Download How the Brain Learns

Adaptive Reading
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Module 1, Chapter 1
Module 1: Chapter 1
How the Brain Learns Naturally
1. Overarching Objective:
Develop the cognitive strategies and habits of mind while reading that will enable
the learner to develop competence in an area of inquiry.
2. Intermediate Objectives:
To develop competence in an area of inquiry the reader needs to:
1. develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge
2. understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework
3. organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval
4. organize knowledge in ways that facilitate application
(Bransford, How People Learn)
3. Immediate Objective:
To develop competence in an area of inquiry the reader needs to:

understand how learning takes place in the brain so that the reader can
develop and think through strategies and habits of mind that work with how
the brain learns naturally.
Common Reader Misconception:
Everyone’s brain works differently.
Misconception Correction:
Everyone’s brain grows new structures when they interconnect new information
with prior knowledge by the same physiological processes; however, since
everyone has different experiences and therefore everyone has different prior
knowledge with which to create new brain structures while learning. The
differences among us are not how the brain learns, but what we learn that
provides the foundation for future learning.
What Are We Trying to Accomplish in This Chapter?
Learning is physiological. In this chapter the reader will learn how the brain
learns naturally an understand how learning takes place in the brain so that the
reader can develop and think through strategies and habits of mind that work
with how the brain learns naturally as they read and learn
“New structures grow in the everyone’s learner’s brain during learning, and
learning is the growing of new brain structures (dendrites and neural networks).
In other words, learning and growing new brain structures are the same thing.”
How the Brain Learns Naturally
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(Smilkstein, 2003) All learning is the growing of new dendrites by interconnecting
what the reader is learning and what the reader already knows. The physiological
functions of learning are the same for everyone. Differences in learning occur not
physiologically, but based on what each reader already knows.
How Does this Chapter Connect to Chapters that will Follow?
The cognitive strategies and habits of mind the reader will be learning in the following
chapters are all based on making connections with prior knowledge. The reader who
knows how the brain learns naturally can take advantage of that understanding as they
make choices, and interpret what they are reading so that they can not only understand
what they are reading, but can also vastly improve their ability to develop a deep
foundation of factual knowledge, understand facts and ideas in the context of conceptual
frameworks, and organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.
Neuroscience has now confirmed that there are basic rules and principles about how the
brain learns. These rules provide part of the conceptual framework for adaptive reading.
The reader who understands how the brain learns can take control of their own thinking
and learning processes. The reader who understands how the brain learns can become
a self-regulated learner in the process of constructing meaning and making that meaning
useful (critical thinking).
Developing Cognitive Strategies Around How the Brain Learns
For example, let’s take the first rule for how the brain learns – New dendrites, synapses,
and neural networks grow only from what is already there. Another way of saying that is
– Learning only occurs when the reader interconnects new information with what they
already knows (prior knowledge). With this information the reader can consciously take
control of their thinking and develop internal dialogue while they are reading to ask
questions about what they already know. This inquiry process is a cognitive strategy. A
strategy is a conscious plan under the control of the reader. In this instance the
conscious plan is to make connections between what the reader is reading and what the
reader already knows. as they are reading.
By understanding how the brain learns, the reader comes to understand that they can
take control of learning while reading. Let’s take a look graphically at how the brain
learns and at what is meant by learning only occurs when the reader interconnects new
information with what they already knows.
How the Brain Learns
Neuroscience has now confirmed that there are basic rules and principles
about how the brain learns. These rules provide part of the conceptual
framework for adaptive reading. The reader who understands how the brain
How the Brain Learns Naturally
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Adaptive Reading
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Module 1, Chapter 1
learns can take control of their own thinking and learning processes. The
reader who understands how the brain learns can become a self-regulated
learner in the process of constructing meaning and making that meaning
useful (critical thinking).
The brain has one hundred brain cells (neurons), which are all trying to
communicate with one another and make connections. Neurons carry
electrical charges and make chemical connections to other neurons. A
neuron has a cell body and attached to the cell body are dendrites (short
fibers) that receive messages. When you, see, hear, feel external information,
that information is received by the dendrites.
The message goes to the cell body and on down the axon (long fibers) that
transmit messages to the neuron ends (end buds),
How the Brain Learns Naturally
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When the message (new information the reader is reading) reaches the
neuron ends (end buds), the end buds look for other dendrites on other
neurons that have related information (prior knowledge). Remember,
learning only occurs when the reader interconnects new information with
what they already know (prior knowledge).
If end buds (end neurons) find other dendrites of related knowledge, a new
dendrite grows. That new dendrite is learning.
How the Brain Learns Naturally
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Every time we learn something new, brain cells grow new dendrites. In
order for brain cells to grow new dendrite, new information being learned
must find older dendrites with related information (prior knowledge).
How the Brain Learns Naturally
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Developing Cognitive Strategies Around How the Brain
Forgets
Most forgetting occurs within the first twenty-four hours if newly grown
dendrites (learning) are not strengthened and this continues for what was
read until the average college student forgets eighty percent of what was
read after only two weeks. The more often the neural pathways of new
learning are activated, the stronger and faster the those pathways becomes
and the more resistant to being pruned (reabsorbed by the brain) they are.
Knowing this, the reader can use mental processes to strengthen newly
grown dendrites. Anything the reader does to tie new information to old
information not only helps construct meaning but also used following
learning strengthens dendrites. For example, saying what was learned in the
reader’s own words (reciting) ties new information to the reader’s prior
knowledge.
How the Brain Learns Naturally
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The Five Brain Rules for How the Brain Learns Naturally
Rita Smilkstein has filtered the following five brain rules from the literature
and research:
1. Dendrites, synapses, and neural networks grow only from what is already
there. The first time we experience a new subject, our brains must build a
dendrite on a cell body for that topic or must connect to an existing idea.
Only after that dendrite is in place or the related idea identified can we begin
to know, remember, and understand a topic.
2. Dendrites, synapses, and neural networks grow for what is actively,
personally, and specifically experienced and practiced. Nothing will happen
in the brain for someone passively sitting in a class. We MUST make
lessons and lectures engaging.
3. Dendrites, synapses, and neural networks grow from stimulating
experiences. The more interesting we make the material, the more likely
students are to learn it. Stimulation of the brain causes growth. Of course,
this is also happening when we watch a stimulating horror flick, so be
careful.
4. Use it or lose it. This is actually true; our brains prune off the unused
dendrites and synapses to reuse the cellular material somewhere else. The
brain will first deconstruct those ideas we haven’t practiced very much or
haven’t used in a long time. The brain is more likely to need to do this when
we aren’t eating right.
The good news is that the brain prunes the bad along with the good. Wrong
ideas and thoughts are also pruned if we quit using them.
5. Emotions affect learning. We all know it and now research supports it.
For those who say, “I hate math,” or “I can’t learn this stuff,” learning is
much more difficult. (Five Rules of How the Brain Learns, Roberta S.
Lacefield, Waycross College from Rita Smilkstein)
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Homework Exercises
Pre-Directions: In the next chapter, you will be learning the Rules of Consolidation,
which are strategies for converting what you are just learning from working memory to
long-term memory. You are really going to need to know how the brain learns above. It
will be used and referred to throughout the book. Research shows that you will forget
eighty percent of it within two weeks if you don’t do something now to move what you
are learning to long-term memory.
Directions: There are three consolidation rules you want to use to get the information
on how the brain learns moving to long-term memory:
Every time you come to a new picture starting on page 6 and going through page 7,
which has the Brain Rules, you want to stop at the end of each page and draw and label
the pictures and explain what is being explained to yourself before going to the next
page. When you can do it without looking back at the page, you are ready to move to the
next page.
Three Rules of Consolidation are being used:
1. Rule One: Re-Expose yourself to the information by going back to the pages you read
earlier.
2. Rule Two: You are elaborating when you redraw the pictures by using one of the
most powerful elaboration strategies for storing information in long-term memory –
Saying what you have just learned in your own words. (Anything you do to interconnect
what you are learning to what you already know is an elaboration.)
3. Rule Three: Use fixed timed intervals to do steps one and two above. The fixed
intervals are for this exercise:
1. Do steps one and two as you are first learning the information.
2. Do steps one and two after 90 minutes or within two hours.
3. Do steps one and two again before your next class.
Note: Be prepared to redraw the neurons and explain in the next class how learning
occurs in the brain. How one might strengthen newly grown dendrites, What pruning is
and how the brain creates neural networks of interconnected neurons.
How the Brain Learns Naturally
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