The+Learning+Brain

=Our Learning Brains.= =Everyone Contributed Two "Stickies" to the Web.= =We categorized as we went along.= =This is a pretty good list.=

Transformation of Experience
1. Active testing involves making a plan which leads to a new concrete experience and the cycle begins anew. 2. Have the students teach each other, and make sre each student has a chance to teach. 3. Knowledge is dead until acted upon in the present.

Action
1. You have to act on information to tun it into knowledge. "Every sentence has a verb. Without action, we lose meaning." 216 (My favorite quote in the book.) 2. Integrate cognitive aspects of language with prosody. Read aloud to ourselves and others, ask other people to read aloud.

A Just Balance
1. Need a balance between lecture and hands-on experiences. "If we do not teach to both the back and front cortex, it is unjust for our students." 41 2. Knowing how to construct experiences for students and facilitate reflection is the origin of an effective, knowledgeable, and good teacher! 3. It is important to embed time for reflection in our classroom environments. This allows opportunity to consolidate new information with prior knowledge. 4. Save time for reflection and understand that the best learner is not always the quickest.

Sense!
Play and experience engages all the senses. We should bring all five senses into the classroom whenever possible.

Imagery in Learning
1. Help to guide students to develop metaphors. Metaphors are excellent examples of a student's abilit to integrate and illustrate new knowledge. 2. "Given the centrality of images, if we can connect an idea into an image, we should do so." 3. Use many little pictures to lead to a big picture, keeping associations between the pictures strong. This creates strong neurological connections. 4. Stories create a visual in your head - helps with memory and building knowledge.

Emotions
1. Concrete and sensory experiences kick off the learning cycle. These experiences are rooted in our emotions. 2. Use emotion to further student learning. 3. If people believe it is important to their lives, they will learn. 4. To learn, students must take time to reflect and have emotional experiences. 5. Using our senses and emotions enhances our learning. We must keep this in mind when developing learning opportunities.

Emotion and Relationship
Emotion is the central factor in learning. For true learning to occur, there must be an emotional connection between the student and material, but most importantly between the student and the teacher.

Focus on Prior Knowledge
1. Less is more tha more. Do a few things well. 2. My prior knowledge is MY prior knowledge. Just because a piece of content is "authentic" to a teacher, doesn't mean it is personal to a particular learner. I think it needs to be personal to the learner to be authentic! The pundits have this one backwards. 3. Error-less learning. Ignore what is wrong and focus on what is right. Think of the wrong connection as just being incomplete. 4. Prior knowledge is a physical thing, the beginning of new knowledge, and a gift to the teacher - it is where the learner starts. The teadher ust help the learner build on whatever they have. 5. You cannot unlearn something. You cannot "correct" a student misperception by telling. You have to build on the existing tangles to create more accurate knowledge. 6. It's important to bring both the student and the teacher together through concrete experiences, find something they can both connect with. 7. As teachers, we need to start with concrete experiences and begin with pre-existing neuronal networks of our students. 8. Build on students' prior knowledge. Find out what your students know and build on what interests them. Build their experience from there.

Biology
Everything is physical - everything - thought, emotion, learning - is biologically based. "The learning structure arises naturally from the structure of the brain."

Meaning in Learning
1. Give students a choice of final project andmake sure the project choices are creative. 2. "Given the centrality of images, if we can connect an idea into an image, we should do so." 3. Use many little pictures to lead to a big picture, keeping associations between the pictuers strong. This creates strong neurological connections. 4. Stories create a visual in your head - helps with memory and building knowledge. 5. Learners are motivated and calmed by a sense of choice and control in the learning process. 6. Open-ended questions / inquiry invite divergent thinking that is personally meaningful to the learner.