Brain Based Research Strategies

Analisa Gerig-Sickles & Heidi SchubertSeptember 2011

Taken from: http://www.neuroskills.com/brain.shtml#map

Basic Brain Anatomy

Neurons

The terminals make contact with the dendrites of other neurons and allow connections, or synapses, to form between neurons.

In this way, complex neural networks can be created.

Frontal Lobe: Most anterior, right under the forehead.

Functions:• Consciousness • Initiation of activity in response to our environment• Judgments we make• Controls our emotional response• Controls our expressive language• Assigns meaning to the words we choose & word

associations • Memory for habits and motor activities.

Parietal Lobe: near the back and top of the head.

Functions:• Location for visual attention. • Location for touch perception. • Goal directed voluntary movements.• Manipulation of objects. • Integration of different senses to understand a

single concept.

Occipital Lobes: Most posterior, at the back of the head.

Functions:•Vision

Observed Problems:•Defects in vision

– locating objects in environment.– with identifying colors– hallucinations/visual illusions– Word blindness – Difficulty in recognizing drawn objects. – Inability to recognize the movement of an object

•Difficulties with reading and writing.

Temporal Lobes: Side of head above ears.

Functions:

•Hearing ability•Memory acquisition•Some visual perceptions •Categorization of objects.

BRAIN STEM: Deep in Brain, leads to spinal cord.

Functions: • Breathing • Heart Rate • Swallowing • Reflexes to seeing and hearing • Controls sweating, blood pressure, digestion,

temperature • Affects level of alertness. • Ability to sleep. • Sense of balance

CEREBELLUM: Located at the base of the skull.

Functions:• Coordination of voluntary movement (balance and equilibrium)

• Some memory for reflex motor acts.

Observed Problems:• Loss of ability to:

– coordinate fine movements. – to walk– reach out and grab objects.– To make rapid movements.

• Tremors & dizziness • Slurred Speech

12 Brain-Based Learning Principles

Caine & Caine

These principles are interrelated.

The brain is a parallel processor

• The brain does many things at once

• However, there is the Cocktail effect-– You cannot consciously focus on more than one

thing at a time– Develop automaticity of tasks

• YouTube

Learning engages the entire physiology

• Things that affect learning:– Healthy eating, emotions, physical activity

hydration, sleep• Exercise allows more circulation

The search for meaning is innate

• Connections made with dendrites• 1st lessons should have connections• Need routine, but some curiosity invoked

The search for meaning occurs through “patterning”

• Meaningful patterns and connections are made

• Teachers can influence how students make patterns and connections

Emotions are critical to patterningHow students feel affects their learning

Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes

• Left and right brain work together at the same time with different functions

• Each side has its own job (parts), to make learning (whole)

Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral perception

Brain absorbs direct information but also sensory information

Characteristics of Sensory MemoryIt receives all information coming into the brain through the senses.

It discards approximately 99% of this incoming sensory data.

Attends to relevant information

Information Processing

Learning always involves conscious and unconscious processes

• We learn much more than we are consciously aware of

• The brain and body learn physically, mentally, and affectively

• Processing time, reflection and metacognition are important in the classroom

We have at least two types of memory

• Spatial-where connections and meanings take place

• Rote-where things are stored by memorization

The brain understands and remembers best when facts and skills are

embedded in natural spatial memoryLearning is given meaning when embedded in

everyday occurrences

Learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat

Safe environment with learning challenges

Each brain is unique

Although processes are similar, every brain is different

Group discussionRead the Pat Wolfe article in your Cooperative

Learning Exercises packet.With your group, discuss how Pat Wolfe’s

generally accepted list of potential classroom applications of brain research correspond with the 12 Brain-Based Learning Principles. How are they similar and where do they diverge? What are the classroom implications of both lists?

• Oral language is natural• Babies born able to hear abundance of sounds• Natural Pruning• People need to be explicitly taught to

read, not to speak

Reading is an unnatural act

How do we learn to read?

• Plasticity-allows the brain to make new connections among structures and circuits originally made for vision or oral language

• Learning to read actually changes the brain

• Not in genetics- each person needs to learn to read

The pathway for language

The pathway for learning to

read

Pathway for reading

Direct Pathway

PhonologicalPathway

Direct Pathway

The pathway in the brainfor memorized words

Research on Dyslexia

Research on Dyslexia: 2 Studies

• Neural deficits in children with dyslexia ameliorated by behavioral remediation: Evidence from functional MRI – Elise Temple et al. - with Fast ForWord program

• Dyslexia-specific brain activation profile becomes normal following successful remedial training – P.G. Simos et al – with Phono-Graphix program

& with Lindamood Phonemic Sequencing program

Caution!

• Much of current brain research is only of the level 1 type – be careful that the research was done in classrooms and check with which types of populations the research was conducted.

• Left brained/Right brained fiasco