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What Brain Research has to Tell Us
about Teaching and Learning
Developed by Professor Terry Doyle
Ferris State University
www.learnercenteredteaching.com
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Institutional Goals
Most institution agree onwhat skills, knowledge andbehaviors they want theirstudents to have by thetime they graduate?
What they seldom agree onis the best way to helpstudents reach theseoutcomes.
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What is the Best Way?
The best way is to
follow where theresearch leads us.
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Folklore vs. Science
In A Celebration of Neurons by
University of Oregon Education
Professor Robert Sylwester in 1995.
He said : the
information upon which
we make our teachingdecisions is much closer
to folklore than science.
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What our Students Need
to Know is Changing
The meaning ofknowing has shiftedfrom being able to
remember andrepeat informationto being able to findand use it.
Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon 1996
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What our Students Need
to Know is Changing
The goal of education is
better conceived as
helping students
develop the intellectualtools and learning
strategies needed to
acquire the knowledge
necessary to thinkproductively.
Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon 1996
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International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
As many as one million
new books are
published worldwide
each year.
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U.S. Department of Labor-2006
Students age 18 will by
age 38, on average have
10 to 14 different
jobs/positions.
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Growth of Scientific Data
80% of all scientist that have ever
lived are alive todaythis
number is 95 % for neuro-
scientist.
It is estimated these
scientist produce 2000
pages of new data everyminute of every hour of
every day. (countdown.org)
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An undergraduate college education gives
students their learners permit.
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Definition of Learner Centered
Teaching
A Question---
Given the context of the learning situation( # of students, time of day, difficulty of material, etc)
will this teaching action optimize our students
opportunity to learn?
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How Do we Optimize each Learning
Situation?
Follow the research on how humans learn!
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Where does the research come from?
What we know about the
brain comes from
biologist who study brain
tissue, experimentalpsychologist who study
behavior, cognitive
neuroscientist who study
how the first relates to
the second and
evolutionary biologist.(Medina, 2008).
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The Pace of Brain Research
Digital Overload: Is Your Computer Frying Your Brain?
Re-engineering a brain
High-risk autism gene 'changes brain patterns
Bionic implants melding man and machine
Good conversation can boost brain power, study finds
Beetroot juice good for brain
Glia:The Other Brain, The new frontier in brain science
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The Pace of Brain Research
Electrical brain zap 'boosts math ability
Sleep Deprivation Changes Gene Expression in the Brain
Fingers spot typo ahead of the brain
Juggling = better brain power
Science Will Capture Your Dreams
Viva! Stem cells revive dying brains
Brain cells of rats used within experimental robots
Scientists discover how to 'switch off' pain of migraines
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Learning is when Neurons Wire
Learning is a change
in the neuron-patterns of the
brain.(Ratey, 2002, Goldberg 2009)
www.virtualgalen.com/.../ neurons-small.jpg
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Teachers Definition of Learning?
Learning is the ability to use information aftersignificant periods of disuse
and
it is the ability to use the information to solveproblems that arise in a context different (if onlyslightly) from the context in which the information
was originally taught.
(Robert Bjork, Memories and Metamemories, 1994)
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Learning Activates the Reward
Pathways in the Brain
Real life, meaningful,
and authentic learning
activates the rewardpathways in the brain.
This is a key to learning.
(Dr. Janet Zadina, 2010)
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Progress is Vital
A feeling of making
progress is what allows
students to deal with
tasks, especially tasksthey dont necessarily
like to do.
(James Zull, The Art of Changing the
Brain, 2002)
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Basic Finding of Brain Research
It is the one who does
the work who does thelearning.
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What can brain research tell us to help us meet
our students learning needs?
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The Human Brain
The human brain weighs three (3) pounds but
uses 20-25% of the bodies energy (Ratey, 2002)
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The Human Brain
The adult human brain has a 100 billion
neurons (It does grow thousands of new cells daily)
www.enchantedlearning.com/.../gifs/Neuron.G IF
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The Human Brain
These 100 billion neurons
are capable of making40,000,000,000,000,000
(Forty quadrillion connections )
(James Ratey, Users Guide to the Brain, 2002)
www.bpkids.org/.../content/pagebuilder/10386.gif
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The Brain and Learning
The human brain was
designed to solve
problems of survival in
outdoor, unstableenvironments while in
almost constant
motion.
( Dr. John Medina, Developmental Molecular
Biologist, University of Washington and Author
of Brain Rules)
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The Brain and Learning
If educators had set
out to design a learning
environment that was
in complete oppositionto what the human
brain is good at they
would have designed
the schools of yesterdayand today.
(John Medina, Brain Rules, 2008)
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The Human Brain and Learning
1. Exercise
significantly
enhances brainfunction
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Newest Findings
Exercise increases
production of
neurotransmitters that help:1.Focus and attention
2.Motivation
3. Patience
4. Mood (more optimistic)
(Ratey, 2008)
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Exercise and BDNF
(Brain-derived neurotrophic factor )
Exercise produces BDNF( Miracle Grow for the Brain)
Improves brain health
Enhances the wiring ofneurons
Is a stress inoculator
Makes the brain cellsmore resilient
(Ratey, 2008)
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The Brain is Social
2. Survival is accomplished
by working with other
brains.
Groups of brains
almost always
outperform a single
brain.
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Multitasking is not Possible
3. The brain can
only pay
attention to onething at a time.
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Multitasking is not Possible
Unlike most skills,multitasking doesn't geteasier the more you do it.
A 2009 study foundfrequent multitaskers wereeven worse at multitasking
than infrequentmultitaskers.
(Nass,2009)
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Memory
4. Memory
Repetition and
elaboration are
necessary for
memory formation
and recall.Daniel Schacter, Seven Sins of Memory, 2002
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Cramming does not Produce
Long Term Memories
Intensive study for a
short period of time
fails to produce much
(if any)long term
memories.
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Emotion and Memory
Emotional arousalorganizes andcoordinates brain activity(Bloom, Beal & Kupfer 2003)
When the amygdaladetects emotions, itessentially boosts activityin the areas of the brainthat form memories (Hamann& Emony, UN.)
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Multiple Senses
5. The brain works
best when
multiple sensesare involved.
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Using all Our Senses to Learn
Those in multisensory
environments always do
better than those in
unisensory environments.
They have more recall with
better resolution that lasts
longer, evident even 20
years later.
(John Medina, Brain Rules)
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Vision Trumps All
The more visual the
input becomes the
more likely it is to be
recognized and recalled.
This is called the
Pictorial Superiority
Effect.
Paivio, A. (1986). Mental representations:
A dual-coding approach.
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Patterns and Learning
6. The brain is a pattern
seeking device.
The brain relates
whole concepts to one
another and looks for
similarities, differences,
or relationships
between them. (Ratey, 2002,pg.5)
Sales
Marketing
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Looking for Patterns
We know humans learn
through recognizing
patterns - all knowledge is
embedded in otherknowledge - learners look
for meaningful patterns.
(Antonio R. Damasio, M.D. and M.W. VanAllen, Professor and Head of Neurology,
University ofIowa)
www.norfacad.pvt.k12.va.us/ puzzles/illusion8.gif
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It is in our nature to seek control
Having choices in what
and how to learn and
having some control
over the learningprocess are key
elements of Learner
Centered Teaching.
(Weimer, 2002)
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Having Some Say
Having some say in what
happens in the learning
process is intricatelytied to a willingness to
engage in the activity.(James Zull,Art of Changing the Brain, 2003)
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Helping Our Students Learn Responsibility
One of the reasons we
all need to ask studentsto take on moreresponsibility for theirown learning is becausethey will be responsiblefor it the rest of theirlives.
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A Gift for My Students
You must take personal responsibility.
You cannot change the circumstances,
the seasons, or the wind, but you can
change yourself. That is something
you have charge of.Jim Rohn
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References
Medina, John, Brain Rules, Pear Press, 2008
Sylwester, R. A Celebration of Neurons An Educators Guide to the Human Brain, ASCD:1995
Sprenger, M. Learning and Memory The Brain in Action by, ASCD, 1999
.How People Learn by National Research Council editor John Bransford, National Research Council, 2000
Goldberg, E. The Executive Brain Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind ,Oxford University Press: 2001
Ratey, J. MD. Spark: The New Science of Exercise and the Brain, 2008, Little Brown
Ratey, J. MD :A Users Guide to the Brain, Pantheon Books: New York, 2001
Zull, James. The Art of Changing the Brain.2002, Stylus: Virginia
Weimer, Maryellen. Learner-Centered Teaching. Jossey-Bass, 2002
Sousa, David. How the Brain Learns(Corwin Press, Inc., 1998),
Long-Lasting Novelty-Induced Neuronal Reverberation during Slow-Wave Sleep in Multiple Forebrain AreasSidarta Ribeiro,Damien Gervasoni, Ernesto S.Soares, Yi Zhou, Shih-Chieh Lin, Janaina Pantoja, Michael Lavine, Miguel A. L. Nicolelis , 2004
(Foerde, K., Knowlton, Barbara J., and Poldrack, Russell A. 2006. Modulation of competing memory systems by distraction. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 103: 11778-11783.)
3 Dux, P. E., Ivanoff, J., Asplund, C. LO., and Marois, R. 2007. Isolation of a Central Bottleneck ofInformation Processing with Time-Resolved fMRI. Neuron.
52 (6): 1109-1120Leamnson,R.(1999)Thinking about Teaching and learning: developing habits of learning with first year college and university students. Sterling , VA: Stylus
U.S. Department of Education. (2001)National Commission on the High School Senior Year www.ecs.org/html/Documents.asp?chouseid=2929
Nass, 2009 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
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