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Brain power drives learning. How much and what kind of prior
knowledge is in the brain's fuel tank can determine whether the
teacher's lesson sends the spark that makes the learner's connection
in the brain engine start its neurological motors running.
When educators from across the country attended Harvard University's
summer institute, "Connecting the Mind, Brain and Education,"
James Zull, CWRU's director of the University Center for Innovation
in Teaching and Education and professor of biology, showed educators
how to use the brain power of their students when it comes time
to learn.
Harvard's Graduate School of Education invited Zull, CWRU cell
biologist and biochemist, to teach at the five-day institute last
month. The basis of Zull's class was his forthcoming book, The
Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching Teaching by Exploring the
Biology of Learning (Stylus, fall 2002).
He had educators look at the basics of neuroscience for clues
to creating a learning-centered curriculum. Among the points he
shared with the teachers:
- Engaging many parts of the brain is better
for learning than just using a few sections of it
- How signals naturally flow through the nervous
system can reveal a natural neurological cycle that produces
deep learning in humans
Zull explained that combining this cycle with the function associated
with specific locations of the brain that produce such responses
as language, spatial analyses, problem solving, categorization,
memory recall, fear and pleasure can help educators produce learning
maps for specific lessons.
"Learning how the brain functions, records and responds to information
can show educators how to teach," said Zull, adding that learning
produces physical changes in the brain.
Creating conditions that lead to change in the learner's brain,
he said, does not mean rewiring the brain, but arranging conditions
to help the brain rewire itself. How to make those changes is
the basis of his new book that gives teachers and anyone in the
position to teach others an in-depth understanding of how the
brain functions and processes information.
He added, "There is a world inside the brain and the world outside
the brain. We must bring them to terms with each other if we are
to learn."
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