What is Brain-Based Learning?

Brain-based learning is a paradigm of learning which addresses student learning and learning outcomes from the point
of view of the human brain. It involves specific strategies for learning which are designed based on how human
attention, memory, motivation, and conceptual knowledge acquisition works. Brain-based learning and teaching can
optimize learning holistically.

Historically, teaching and learning is largely based on what the students, teachers, and policy-makers think. Their
opinions, experiences, logical-arguments, and quasi-experiments in the classroom inform the teaching and learning
process. Brain-based learning takes a different approach. The way students are motivated, the way attention works, the
way memories are formed, the way information is presented, etc. become the central aspects of teaching and learning.

One example is the construal level theory which can address the question – When and how should a student focus on
the minute details contained in learning materials? Intuitively, one could say that details are important for mastery and
students should learn details to demonstrate proficiency. However, this blanket statement isn’t an evidence-based
approach. The construal level theory shows that understanding an overview without the details can engage a larger
network of concepts a student learns or is sensitized to. Understanding the essence of a certain topic can also promote
creativity because capturing the essence of a concept makes the concept vague and abstract. An abstract entity links to
more abstract entities and makes the learning broad as opposed to details making the learning narrow and specific.

This was just one example of how a brain-based learning approach can better inform teaching and learning.

A brain-based approach doesn’t necessarily include intelligence testing, aptitude testing, and other standardized tests.
While these can sometimes yield useful information, they are not required to utilize a brain-based approach. In some
corner cases, it might be necessary – when there is significant cognitive impairment, physical disability, emotional
distress due to confusion about careers, etc.

This approach can be considered quite accommodating because it doesn’t discard anything that is useful or evidence-
based because of superficial reasons like not falling into a particular perspective or pedagogy.

What is Brain-Based Learning?

Brain-based learning contains a variety of teaching methods, educational programs, lessons based on scientific evidence
surrounding the learning process, cognitive development, and emotional growth. Understanding the benefits of brain
research is an asset to your repertoire as a teacher.

The beauty of understanding the brain is that you can narrow your efforts to the things that will give you the largest
return on your time and accelerates retention. Researchers know where in the brain attention is processed and which
skills enhance it at school. For example, specific art programs (e.g. music, dance, visual arts) can build attention skills.
Healthy brains make healthy learners. With healthy brains and a positive learning environment, teachers have a great
shot at achieving high standardized test scores and greater success in the classroom.

What happens when a learner is exposed to chronic stress, poverty, trauma, or drugs? What happens when a student’s
brain is impacted by developmental delays, abnormality, or chemical imbalances? Quite simply, you need better
resources, more time, and sometimes alternate strategies to succeed.

The brain is not a good memorizer. It likes to be organized and put things into the appropriate places. Imagine a filing
cabinet and how things are neatly placed and filed away. This is how the brain likes to store information. Remember this
fact when teaching and how you can make learning organized and easy for the students to remember.

Brain-based research prompts innovative teaching techniques in the classroom. Brain-based learning involves many
types of activities including technology and hands-on skills. Brain-based learning games and gamification are popular and
allow students to enhance learning while “playing a game.”
Gamification is gaming with a purpose and a powerful tool for reinforcement. It is a great engagement strategy that
makes harder concepts more achievable for students. Play is more fun than work. These interactive brain games present
information in a way that educates, entertains, and accelerates learning.

Research indicates boys especially love competition. Including competition and incentives are great ways to encourage
students to participate in online learning opportunities. Girls love to multi-task and engage with personal connections.
There are a multitude of examples of brain-based learning strategies that boost students’ ability to enhance thinking.

Brain-based learning is the purposeful and comprehensive engagement of various principles. These principles directly
enhance the ability of the brain to work and learn optimally. This is especially important in academics and educational
success.

The brain is an active player and an intimate factor in all aspects of the academic environment.

Brain-based learning is optimized in the educational system through engagement, the application of learning strategies,
and the adherence of certain principles.

Brain-based learning is based on cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience. It is the most comprehensive and
structurally-sound means of educating children and teenagers in today’s ever-expanding and ever-evolving world.

This is the promise of brain-based learning. This learning method draws insights from several fields, including:

Psychology

Technology

Neurology

When teachers understand this concept, it helps them to:

Keep diverse learners engaged.

Create a richer learning environment.

Offer valuable feedback that can lead to a deeper understanding.

By creating a rich learning environment, teachers have the ability to address their students’ emotional and social needs,
as well as their minds.

Brain-Based Learning Goals & Outcomes:

Considering that this approach is based on what and how much we know about the human brain and it’s interaction
with the environment, we can broadly define a few learning goals:

Maximize the learning potential of a person

Minimize learning losses and wasted effort

Hijack known mechanisms to improve skills, knowledge-base, memory, and mental flexibility

Create verifiable improvements in learning and make people smarter (for lack of a better word).

Improve the productivity of students and teachers

What it isn’t:

A way to improve intelligence test scores. This does not mean that brain-based learning cannot make people smarter, it
only expects that as an outcome. Some of the aspects involved in intelligence such as working memory, attention, long-
term memory, verbal fluency, are likely to improve due to the use of specialized techniques (see below). A core
assumption is that intelligence is unique and changeable.
Brain-Based Learning: An overview

Let us now look at a few fundamentals across 3 categories.

Brain-Based learning theory

Brain-Based learning strategies

Brain-Based learning as a function of student’s emotions

These factors can be construed as the markers and predictors of long-term learning.

I’ve covered these concepts across various other articles in different contexts. You’ll see the links to original articles for a
particular topic at relevant places. Here is a short overview of the fundamental processes involved in learning. It is an
introduction to this article.

Caine and Caine (1994), in their original work, outline 12 core principles of brain-based teaching and learning:

The brain processes multiple things in parallel

The whole body is involved in learning (deliberately or unconsciously)

People have an innate need to seek meaning and make sense

Finding patterns, giving identity, and giving structure helps people make sense (patterning)

Emotions are important in patterning

The brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts (details) and wholes (global concept). That is the brain processes
multiple construals.

Learning needs focused attention and peripheral perception

The brain simultaneously involves conscious (remembering) and unconscious processes (priming)

Humans have at least 2 important memory systems – spatial memory and rote learning memory

Spatial memory is the strongest, people remember better when knowledge is embedded in spatial memory

Challenge promotes learning and threat/lack of safety inhibits it

All brains are uniquely configured and uniquely adaptable

These factors cover most of the important aspects of brain-based learning but they miss out on emotional regulation,
social learning, feedback, and cognitive space. I’ve reorganized these into controllable and applicable principles below.

Brain-based principles, and how to implement them

Here are some tenets brain-based learning, as well as ways to effectively introduce and implement them in the
classroom.

The Brain is social

Human beings are naturally social and seek contact with others. Some of the drive to be social is the desire to learn
through imitation and respond to the behaviors that are seen. Individuals find meaning in the experiences and
information obtained when in contact with others.
Educators have the ability to harness this drive by preparing activities that allow students to speak with one another and
discuss what they are learning. By allowing this kind of activity, ideas are explored together and:

Modified

Transformed

Confirmed

Rejected

All levels of learning involve the body and the mind

Whenever an individual acquires new information or has a meaningful experience, the brain will undergo a physiological
change. This process is referred to as neural plasticity.

This physiological change includes small strands (dendrites) to sprout and over time, groups of these strands combine to
create stronger structures that are called synapses.

The synapses are similar to traffic junctions allowing various information highways to intersect. Some experts state that
when an individual learns something new, he is laying down a neural pathway.

When a particular learning pattern or experience is repeated, the neural pathway becomes even stronger. This shows
that learning has physical, as well as mental impact on the brain.

Students learn better if they are given the opportunity to combine mental and physical activity together. Students
become bored when they just sit all day. All a teacher needs to do is make his learning activities more active.

Although practice does not necessarily make perfect, it does allow students to firmly establish the information.

Searching for meaning is inherent

Human beings make sense of what they experience. So they organize their information and experiences in ways that are
understood.

Interest is a huge factor in the way that an individual will filter the enormous amount of information that he is given. If
an individual is interested in something, he feels the need to understand it.

Students are not always enthusiastic about the subjects they are being taught; however, there are ways that teachers
can stimulate their students. By doing this, the innate desire to find meaning in what is going on will kick in and their
learning experience will be more beneficial.

Emotions are vital to patterning

Neutral learning does not exist. Whenever an individual learns something, there is always an emotional response. This
means that every decision has some kind of emotion linked to it.

This is considered one of the strongest implications of brain-based learning. This means that the classroom is actually an
emotional place.

Teachers need to encourage students to have positive attitudes. When teachers treat their students with respect, it
builds a desirable environment that tends to help their students succeed.

Teachers need to utilize materials that draw their students into learning because it is presented to them in an attractive
and inviting way. Deep truths will be uncovered as the investigation into the child’s brain continues.

Brain Friendly Techniques

Brain-based education focuses on how the brain learns naturally and refers to teaching methods, instructional design,
and programs that are based on what scientific researchers currently know about how the brain learns best. Teaching
techniques that are brain friendly create environments that immerse students in experiences, are non-threatening yet
challenging, and give students the opportunity to process information actively.

Lesson Course

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Brain-Based Learning Activities

How can you engage your students by using brain-based techniques? Try the following suggestions for brain-based
learning activities. Soon your students will be learning in the ways that their brains learn best!

Talk Time

Even though listening is critical, students need the opportunity to talk! Talking is essential to learning because it helps
students internalize and actively process what they have learned. In your classroom, give your students ''talk time.''
Bring up a topic, then break up students into small discussion groups. Have them discuss what they've learned. Give
students no more than fifteen minutes to talk. Have one student in the group serve as the reporter, who will summarize
the main points of their group discussion and report back to the class. When time is up, each group's reporter gives their
summary of their group discussion. Limit the reporter's summary to no more than five minutes.

7th Inning Stretch

Provide a stretch break like the 7th inning stretch of a baseball game when fans get up, stretch, and take a break during
the mid-point of the 7th inning. Taking a five-minute break to do some jumping jacks, dance, go to the hallway to the
drinking fountain, or stretch, is more effective than subjecting your students to long lectures and lessons, which can be
overwhelming and tiring. Periodic movement stimulates the flow of chemicals in the brain, increases heart rate, and
improves circulation, which all positively affect learning.

Chunking

New information is like food. It is best when it is digested in small chunks. Because the human brain can only manipulate
about seven pieces of information at a time, chunk information in small amounts. Younger students can only understand
about four pieces of information at a time and can attend no longer than five minutes. Therefore, spend no more than
five minutes teaching complex concepts to younger children and no more than ten minutes for older children. Then
provide a 7th inning stretch or a brain break before moving on to the next chunk of information.

Visualizing

Vision is the strongest of the senses. Therefore, in addition to talking, make sure your students have visuals that
complement spoken lectures or lessons. Use diagrams, drawings, videos, and pictures to bolster learning and stimulate
your students' senses.

Move and Learn

Combining movement with the learning is an excellent way to immerse your students actively in the learning experience.
Have your students do jumping jacks while reciting their math facts or spelling words. They can also stand in a circle and
toss the ball around as they recite states and capitals. This adds an element of fun and makes the learning experience
more memorable!.

Many teachers already use some brain-based learning

Activating prior knowledge: When a teacher introduces topics to his students by activating prior knowledge, he is
helping them build on what they already know. This strengthens the connections in their brains.

Utilizing tools: Teachers who use rhymes, songs and graphic organizers are already using strategies related to brain-
based learning. These strategies assist students to represent their thinking kinesthetically, visually and phonetically.
These techniques prime the brain for learning.

Principle #1: Differences Must Not Be Considered Exceptions, They Must be the Rule

In brain-based learning, differences must be the rule. They must be celebrated. They must be considered essential for
optimal learning. Scientific evidence has concluded that there are NO two brains that are exactly alike.

We all have a unique brain.

Therefore, we all learn differently.

Teachers, parents, tutors, and others involved in the educational process must validate these differences due to
variations in the maturation of a student and the differences within their brain. Diversity must be celebrated. The unique
talents, skills, abilities, and interests of a child must be considered when creating lesson plans.

Principle #2: Teach in Small Chunks

In years past, educational professionals held the belief that children and teenagers could learn and retain large chunks of
information.

In most instances, up to 7 chunks of educational material was presented to students.

However, the belief is now leaning towards 2 to 4 chunks of information.

The brain may experience a quick overload. Learning is more than mental. It is physical, too. It takes many physical
components of the body – such as glucose – to learn and retain information.

The brain must experience rest.

If too much is presented to a student, the brain is unable to process the information.

As a result, learning is not successful. Deliver information in small chunks and in small time spans.

Principle #3: Encourage Movements During Learning Activities

In order to optimize brain-based learning activities, it is important to get kids and teenagers moving. Exercise is an
activity that aids in the growth of new neurons in the brain.

Neurons create connections in the brain.

To accelerate learning, educators should enforce high amounts of physical activity among students. In turn,
noradrenaline, cortisol, and dopamine are all enhanced. Movement aids in boosting neurogenesis.

Conclusion

Book learning is obsolete. Educators, parents, teachers, tutors, and coaches should place an emphasis on brain-based
learning activities. Is your child struggling, academically? Fear no more.

We here at Miracle Math Coaching specialize in boosting brain-based learning.

We offer many different programs, activities, and services that will have your child excited about learning. We fully
evaluate each child and their unique needs. We then collaborate with you and educators to optimize your child’s ability
to learn and retain new information.
Brain-Based Games for Summer

1) Kahoot is one of the most popular platforms for game-based learning. This is a game where teachers can go online
and assign competitions for students to participate in while practicing math skills, reviewing phonics, or refreshing their
memories on history. The subject matter and possibilities are endless.

2) Online reading games are essential brain-enhancing programs. Reading is one of the most beneficial brain-boosting
skills, and there is a plethora of effective online reading programs. Two examples of these are Storyline Online and Get
Epic. Teachers and students can sign up, and have access to thousands of online books on their levels.

3) Sports and physical activities are vital to brain-based learning. Summer allows many opportunities for physical
activities outdoors. These activities encourage socialization, rewards, a sense of belonging, competition, and overcoming
challenges. Based on current research, the best way to enhance cognition is to be physically active and get regular
exercise. There are numerous other benefits to being active such as: stimulates neurons, increases blood flow, fuels
brain with oxygen, trains quick response and recovery, creates more capillaries, prolongs life of neurons, and stimulates
dopamine (which enhances pleasure). Running is a research-based practice that increases more brain cells than
anything. This is why physical education and recess are so important. This allows children to increase brain cells and
reduces stress also.

4) Hands-on activities such as gardening, learning an instrument, or developing an interest or passion outdoors during
the summer are other essential brain-based learning strategies that allow students to engage on a higher level. Learning
new skills or participating in tasks forces the brain to work and learn. These new interests strengthen mental skills. These
interests also have long-term benefits and promote being outdoors.

5) Virtual field trips are a neat way for students to explore and connect with the world. There is a multitude of virtual
field trips available online, and range from varying levels of interest. From national museums to the Great Wall of China,
the options are endless.

Including multiple types of brain-based learning provides students with so many benefits. I love technology in the
classroom when it’s thoughtfully in the right amounts. But never, ever forget that it is the human connection that will
take your students where they really need to be.