The Brain & Learning

The brain and learning, information processing theory, and problem-solving methods during the learning process.

Greetings and welcome back to my blog. This week we are taking a look at the brain and learning. At first thought one may think why? Why would I want to investigate the brain and how it learns to become an instructional designer? But then think about it a minute. How could one not study the brain and how it relates to learning to be able to create effective learning programs? In the society we live in now things are changing minute by minute. The technology that is current now, will be obsolete very soon. One needs a way to have a cutting edge in the field of Instructional Design if one hopes to be around for long, let alone be effective. The cutting edge I have found this week…is to become aware of and understand how the brain relates to learning.

This week we read in the book “Learning Theories & Instruction” (Laureate) chapter 2-Learning and the Brain and discovered the basic building blocks of the brain, its structure and functions.  Of all that I read I would say what stood out to me most was the knowledge of the Limbic System. The Limbic System houses two distinct area of the brain-1) the Hippocampus & 2) the Amygdala.

Do you see something that could be potentially fatal for designing a learning program with the way the brain operates? Within the same department if you will of the brain houses both that which is needed for attention AND that which produces fear and anxiety! A good lesson to learn here is to make certain that your programs are user friendly. Otherwise, they will become quickly unusable by those that are asking you to design, which means your effectiveness, will be null and void.

Now, let’s take a look at research I have done regarding the brain and learning this week. I have located two online articles or journals to investigate to see what else we may be able to glean from this subject

Article One:  Brain and Learning Research: Implications for Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners

Journal article by Fara E. Green; Education, Vol. 119, 1999

Regarding brain structure please read the following quote from this article:

”Dramatic developments in brain research and imaging technology are rapidly advancing our conceptualization of the human brain. Sylwester (1993, 1994) discloses how modern studies of brain structure show incredible complexity of approximately 100 billion neurons, each connected to thousands of other neurons and forming more connections than there are atoms in the entire universe. Describing the brain as modular, Sylwester explains how a few standard nonthinking components combine information to form a complex cognitive environment. The brain is powerfully shaped by genetics, development, and experience while actively shaping the nature of our experiences and culture in which we live.

Current brain studies underscore the important role adults play in facilitating an early stimulating environment for children. Calling for classrooms that are closely related to real-world environments, Sylwester believes curricula must include many sensory, cultural, and problem layers that stimulate the brain's neural networks.”

From this article we can see that it also shows what we were learning this week about the importance of  a stimulating environment for the children as well as having classrooms closely related to the real world experience’s-this of course works well with the Constructivist approach we learned about last week.

Article Two:  Accelerated learning in practice: brain-based methods for accelerating  learning

By Alistair Smith                                                                                                    

I was so excited to find this book online. This book is specifically about basing your learning on the brain-thus the name Brain Based Learning! It truly seems that this book is a must read for learning more about learning. It certanly makes the case for needing to understand the brain and how it fucntions to be able to effectively design instruction.

Wow, we have covered a lot this week! I am finding each week to be a little more fascinating than the week before.  Check out the Principles of Brain Based Learning above.

Well, until next week enjoy this little video about the Limbic System.