Presentation Rubric for Professional Reading – Critical Assignment

Used for Class and/or PLC/Discussion Collaboration

Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children’s
Behavioral Challenges
By: Mona Delahooke

Essential Question: How does learning happen?

Name: Simone Moore
Task Response to Prompts 4 3 2 1
4: Robust response w/deep understanding of content evidenced
3: Solid response w/good understanding of content evidenced
2: Adequate response to most of the prompts
1: Incomplete response or shallow understanding demonstrated
Select 2-3 key Point 1
areas or points Top Down and Bottom Up Processing were discussed throughout the entire book of how
made by the children respond to situations and the world around them. It emphasizes the importance
author that add of understanding if behaviors were top down or bottom up. When we know where
to your
professional
behaviors fit, then we can help the child express themselves and what they may need or
learning and any stress that they are experiencing. Sometimes we may assume that children can self-
synthesize the regulate themselves through their behavior but if they are not developmentally capable
ideas by making then they may not have that ability. The author explains that toddlers do not start
connections to developing the abilities to do this until age three to four at the earliest. So what does this
other relevant mean for babies until that age or those with disabilities who may never reach that
research (from developmental stage? Expecting the child to be able to calm down and use their words to
this class or express how they are feeling may be out of their developmental range which will cause
other) and them to not be able to regulate. The book explains how to understand whether a behavior
current
information to
is top down meaning that it is intentional, planned, or controllable, or whether it is bottom
support the up meaning that it is reflexive, automatic, or a stress response. Then we will understand
validity of the how to better approach it using instructional techniques. This concept is viewed through
book content. the lens of the Polyvagal Theory, social emotional development, and understanding that
each child is and individual with their differences.

Point 2
Understanding the Polyvagal Theory and how it represented the state of the child to
determine the cause of their behaviors. It discusses how the body and brain work
together at all times. Red, blue, and green pathways to determine the neuroception of
threat on the child that can be triggering behaviors. To best understand the child, the
Author suggests that we go through four steps in the acronym IDEA to understand
where the child is at. First, we must Inquire about the child’s history of the behavior and
track it to be able to discover patterns. We often do this by taking ABC data to
understand the antecedents to behaviors. From there we often can see trigger points and
come right behavior behaviors. Second, we must determine what contributed to the
child’s distress. Next, Examine the triggers and underlying causes. Last, address the
challenges contributing to behaviors. In one example from the book, the author mentions
a young girl whose dad left and was no longer there with her in the evenings. Her mom
now helped with the nighttime routine which caused the young girl to scream and have
behaviors every night. After looking into the history of the situations, the team realized
that the behaviors were stemming from an emotional response of missing her dad. Since
her dad was the one who used to do this with her, the change cause great sadness and
caused her to act out in the evenings. Though trying to understand and showing
compassion to the girl, she was able to learn how to feel safe and comfortable with her
mom and express her emotions. This example shows how the young girl was navigating
1
 moving throughout the pathways and how she had to learn how to get back to the green
pathway when feeling intense emotions.

Point 3
The book discusses many ways to get back to the green pathway and the main way is to
bring the child or individual to a state of feeling safe and having compassion on them.
This theory focuses on the nervous system and how it is constantly responding to stress
and what that does to the mind and the body. It looked at how to understand the child
and how they can be soothed so that we can have an avenue to deescalate behaviors
and teach them self-regulatory techniques, Some techniques discussed, were
mindfulness exercises, altering stimuli, using various top down approaches, going for a
walk, talking with the child, play, and using a soothing checklist with the family to identify
any techniques that help for the child. Similar to the learning sciences, “Acquiring and
applying habits of mind improves learning performance. Habits of mind can be taught.
These habits include routine practices such as assessing the nature and difficulty of a
task, evaluating personal strengths and weaknesses in light of the task, planning how to
solve related problems, applying varied problem solving strategies, and self-monitoring
success with those strategies.” We find new ways to approach children in where they are
and teach them ways to have resilience over their circumstances and environmental
stimuli.

Essential Idea 1: Learning optimally builds up complex knowledge structures by organizing

Question: How more basic pieces of knowledge in a hierarchical way. “Individuals have different
does learning knowledge structures based on individual preference and previous experiences.” The
happen? book supports this long term learning foundation because it emphasizes starting from the
How does the
bottom or the root of where the child is at and working the way up from there. Starting
book content from the foundation allows for the building up so that the child can reestablish how to
support long handle situations. The book also says that the result of not knowing the root behavior will
term learning? cause us to risk applying ineffective treatments. This may then be a waste of time and
Include the effort because it is not what the child really needs. If may fix the surface behavior but the
Learning root behavior will manifest itself in another behavior. The book also plays out an analogy
Sciences/other of a house and how different parts of a child’s development is the structure that makes up
articles. a house. It states, “a house build on a strong foundation can weather the storm of life. It
can be solid or flimsy and it is always changing depending on the demands of the
environment.”

Idea 2: . Learning results from a dynamic interplay of emotion, motivation, and

2
 cognition. the child is dynamic and off of their experiences will shape them in how they
react to stimuli and how they behave. The book explains that children cycle through
phases of emotional and physiological development. these processes are dynamic and
can shift. The functional phase will show how information is taken in, The emotional
phase will show the feelings at each level and alter the meaning of experiences. The
developmental will show patterned of growth through milestones. These all are parts that
are working together and are crucial for social emotional maturity as the child grows. The
learned behaviors will result from all the components that are effected by experiences. As
the child goes through circumstances, their development will play a role in how it is
processed, their emotional aspect will play a role in how they respond to it and feel about
it, and their cognition will be effected in how they learn behaviors or learn information and
possibly begin to model that. Through their modeling, especially as a young child, it is
easy to see sometimes how quickly behaviors can be learned simply through observation
or through reinforcements as we see in the behavioral theory. The book also explains
that our body is connected to our brains which causes us to respond to various
stimulants and we must learn to manage our feelings in our minds and sensations in our
bodies.

Idea 3: Individuals learn differently. People learn at their own pace, with different
methods and strategies for acquiring and processing information. When working with
children and intervening on behaviors, we must understand the each child will be
different based on their experiences, their development, and their learned self-regulatory
behaviors. The book states that we must take all this into consideration when helping
them learn how to manage their behaviors. We must show them how to recognize and be
aware of their sensations and their emotions so they can either self-regulate or ask for
help. This task will look very different from child to child and we cannot assume children
are the same and provide the same approach to all children. We will use similar
resources and instructional strategies, but the reasoning and the process will vary based
on the child. The book explains how each child will react or be sensitive to a wide variety
of different stimulants and thus will cause the instructor to alter their approach or the
environment to help them. They may speak in a calm tone, ensure they are in a safe
space, or ensure the child gets a good nights sleep. There are countless examples of
how children will be sensitive to their surroundings and will need help coping.

Evaluate the Behaviors depending on what they are can be manifested sin from a Christian worldview.
content in Often times when I see behaviors, I am reminded of scripture that shows man’s
relationship to a depravity. We were born into sin and we see that clearly when children are very little and
Christian begin engaging in behaviors such as anger when they do not get their way, taking things
worldview.
Describe and
from other children, hitting out of anger, disobeying their parents, and so on. There are
explain areas of many ways we are able to see this in children. That is the main difference where the
compatibility book would say that the child has foundational work to do where they need to reestablish
and areas of feelings of safety so that they cannot feel the need to exhibit certain behaviors but rather
differences? they can learn to manage their circumstances and stressors. When it comes to
individuals with disabilities, that is where I have a hard time understanding the
relationship to a Christian worldview and science. I understand now from the text that
depending on the development of the child, they can only communicate in certain ways. it
takes time moving through stages of communication development where children cry for
what they want, babble for what they want, point or gesture what they want, then being
using simple words, and moving into expressing themselves with sentences and critical
thinking. With students with disabilities, they do not as naturally move through these
stages without intervention and teaching. Form the lack of communication, flows the
uprising of behaviors. When I see behaviors being exhibited from a person with moderate
to severe disabilities, I am more understanding that their disability is playing a role and it
is not just defiance. That is where the book and the bible are different. The book would
not say that behaviors are a result of sinfulness but rather they are seen as outbursts of
what is on the inside of being fearful, unsafe, or having been reinforced in their behaviors
prior.

3
Link the book I can see the constructivist theory and the behavioral theory playing a role in the
content to foundations of the content of this book. The constructivist theory states that students
one/several of learn from others and we learn from our experiences and build off of our prior knowledge.
the four This connects with this book because it discusses the idea of a child learning through
theories we are
studying in this
their experiences of how to cope to difference circumstances leading to behaviors. It also
course. Provide teaches that an outsider will need to step in to teach the child how to go back to the
a green pathway, especially when they are not developmentally able to do so. This theory
comprehensive surprisingly seems to relate more to the book than the behavioral theory, which I would
overview of how have assumed would have been the major foundational building block. The behavioral
the content of theory is founded on gaining information and learning through a stimulus and a
this book falls reinforcement. There is an exchange going on where the instructor is delivering a series
into the of reinforcements or punishments to bring about a behavior change or learning. The
category of one author gives warning to behavioral approaches like these to managing behaviors
or more of these
four theories.
because it most of the times focuses on changing the surface level behavior but does not
get to the root of the issue. Therefore, rather than truly helping the student manage their
emotions and stressors, they are causing the student to change their coping mechanism
to something else. I appreciate that the books offers a different approach to looking at
behaviors and how it is revealing something deeper within the child that needs
investigating. It is similar to the behavioral theory in that there is a focus on the stimulus
to understand the child and see how they are responding and how their past experiences
have caused them to resort to their shown behaviors.
Describe1-3 Big Idea #1- Learners’ future learning and performance are influenced by the
Big Ideas (see consequences that follow their behaviors. 
articles) that . Children will begin learning how to self-regulate and manage the stress of life from the
seem to link to / time they are born. They will learn how to get what they need or want, they will learn how
support your
book content.
to communicate with others, and they will learn how to respond when they are scared,
Explain in full happy, angry, or sad. Through their experiences and countless situations, they will be
detailed manner reinforced to respond in various ways that will stay with them and will be the founding of
with specific how they respond to situations as they grow and develop. The book explains that when
examples. working with a child, we will have to uncover their history and tracking their behaviors to
discover any patterns that will affect their behaviors currently. Then we must look at what
Your critical circumstances in the past and present are contributing to the child’s stress. We will then
thinking should be able to identify some triggers of behaviors. Once we know this, we can move into
come through some intervention to help teach strategies of coping and managing themselves when
your report.
faced with those triggers.

Big Idea #2- Hints about how to think or behave often facilitate performance
In the book, the author explains how the reactions of others and how they approach a
child with a behavior will have an effect on them. The big ideas article explains this as a
present discriminative stimuli. It could otherwise be known as the antecedent that comes
right before and triggers a behavior. From past experiences, something usually has
occurred that acts as a stimulus to the child. This then triggers them to have a behavior.
In the book, there is an example where there is a little girl in a classroom who is
exhibiting distracting behaviors. as a coping mechanism. The teacher and paras seek to
implement some reinforcements within a behavior plan for her. When she exhibits the
behavior, they take her to a calm down room outside of the classroom where the para
shuts the door and it makes a locking sound. The para remains quiet and does not speak
to the girl in this room. This causes the girl to feel scared and emotionally unsafe. From
this experience, the team noticed a new behavior arise. She now exhibits behaviors
whenever a door closes and she is inside. This discriminative stimulus of the door closing
and locking now triggers the young girl to have behaviors.

Big Idea #3- Learning and development are fostered when learners are challenged
to perform increasingly more difficult tasks or to think in increasingly more
sophisticated ways.
The author in the book explains the importance of the Zone of Proximal Development by
Lev Vygotsky. She mentions that students have to have achievable yet challenging
instruction so that they are able to be motivated to learn but not overwhelmed to the point

4
 of high stress. When students begin to experience high stress, they are more likely to
enter into the red pathway of the Polyvagal theory and not be able to self-regulate.
Keeping students in a safe space where they do not feel overwhelmed or in cognitive
overload, will help the student to be in a space where they are interacting with good
stress that strengthens them and instills resilience. The more they foster this resilience,
the better they will be at handling the stresses of life. If they are exposed to bad stress
that keeps them in a state of panic without being able to get back to the green pathway
on their own, they will have a harder time as they mature to manage the stresses of life.

Which The strategies I see coming through in this book are elaboration, retrieval practice and
strategies of spaced practice. When learning to manage behaviors and work through them to find
the Six ways to self- regulate, we must do this over time and we must help the student work
effective through past experiences to then help them to see new ways that they can handle
learning
strategies (on
situations. From their past memories, they can learn from them by seeing what they did
brain and and either repeat their actions if they were positively reinforced, or we can explain how
learning they can do things different the next time. I will also work to elaborate the strategies
research) do being used with the child so that they understand what is being asked of them and
you see coming ensure they understand how they can use resources or strategies when they are found in
through your similar circumstances that tends to lead to behaviors. Using spaced practice, I can teach
book’s content? different skills over time so that are able to take in small amounts of information at a time
to be able to comprehend it and apply it before learning more. Through these effective
learning strategies, I can show the students how to take in information and apply it and
store into their long term memory so that we can together work to give them foundations
of knowledge to use throughout their lives.
How has this Regarding behavior and the reasons behind why they occur, I have grown in
reading helped understanding the neuroscience of what happens during and also how to take that into
you develop a consideration when intervening. I have learned to understand whether behaviors are
deeper occurring through a top down or bottom up framework which can reveal how to approach
conceptual
knowledge of
them. The state of the child and by taking data on it can reveal the antecedents that
this content? cause the behaviors so that we can alter our approach and the environment to limit the
Refer to deeper triggering of outbursts. Once learning some stimulants that trigger behaviors, we can
learning in teach the child to self-regulate so they can return to a state of equilibrium. The book
Learning taught about how each individual will be different and that must be taken into account
Sciences article. when approaching their behavior. The book reiterated many of the elements of the
learning sciences article about how information and stimulants are taken in to the child
and how that effects their reactions and learning how to navigate their behaviors.
Worldview: After reading this book, I am more aware of the many factors that contribute to peoples
Explain how actions or behaviors. My worldview when looking at behaviors is part science and part
your personal biblical. I tend to understand that we are all sinful from birth and that sin manifests itself in
worldview is different way for different people. I also view behaviors as reinforced and learned actions.
supported or
changed after
Due to this, there is a complex dynamic taking place when we see behaviors. This book
doing this study. helped to clarify some of the science behind behaviors and what could be taking place
Provide explicit within the child to help them navigate through them and learn to regulate themselves. I
evidence. would say this book supported my worldview in the sense of exposing more of the
reinforced and learned aspect of behavior. The book explained that when a child is not
feeling safe or is have a reaction to a stimulus, behaviors will manifest themselves in
different ways. For example, a baby cries when they are hungry, or a child screams when
they are scared. For my field of working with students with moderate to severe, I
understand that stimulants play a huge role in their behaviors as they have sensitivities
and often times they are not able to express themselves. Due to this inabilities, they learn
ways to communicate which may also be seen as behaviors such as screaming, pushing,
grabbing, hitting, running, kicking… etc. I learned ways to analyze my students and get to
the root of their behaviors and then provide a safe space where I can help them in self-
regulating their behaviors.
This book helps students to develop a positive growth mindset by teaching how to turn
How does this stressful situations into growth opportunities. The starting point in helping to co-regulate
information help with the child, is to make them feel safe and then help them to work through their stress.
students Managing stress helps them to build coping abilities and resilience or grit to the situations
develop a
5
 positive that arise each day. It helps them to move out of the comfort zones and push past
growth different stress. By the teachers being aware of the child’s zone of proximal development
mindset for by theorists, Lev Vygotsky, there can be a constant pushing of the child to help them to
learning? grow beyond their current abilities. By helping students in this way, we can move them
How does it
help students
into a state of understanding how to cope with challenges of life in a way that they can be
develop GRIT? able to stay strong in them and have a better mindset to be able to find solutions to
problems. Without the ability to cope with stress, good and bad, it will be difficult as life
goes on to continue with the grit that life requires.
Explain how this This research has helped me move from novice to expert in giving me practical ways to
research has use the information I have learned throughout my education. It has also given me a more
helped move comprehensive understanding of the components of behaviors and how to view it as I
you from see it. When I see students exhibiting various behaviors, I will analyze it through a lens of
novice to
expert
their safety and their inability to regulate and communicate. With this foundation, I can
professional work through what might be the source of stress in their lives and then help them cope. I
educator. learned that different stressors in a child’s life can be seen in their actions if we just pay
attention and get to know them deeper. I also will need to be diligent in keeping close
contact with the families so that we can work together in understanding what is going on
with their child. I now have ways to approach my students to help them move from the
red pathway to the green pathway as mentioned in the book.

Articles attached are here for your convenience. See others posted in BB

TEACHING: 10 BIG IDEAS

By Jeanne Ormrod
Many principles that we teach in educational psychology are common to two or more Isms. Here are ten examples of such
Big Ideas:

1. Learners do not passively absorb information from the environment; rather, they actively work to make sense of
their environment and construct their own, unique understandings of the world. This perspective pervades much
of cognitive theory; for instance, we see it in constructivists’ notion of knowledge construction and in information
processing theorists’ concept of elaboration. But it is also shared by the active information seeking that some behaviorist
describe.

2. Learning is more likely to occur when learners pay attention to the information to be learned.  We see this idea in
information processing theorists’ dual-store model of memory, in social cognitive theorist’s four essential conditions for
modeling to occur, and in behaviorists’ concept of an orienting response.

3. Learners learn more effectively when they relate new information to prior knowledge.  Such learning may take the
form of chaining two or more previously acquired S-R associations (a Piagetian perspective), or drawing on an existing
script to interpret a new situation (an idea from schema theory).

4. The close contiguity of events increases the likelihood that learners will associate those events with one
another. The concept of contiguity has historically been associated with behaviorist views of both classical and operant
conditioning.  But it also plays a prominent role in contemporary views of information processing: Two pieces of
information are most likely to be associated in long-term memory if they have been in working memory at the same time.

5. Learners’ future learning and performance are influenced by the consequences that follow their behaviors.   In
some cases, these consequences may be external (e.g., concrete reinforcers, teacher feedback); in other cases, they
may be internal (e.g., feelings of satisfaction, causal attributions).

6. Hints about how to think or behave often facilitate performance.   Hints take difference guises in different Isms; for
instance, they may be retrieval cues (information processing theory), scaffolding (the sociocultural perspective), or
discriminative stimuli (behaviorism).

7. Learning and development are fostered when learners are challenged to perform increasingly more difficult
tasks or to think in increasingly more sophisticated ways.   We see this idea in concepts from many theories; for

6
 example, we find it in Piaget’s disequilibrium. Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, Kohlberg’s moral dilemmas, and
behaviorists’ shaping. We see it, too, in information processing theorists’ belief that learners develop more complex
cognitive strategies only when environmental events challenge them to do so, as well as in social cognitivists’ belief that
self-efficacy is better enhanced when learners succeed at challenging rather than easy tasks.

8. Learners benefit from hearing or reading the ideas of others.   As noted earlier, many people conceptualize
information processing theory as being based on the notion that information is transmitted from the outside world rather
than constructed by the learner. This premise underlies much of behaviorism as well; we see it not only in programmed
instruction but also in the view that organisms are conditioned by environmental circumstances. Yet this Big Idea is
hardly unique to objectivist perspectives. Even social constructivists acknowledge that group-constructed knowledge
does not occur all at one sitting; for instance, the physical, life, and social sciences have evolved over the years (in some
cases, over the centuries) through a process of studying, testing, modifying, and sometimes rejecting the ideas of those
who have gone before.

9. Learning is enhanced when learners engage in self-evaluation.  We see this principle in behaviorists’ programmed
instruction, in information processing theory’s concept of comprehension monitoring, and in social cognitive theory’s view
of self-regulation.

10. Learning is best assessed by using an assessment instrument that reflects the goals of instruction (i.e., an
instrument that has content validity).  In some cases, this instrument may be a traditional paper-pencil test (a strategy
often attributed to behaviorist and/or information processing perspectives).  In other cases, a teacher can assure greater
content validity by using authentic assessment (a strategy often attributed to the constructivist and perspectives).

NOTE Ormond’s conclusion and apply:

A focus on Big Ideas has at least three advantages over a focus on Isms. First, Big Ideas are far less controversial
than Isms; most theorists agree with them to some extent. (As an example, when I changed the title of the “Constructivism”
chapter in my educational psychology textbook to “Knowledge Construction” --thus changing it from an Ism to a Big Idea--I
received more consistently positive comments from reviewers.) Second, Big Ideas typically describe general principles of
learning and/or instruction that lend themselves readily to concrete classroom applications; in contrast, experts do not always
agree regarding the specific applications of various Isms (e.g., see Anderson et al. [1997], or contrast the analyses of Spivey
[1997] and Greeno et al. [1996]). 

Finally, a focus on Big Ideas allows us to draw from two or more Isms simultaneously when developing classroom
applications—perhaps to analyze the effectiveness of authentic activities (a notion for which both constructivism and
situated perspectives take credit) from the perspective of generalization (as behaviorists describe it), or to talk about teacher
scaffolding (a sociocultural concept) when discussing ways to promote effective study strategies (strategies derived largely
from information processing theory)

10 cornerstones of Learning Science

1. Learning is an activity carried out by the learner. Teachers can’t just deliver curriculum and hope it sinks in. The trick is how to get
learners to want to learn, to know how to learn, and to be mentally active. Then when teachers introduce new concepts and processes, the
learners are ready to tackle it. Strategies to build make connections, student agency, motivation and engagement are all important.
Teachers need to have content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge based on how students learn.

2. Optimal learning takes prior knowledge into account. Every educator knows this. However, it’s very hard to address if there is a push
to cover the curriculum in preparation for tests. One big step of “meeting students where they are” is knowing where students are in terms
of prior knowledge and helping them to move from there to the next step. Mistakes are important to help identify prior knowledge (and prior
misconceptions). We have to ask ourselves, if we know this is important, why are we pushing so hard to cover the curriculum?

3. Learning requires the integration of knowledge structures. Children are getting information and ideas from all over the place, not
just the classroom. They may be making sense of it in their own way, or it may just feel like a cluttered closet. One of the jobs of educators
is to help them organize knowledge within domains and across domains. There are lots of implications for educational practice, but two
jump out at me. First, competencies can be used to organize domain structures to have meaning. That’s what New Hampshire tried to do
with their graduation competencies. Standards are just too small to be organizing structures. Second, interdisciplinary learning is important
and schools need to be organized to support it. It’s likely that our domain silos, which often get more rigid in high school, are constraining
learning.

7
4. Optimally, learning balances the acquisition of concepts, skills, and meta-cognitive competence. Next time someone argues that
facts are all they care about and we shouldn’t be teaching concepts and meta-cognitive skills, it’s worth reminding them that if facts matter,
we should turn to the facts of cognitive research. Understanding one of these without the others leaves students vulnerable when dealing
with real problems in the real world. If you don’t have deep understanding of the concept, how do you know which process to use? If you
can’t take a step back and see how you are dealing with a problem, how do you figure out what you need to change your behavior or build
your knowledge to learn it? Being competent to take on the challenges of college and careers means having all three: concepts, skills, and
meta-cognitive skills.

5. Learning optimally builds up complex knowledge structures by organizing more basic pieces of knowledge in a hierarchical
way. Individuals have different knowledge structures based on individual preference and previous experiences. This is another thing
educators will have to bear in mind in understanding the learner and their progression. This finding is particularly important for how
students learn procedures and apply them to complex problems. We cluster what we know and need to be able to pull out the sections we
need for problem-solving. I have to say, Idid wonder about this one — Is it always hierarchical? Does this finding hold true for every
culture?  Might culture shape how information is organized with webs, circles or other constructs possibly in place?

6. Optimally, learning can utilize structures in the external world for organizing knowledge structures in the mind. It all starts with
explicit learning goals. The job of educators is to organize the learning activities and the learning environment to help students create
structures to organize their learning. This is a huge topic and relates as much to school design (are schedules developed to support strong
project- or problem-learning?) as it does to design of curriculum and how the classroom is organized. Remember, it’s not just content.
Knowledge structures need to supporting concepts, skills, and meta-cognition.

7. Learning is constrained by capacity limitations of the human information-processing architecture. This finding is about working
memory and how knowledge moves into long-term memory. Essentially, “working memory is a bottleneck” and we need to understand that
and consider it in any design of schools, curriculum, and classroom practices. Getting knowledge firmly into long-term memory is critically
important so that the working memory can be open to dealing with concepts and interdisciplinary learning when students go deeper. This
finding is about equitably ensuring that all students have access to deeper learning. (FYI, chapter two in Breakthrough Leadership in the
Digital Age by Hess and Saxberg has great information on this that could be helpful as a discussion tool.)

There are a number of practices that can help, including chunking, spacing over time so there is repetition, and simplifying learning
materials. There are also a number of strategies based on students’ emotional learning that can help reduce the working memory
bottleneck. Students feeling safe, warm relationships, the ability to have some control over their actions – these can help too.

8. Learning results from a dynamic interplay of emotion, motivation, and cognition. Students simply can’t be broken up into silos the
way we can in organizations and domains of knowledge. Whenever we attempt to do so, we are going to be frustrated with the outcome.
The problem is that researchers focus on specific areas, often pretty narrow in scope. Their professional environment demands this of
them. Therefore, the demand for integrating the research and truly understanding the dynamics of emotion, motivation, and cognition is
going to rest firmly in the world of educators and educator organizations.

9. Optimal learning builds up transferrable knowledge structures. I don’t think there has been much discussion in the world of
competency education about what the learning sciences tell us about transferring knowledge. We want students to have flexible expertise
in using what they know to solve real-world problems. The authors in the paper suggest that we can teach in ways to prepare students for
transferring knowledge. For example, they state that a precondition for transfer of knowledge is that students understand “the common
deep-structure underlying two problem situations rather than the superficial differences.” I don’t know enough about this to have any
opinions about how we go forward. I do think we should spend more time on this cornerstone finding.

10. Learning requires time and effort. Jeff Howard explained to me a long, long time ago that efficacy is the ability to determine how
much time and effort is needed to be successful and the willpower to apply it. It has stayed with me because students simply have to apply
more time and effort to learn things in different domains. Students with gaps or places where knowledge never worked its way into long-
term memory and can be accessed as routine are going to have to apply more time and effort. This is obviously rooted in what we now
short-hand as the “growth mindset.” It’s one of the keys, along with other character traits, that we need to cultivate in students for them to
be successful.

In the next article on learning sciences, I’ll highlight more from the paper The Nature of Learning.

10 Key Principles in the Learning Sciences

Research in the learning sciences has produced massive amounts of information on the brain, intelligence, and the learning
process. Because the education system and our learning processes are complex, research provides no silver bullet to
improve our schools.

8
There are, however, key principles that emerge when reviewing the literature on relevancy, engagement, and
contemporary theory about intelligence and learning. While not comprehensive, the following list can can help
educators take a research-backed approach to supporting learners:

1. Learning is developmental. Based on the physical development of the brain, there’s a logical

progression to how people develop skills and learning habits.

2. Individuals learn differently. People learn at their own pace, with different methods and strategies
for acquiring and processing information.

3. People learn what is personally meaningful to them. Motivation increases  when people can see
how new knowledge and skills can be applied to their personal life and work.

4. New knowledge is built on current knowledge. Accurate prior knowledge provides a strong

foundation for learning; however, inaccurate or insufficient prior knowledge can make learning more
difficult. People learn by connecting newly acquired information with prior knowledge . If those
connections are well organized, knowledge can be retrieved and applied more readily.

5. Learning occurs through social interaction . When learning offers opportunities for active response
and exchange among peers and experts, it is more effective than passive listening, reading, or
watching media in isolation.

6. People learn when they accept challenging but achievable goals . Within this “zone of proximal
development ,” learners are often able to exceed the limitations of their prior knowledge and skill
levels through collaborative work with more knowledgeable peers and experts.

7. Learners master basic and component skills through practice . The skills necessary to complete
a more complex tasks are mastered when practice is routine and applied in various contexts. Timely
and accurate feedback is essential to this process.

8. Acquiring and applying habits of mind  improves learning performance. Habits of mind can be

taught. These habits include routine practices such as assessing the nature and difficulty of a task,
evaluating personal strengths and weaknesses in light of the task, planning how to solve related
problems, applying varied problem solving strategies, and self-monitoring success with those
strategies.

9. Learning is stronger and more permanent in a positive emotional climate . When students feel
safe, connected to their peers and leaders, and in touch with goals, they are in supportive emotional
climates.

10. Learning is influenced by the total environment . Air quality, light, room color, furnishings – all of
these things affect learners. They are also affected by their interactions with others, physiological
needs, the nature of their personal goals, and the organizational goals set by schools and
employers. Each learning environment – classrooms, schools, neighborhoods, cities, nations
– influences learners’ perspectives about their lives and their hopes.