Brain Models: Maximizing Student Potential Through Understanding How the Brain Learns

Introduction

In the last three decades, cognitive science has made significant strides in understanding how the brain processes information. This knowledge offers valuable insights for educators seeking to optimize learning outcomes. Brain-based learning, grounded in the applied science of learning, translates these cognitive principles into practical strategies that can be implemented in the classroom to enhance teaching and improve student results. This article examines brain models for students benefits.

The Applied Science of Learning

The applied science of learning focuses on cognitive science principles that can be effectively integrated into educational practice, boosting both teaching methods and student outcomes. This approach can significantly impact professional learning by enabling educators to develop a deep understanding of subject matter and effective teaching strategies rooted in how the mind functions.

A Simple Model of the Mind

Daniel Willingham's model of the mind provides a useful framework for understanding how the brain learns. This model emphasizes how we integrate new information from the environment with existing knowledge stored in long-term memory, utilizing working memory to temporarily store and manage information. This process allows us to make sense of new inputs and transfer what we've learned into long-term memory.

Focusing Attention

Learning begins with filtering environmental stimuli and focusing on the content at hand. Educators often juggle numerous demands, making it crucial to focus their attention on the learning content. A "stop and jot" activity at the beginning of a session can help learners clear their minds by listing tasks to be set aside temporarily. Eliminating environmental distractions, such as noise and clutter, is also beneficial.

Managing Cognitive Load

Being aware of cognitive load is essential because participants often come to learning sessions with many things on their minds. Cognitive load refers to the amount of bandwidth the brain has to process information, which is the capacity of working memory at any given time. Facilitators need to minimize extraneous cognitive load to maximize learning. Professional learning planners should consider the volume of new information and how participants are likely to experience it. For instance, experienced educators may be able to process more information than novice teachers.

Chunking Content

To manage cognitive load, facilitators should know how to "chunk" content. Chunking involves combining pieces into logical structures or units to help the brain organize the content. Handwritten notes also offer benefits, as learners must decide what is most important to capture, how to organize it, and often how to summarize it in their own words. This thinking process differs significantly from simply typing words verbatim.

Activating Prior Knowledge

As learners encounter content, new knowledge enters working memory, a short-term storage location with limited capacity. The goal is to move essential content into long-term memory, which requires active processing. Activating and building on participants' prior knowledge is crucial. As David Ausubel noted, what the learner already knows is the most important factor influencing learning. Educators bring existing expertise and mental frameworks for teaching their subjects and grade levels to professional learning.

Cueing and Contextualizing

Activating prior knowledge can be achieved in various ways. Providing a big-picture view of the content in relation to other knowledge and scaffolding new learning is helpful. Cueing participants to place new material in the context of what they already know is essential. For example, when introducing a new curricular resource, it's important to highlight what the materials should replace, how they are similar to or different from current practices, and when to use them within existing schedules.

Communicating Outcomes

Facilitators must deliberately communicate the outcomes of the session. Providing an overview of the session content allows participants to situate new learning within a broader context and helps bring various pieces of knowledge into a unified, logical framework. This gives learners the best opportunity to focus attention on the material and tie it to their existing schema.

Encoding and Storing Information

For information to move from working memory to long-term memory, it must be encoded and stored. Learners must think deeply about the content, which requires time to process. High-quality prompts and questions are important for stimulating reflection, as we are more likely to remember things when we engage with them fully. Facilitators should provide opportunities for participants to think, write down ideas, or sketch notes. Sharing with colleagues can also be helpful, but individual processing should come first, followed by unpacking that thinking with a partner and then a larger group conversation.

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Retrieval Practice

Durable learning requires remembering. Adult learners must retrieve learning from long-term memory and engage with it again to reinforce the learning. Retrieval can be incorporated in various ways, such as beginning new sessions with questions about prior content, asking participants to summarize their learning at the end of a session, and engaging participants in action planning to retrieve the information in the coming weeks and months.

Brain-Based Learning: An Educational Mindset

Brain-based learning is more of an educational mindset than a concrete theory. Strategies under this umbrella align with the way our brains naturally learn. With new research constantly emerging, it's important to intentionally seek new ideas in the educational world through journals, discussions with colleagues, or conferences. Since no two students' minds are alike, some strategies may work better for certain students.

Benefits of Brain-Based Learning

The benefits of researching and using a brain-based curriculum are clear and significant. On a grades-based level, using psychological or scientific theories of learning can have profound benefits. Brain-based learning can also affect social-emotional development, enhancing a student's ability to understand and regulate their emotions.

Active Learning Strategies

Several active learning strategies are based on scientific research. Multisensory learning, for example, uses neuroscience to reach students by engaging multiple senses like touch or sound. Brain-based learning also aligns with social-emotional learning (SEL), which helps students manage their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Multiple intelligences and experiential learning ("hands-on" learning) are other strategies developed using cognitive research. Experiential learning encourages students to practice and reflect on concepts they learn in class.

Creating a Supportive Learning Environment

A child’s learning environment significantly impacts their academic achievement. Lessons should extend beyond memorizing facts and involve varied experiences. Child’s instruction that is above or below the maturity level of a child's brain is not only inappropriate; it can also lead to behavior problems in your classroom. Be aware of developmental differences among your students. Understand that normal development varies widely within the same age and the same grade.

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Neurological Development and Learning

It is important for teachers to understand the relationship between neurological development and learning in each stage of development. This understanding is particularly important when there is a mismatch between development and educational expectations. The mismatch may be due to brain maturational differences or it can be due to a developmental disability.

Brain Maturation Facts

The brain is plastic and changes with experience and development. Rather than ending development at the age of 5, or even 12, brain development continues into one's twenties. For some adolescents, the maturation of the frontal lobes may not end until age 25. For others, frontal-lobe maturity may be reached by the age of 18 or 19.

The Importance of Early Enrichment

The environment can increase ability or it can lower it. A child with average ability in an enriched environment may well accomplish more than a bright child in an impoverished environment. Although it is heartening to believe that enrichment can be effective at any point, recent research indicates that early enrichment is more beneficial than later enrichment.

Brain Growth Spurts

The brain grows in spurts, particularly in the 24th to 26th week of gestation, and between the ages of one and two, two and four, middle childhood (roughly ages 8 to 9) and adolescence. These brain growth spurts are roughly commensurate with Piaget's stages of development. They coincide with periods of fast learning of language and motor skills in the one to four year old child; concrete operations in middle childhood; and formal operations in adolescents.

Working Memory and Executive Functions

Working memory is the ability to keep information in mind while solving a problem. For young children, teachers need to give directions one at a time. For late elementary school children, directions can be given in a limited series of steps. For children with difficulty in this area, it is helpful to have them repeat the directions to make sure they recall what is asked of them. Listing steps on the blackboard can also be helpful. Executive functions are those skills that allow a person to evaluate what has happened, to review what was done, and to change course to an alternative or different response. Executive function skills allow children to understand what has happened previously and to change their behavior to fit new situations.

Brain-Based Learning in Practice

Brain-based learning involves teachers creating conditions that increase student motivation, engagement, and long-term retention by tapping into the natural ways the brain receives, processes, and stores information. This approach can be applied to classroom teaching methods, lesson planning, curriculum design, and any other educational engagement.

Neuroplasticity and Learning

The research in question centers primarily around the brain’s ability to change and reorganize itself to receive and retain new information in a process called neuroplasticity. Our brain’s neuroplasticity is influenced, both positively and negatively, by motivation, stress and challenge, as well as our emotional state as we’re learning. Understanding how neuroplasticity works (especially in young, developing brains) can help curriculum designers and educators build lessons that are more likely to “stick.” When students master new concepts or gain new skills in the classroom, teachers see this neuroplasticity in action.

Active Learning and Dendrite Growth

Scientifically speaking, active learning leads to the growth of dendrites - nerve cell extensions in the brain that influence how neurons collect and process information. Brain-based learning has since gained significant traction in schools. To achieve this goal, educators need to break down their instruction (and their students’ learning) into smaller components.

Practical Strategies for Educators

Physical Activity: Incorporate stretch breaks or short walks during lessons to keep students engaged.
Positive Emotional State: Foster a positive emotional state in the classroom to encourage participation.
Collaborative Learning: Encourage students to share their reactions and experiences with new information.
Teaching Others: Task students with explaining concepts to others to solidify their understanding.
Repetition and Experimentation: Emphasize repetition, experimentation, and productive failure over rote memorization.
Varied Modes of Delivery: Use varied modes of delivery to help students log information in their long-term memory.
Stress Reduction: Minimize stress in the classroom to enhance neuroplasticity and retention.

Implementing a Brain-Based Curriculum

A brain-based curriculum can take many forms, as long as lessons are designed to encourage neuroplasticity and optimal knowledge retention.

Breaks and Review: Take breaks during each lesson or unit for students to discuss and solidify their understanding.
Movement Breaks: Incorporate movement or stretch breaks into lessons.
Multisensory Experiences: Activate multiple senses during lessons to enhance engagement.
Retrieval Practice: Encourage students to recall what they’ve learned, even if the topic is new.
Concept Mapping: Connect separate elements of a topic into a web of comprehension.
Real-World Application: Get students out of the classroom to apply their learning.

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