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Brain Based Learning
Brain Based Learning
There is a wide range of tools that help encourage the brain to absorb,
process, and store experiences and information meaningfully. The
following general strategies reflect a brain-based approach to lesson
planning. They are followed by a more detailed sequence of guidelines
that reflect the seven stages of learning.
Discover your students’ background in the subject, and customize your planning to their
experience level and preferred learning style.
Ensure that your materials and presentation strategies are age appropriate.
Acquisition happens both formally and informally; provide learning experiences that
reflect real life.
Always plan for elaboration. Presenting is not learning; students must process the learning
before they own it.
Help learners encode learning in their memory with appropriate use of downtime,
emotions, real-life associations, and mnemonic techniques.
Functional integration happens only over time and with repeated reviews.
The Seven Stages of Brain-Based Planning
The following strategies are organized in a sequence that makes sense to
the brain. The list is by no means exhaustive: you’ll be able to add many
more to it based on the demographics of your particular learners. After
you’ve prepared your lesson plans, use the outline as a checklist to
ensure that you’ve planned activities that satisfy the goals of each
learning stage:
Stage 1: Pre-exposure.
This stage provides the brain with an overview of the new learning before
really digging in. Pre-exposure helps the brain develop better conceptual
maps.
Post an overview of the new topic on the bulletin board. Mind maps work great for this.
Consider time-of-day brain cycles and rhythms when planning morning and afternoon
activities.
Discover students’ interests and background; start where they are in their knowledge base,
not where you think they are.
Have learners set their own goals, and discuss class goals for each unit.
Plan activities during which students can move around and choose from a menu of
offerings.
State strong positive expectations, and allow learners to voice theirs, too.
Read your students’ learning states, and make any adjustments as you proceed through the
lessons.
Stage 2: Preparation.
This is the stage at which you create curiosity or excitement. It’s similar
to the “anticipatory set” but goes further in preparing the learner.
Provide the context for learning the topic (can be a repeat of the overview; the classic “big
picture”).
Elicit from learners what possible value and relevance the topic has to them personally.
They must feel connected to the learning before they’ll internalize it. Encourage them to
express how they feel it is or is not relevant. The brain learns particularly well from
concrete experiences first.
Provide concrete learning experiences (e.g., case study, experiment, field trip, interview,
hands-on learning).
Provide activities that employ a majority (if not all) of the multiple intelligences.
Offer a group or team project that encompasses building, finding, exploring, or designing.
Tie things together so that learning across disciplines occurs (e.g., read a science fiction
story about outer space while studying the solar system, discuss how literature relates to
science).
Have learners design an evaluation procedure or rubric for their own learning (e.g., write
test questions, facilitate peer reviews, design mind maps).
Stimulate small-group discussions, and have groups report back to the entire class.
Create individual and/or group mind maps reflecting the new material.
Have students do the teaching (e.g., in small groups, as class presenters, in pairs).
Stage 5: Incubation and Memory Encoding.
This stage emphasizes the importance of downtime and review time. The
brain learns most effectively over time, not all at once.
Ask learners to discuss new learning with their family and friends.
Stage 6: Verification and Confidence Check.
This stage is not just for the benefit of the teacher; learners need to
confirm their learning for themselves as well. Learning is best
remembered when students possess a mode or a metaphor regarding the
new concepts or materials.
Encourage students to write about what they’ve learned (e.g., journal, essay, news article,
report).
Have students demonstrate learning with a project (e.g., working model, mind map, video,
newsletter).
Invite another class, parents, the principal, or community guests in to view projects.
Incorporate the new learning in future lessons. Never introduce something and then drop
it. If it’s not important enough to refer to in the future, don’t waste time on it to begin
with.
What This Means to You
As we plan learning with the brain in mind, (it) is critical to ask a different
set of questions. Rather than ask “What should I teach?” ask “How will
students best learn?” As you plan the learning, keep the focus on the
basic principles that support the brain’s natural learning tendencies.
Follow through from pre-exposure to celebration, making sure that none
of the stages in between are skipped. Learning happens over time. Create
a complex, integrated, interdisciplinary curriculum that provides for
plenty of learner choice. Provide structure, but in an environment that
respects each learner’s unique nature, needs, and experiences.