the importance of neuroscience in education

After reading through the week’s lesson, I selected the following principles for the adaptation of how I plan on teaching. 

The first one was number one the Learning Profile or how the different students learn best.  Some may learn better in groups by listening and interacting with one another and there are those who need to sit alone reading the class information.  We all have our ways we learn best for instance, I cannot sit in a room with someone who is listening to music.  I am a typical man and will start paying attention to the distraction of the music.  I have sat in a room when someone was listening to music (singing parts of it) and watching instructional math videos….All I could think is there is no way they were absorbing the info.

The second would be the fourth one, the student’s Emotions.  This plays a large part in whether or not we succeed even as adults. The uncertainty is something most of us cannot handle and it can cause us to fail before we even attempt a task.  It will be our jobs to ensure we keep them positive during the entire process of learning even when they get things wrong.  Overall the school environment should be as fun and rewarding as possible.

The last would be the seventh one.  The rhyme in the first line in the book caught my attention with “Learning for retention requires focus and extended attention.” (Sousa, D & Tomlinson, C. 2011. P.15)   I believe that if you make learning meaningful it is more accepting by those who my struggle in the first place.  This goes along with the way the information is presented.  If I sound like the teacher from the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off there would be nothing learned. 

All three of these has something to do with how students learn whether it be patterns, the way the lesson is presented or even the mindset of the class during and after a lesson or test.  With diverse learners this may be a challenge for the everyday teacher.  The more we understand the difference in them and how they learn the quicker we will be able to reach them individually. 

Brian

Reference

Sousa, D. A. & Tomlinson, C. A. (2011). Differentiation and the brain: How neuroscience supports the learner-friendly classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.