all the variations possible. Good teaching so orchestrates the learner’s experience that all aspects of brain operation are addressed.
2. Learning Engages The Entire Physiology.
Learning is as natural as breathing, but it can be either inhibited or facilitated. Neuron growth, nourishment, and interactions are integrally related to the perception and interpretation of experiences. Stress and threat affect the brain differently from peace, challenge, boredom, happiness, and contentment. In fact, some aspects of the actual wiring of the brain are affected by school and life experiences.
Implications for educators:
Everything that affects our physiological functioning affects our capacity to learn. Stress management, nutrition, exercise, and relaxation, as well as other facets of health management, must be fully incorporated into the learning process. For example, students should drink six to eight glasses of water during the day to properly hydrate the brain. Start time of school is an important factor to consider especially in adolescence who biologically have difficulty going to sleep early enough to ever receive adequate rest with start times set at seven or eight a.m.
Additionally, expecting equal achievement on the basis of chronological age is inappropriate. Healthy children may differ by as many as five years in their natural acquisition of basic skills.
3. The Search For Meaning Is Innate.
The search for meaning (making sense of our experiences) and the need to act on our environment is automatic. The search for meaning is survival oriented and basic to the human brain. The brain needs and automatically registers the familiar while simultaneously searching for and responding to novel stimuli. The search for meaning cannot be stopped, only channeled and focused.
Implications for educators:
The learning environment needs to provide stability and familiarity; this is part of the function of routine classroom behaviors and procedures. At the same time, provision must be made for students to satisfy their curiosity and hunger for novelty, discovery, and challenge. Lessons need to be generally exciting and meaningful and offer students an abundance of choices. The more positively lifelike such learning, the better. Most of the creative methods used for teaching gifted students should be applied to all students.
4. The Search For Meaning Occurs Through "Patterning."
Patterning refers to the meaningful organization and categorization of information. The brain is designed to perceive and generate patterns, and it resists having meaningless patterns imposed on it. "Meaningless" patterns are isolated pieces of information unrelated to what makes sense to a student.
Implications for educators:
Learners are patterning, or perceiving and creating meanings, all the time in one way or another. We cannot stop them, but we can influence the direction. Daydreaming is a way of patterning, as are problem solving and critical thinking. "Time on task" does not ensure appropriate patterning because the student may actually be engaged in busy work while the mind is somewhere else. For teaching to be effective, a learner must be able to create meaningful and personally relevant patterns. Thematic teaching, integration of the curriculum, and life-relevant approaches to learning are those that most recognize this tenant.
5. Emotions Are Critical To Patterning.
We do not simply learn things. What we learn is influenced and organized by emotions and mind sets based on expectancy, personal biases and prejudices, degree of self-esteem, and the need for social interaction. Emotions and thoughts literally shape each other and cannot be separated.
Implications for educators:
Teachers need to understand students’ feelings and attitudes will be involved with and will determine future learning. Students’ beliefs about the support that they receive from teachers and administrators further affect their learning. For example, day-to-day classroom encounters affect learning, as does the everyday communication involved with meeting a student in the hall or cafeteria. These chance encounters affect students’ beliefs about the level of teacher/administrator support and respect which in turn, affect learning.
6. The Brain Processes Parts And Wholes Simultaneously.
There is evidence that there are significant differences between left and right hemispheres of the brain. However, in a healthy person, both brain hemispheres interact in each and every daily experience. The "two brain" notion is most valuable as a metaphor that helps educators acknowledge two separate but simultaneous tendencies in the brain for organizing information. One is to reduce information into parts; the other to perceive and work with it as a whole or series of wholes.
Implications for educators:
Good teaching necessarily builds understanding and skills over time because learning is cumulative and developmental. Thus vocabulary and usage are best understood and mastered when incorporated in genuine experiences. Similarly, equations and scientific principles should be dealt with in the context of living science.
7. Learning Involves Both Focused Attention And Peripheral Perception.
The brain absorbs information with which it is directly involved, but also pays attention to information outside of the direct involvement field. This means that the brain responds to the entire sensory context in which teaching or communication occurs.
Implications for educators:
All aspects of an educational environment are important. Art exhibits should be changed frequently to reflect changes in learning focus. The use of music has also become important as a way to enhance and influence more natural acquisition of information. Teachers need to engage the interests and enthusiasm of students through their own enthusiasm, coaching, and modeling, so those unconscious signals appropriately relate to the importance and value of what is being learned. In effect, every aspect of a student’s life, including the community, family, and technology, affects student learning.
8. Learning Always Involves Conscious And Unconscious Processes.
Much of our learning is unconscious and below the level of awareness. We learn much more than we ever consciously understand. Our experiences become part of our prior knowledge in both conscious and unconscious ways.
Implications for educators:
Much understanding may not take place immediately and may occur later, some understanding coming much later. Processing time, reflection, and metacognition are vital to the learning environment. Thus, much of the effort put into teaching and studying is wasted because students do not adequately process their experiences, nor are they given time to reflect upon them.
9. We Have At Least Two Ways Of Organizing Memory: A Spatial Memory System And A Set Of Systems For Rote Learning.
We have a spatial/autobiographical memory that does not need rehearsal and allows for "instant" recall. It is always engaged, inexhaustible, and motivated by novelty. The two ways of organizing memory are stored differently.
Implications for educators:
Sometimes memorization is important and useful, such as multiplication tables. In general, however, teaching devoted to memorization does not facilitate the transfer of learning and probably interferes with the subsequent development of understanding. By ignoring the personal world of the learner, and the preferred learning style of the learner, educators actually inhibit the effective functioning of the brain.
10. We Understand And Remember Best When Facts And Skills Are Embedded In Natural, Spatial Memory.
Our native language is learned through multiple interactive experiences with vocabulary and grammar. It is shaped both by internal processes and by social interaction. That is an example of how specific items are given meaning when embedded in ordinary experiences. All education can be enhanced when this type of embedding is adopted.
Implications for educators:
Teachers need to use a great deal of real-life activity, including classroom demonstrations; projects; field trips; visual imagery of certain experiences; stories; metaphors; drama; and interaction of different subjects. Grammar can be learned in process, through stories or writing.
Success depends on using all of the senses and immersing the learner in a multitude of complex and interactive experiences. Lectures are not excluded, but they should be part of a larger experience.
11. Complex Learning Is Enhanced By Challenge And Inhibited By Threat.
The brain makes maximum connections when risk taking is encouraged and supported; however, it "downshifts" (helplessness) when under perceived threat.
Implications for educators:
Creating a safe place to think and risk, or relaxed alertness, is essential for optimum learning. The threat of failure and/or low grades may inhibit rather than encourage learning.
12. Every Brain Is Uniquely Organized.
All humans have the same set of systems, yet we are all different based on genetic endowments, differing prior knowledge, and differing environments. The more we learn, the more unique we become.
Implications for educators:
Learners are all different and need to be empowered to make choices and allowed to understand the world from their own unique intelligences. Providing choices that are variable enough to attract individual interests may require reshaping of schools so that they exhibit the complexity found in life. In sum, education needs to facilitate optimal brain functioning.
Used with the permission of Renate Numela Caine and Geoffrey Caine, authors of: Unleashing the Power of Perceptual Change: The Potential of Brain-Based Teaching (1997) Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Additional Resources On Brain Research And Learning:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (1998). How the Brain Learns, Educational Leadership.
Begley, S. (1997). Your child’s brain: How kids are wired for music, math, and emotions. Newsweek, (February 19), 55-62.
Bruer, J. (1997). Education and the brain: A bridge too far. Educational Researcher, 26 (8), 4-16.
Bruer, J. (1998). Brain science, brain fiction. Educational Leadership, 56 (3), 14-18.
Caine, R. & Caine, G. (1998). Building a bridge between neurosciences and education: Cautions and possibilities. NASSP Bulletin, 82 (598), 1-6.
Dennison, P. & Dennison, G. (1994). Brain Gym: Teachers Edition. Ventura, CA: Edu-Kinesthetics, Inc.
Diamond, M. & Hopson, J. (1998). Magic Trees of the Mind: How to Nurture your Child’s Intelligence, Creativity, and Healthy Emotions from Birth through Adolescence. NY: Penguin Putnam.
Education Commission of the States. (1996). Bridging the gap between neuroscience and education. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States.
Elias, M., Zins, R. Wissberg, R., Frey, K., Greenberg M., Haynes, N., Kessler R., Schwab-Stone, M., Shriver, T. (1997). Promoting Social and Emotional Learning Guidelines for Educators. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. NY: Bantom Books.
Jensen , E. (1998). Teaching with the Brain in Mind. Alexandria VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Jourdan, R. Music, the brain and ecstasy: How music captures our imagination. NY; Avon Books.
Kotulak, R. (1996). Inside the Brain: Revolutionary discoveries of how the mind works. Kansas City, MO: Andrews & McMeely.
LeDoux, J. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. NY: Simon & Schuster.
Miller, M. (1997). Brainstyles . New York: Simon and Schuster.
Nash, M. (1997). Fertile Minds. Time. (February 3), 49-56.
Neuberger, J. (1997). New brain development research—-A wonderful window of opportunity to build public support for early childhood education. Young Children, May, 4-9.
Pinker, S. (1997). How the Mind Works. W.W. Norton & Company, New York. Rauscher, F. et al. Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial-temporal reasoning. Neurological Research, 19, 2-8.
Shore, R. (1997). Rethinking the Brain: New Insights into Early Development. New York: Families and Work Institute.
Sylwester, R. (1997). The neurobiology of self-esteem and aggression. Educational Leadership, 54 (5), 75-79.
Sylwester, R. (1995). A Celebration of Neurons: An Educator’s Guide to the Human Brain Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Tomlinson, C. & Kalbfleisch, M. (1998). Teach me, teach my brain: A call for differentiated classrooms. Educational Leadership, 56 (3), 52-55.
Wolfe, P. & Brandt, R. (1998). What do we know from brain research? Educational Leadership, 56 (3), 8-13.
Wrighton, C. (1995). Creating brain-efficient curriculum: An analysis of the changes necessary to create a methodology and curriculum that enhances student achievement in reading and spelling. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 395 304.)
The Brain and Learning Video Series. #498062M42 - ASCD 8490. P.O. Box 79760
Baltimore, MD 21279-0760
- http:// www.zephyrpress.com/gardner.htm
- http:// www.newhorizons.org/trm_gardner.html
- http:// www.awnc.org/ABOUT/MI-Gardner.html
- http:// www.aenc.org/KE-Intelligences.html
- http:// www.uno.edu/~edci/m_intell.htm
- http://cid.unomaha.edu/~wwwsped/spd/apl/krd/tpc/2/info.html
- http:// picce.uno.edu/ss/theory/MultIntel.html
- http:// education.canberra.edu.au/postgrad/ss/students/frances/FRANCES.HTM
- http:// www.tunn.com/inclusion/multiple.htm
- http:// www.uwsp.edu/acad/educ/lwilson/learning/3mides.htm
- http:// www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/ieo/bibs/multiple.html
- http:// www.ask.com
- http:// www.NewCitySchool.org/
- http:// www.uno.edu/~edci/mi.htm
- http:// www.cast.org//LearningToRead/ch_1/l_learn.html#reading (section deals with PET scans and reading with brain pictures available)
- http:// www.marywood.edu/www2/itweb/BCE.html
- http:// www.gsh.org/wce/archieves/pool8.htm
- http:// www.zephrypress.com/brain.htm
Prior to viewing websites with any audience, we would recommend that you search through the site to assure that the information is appropriate for your audience.
Classrooms and schools practicing brain-based learning:
Rich Pahls
Bess Streeter Aldrich Elementary School
Millard Public Schools
Kay Keiser
Springville Elementary School
Omaha Public Schools
Deanna Davis
Lord Elementary School
Omaha Public Schools
Susan Anglemeyer, Principal
Sandoz Elementary School
Millard Public Schools
Chuck Asmus, Lynn Fuss, Peg Jaworski, Diane Jelden, Connie Masek, Deb Ryckman, Cindi Schave, Nancy Vanis, and Nancy Vojtech
Sandoz Elementary School
Millard Public Schools
Sheila Kula
Cody Elementary School
Millard Public Schools
Donna Greenberg
Rumsey Station Elementary School
Papillion La Vista
Karol Godsey
Kiewit Middle School
Millard Public Schools
Cindy Christian
Rockbrook Elementary
Westside Community Schools
Carol Fleming
Oakdale Elementary
Westside Community Schools
Patricia Marcuzzo, Principal
Fontanelle Elementary School
Omaha Public Schools
Brain-Based Learning Committee:
Connie Baxter
Papillion/LaVista Public Schools
Wilma Kuhlman
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Carolyn Law
Westside Community Schools
Jan Meehan
Westside Community Schools
Sheri Everts Rogers, Chair
University of Nebraska at Omaha
This booklet prepared and published by:
The Metropolitan Omaha Educational Consortium (MOEC)
- Early Childhood Education Task Force
- Effective Elementary Practices Task Force
- Reading/Literacy Task Force
Bellevue Public Schools
Council Bluffs Community Schools
Millard Public Schools
Omaha Public Schools
Papillion-LaVista Public Schools
Ralston Public Schools
Westside Community Schools
College of Education, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Bellevue Public Schools
Council Bluffs Community Schools
Millard Public Schools
Omaha Public Schools
Papillion-LaVista Public Schools
Ralston Public Schools
Westside Community Schools
College of Education, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Kayser Hall 208
University of Nebraska at Omaha
6001 Dodge Street
Omaha, NE 68182-0170
(402) 554-3530 • fax (402) 554-2879
http://www.unomaha.edu/coe/moec