What+is+Brain+Based+Learning

//Summary on Brain-based Learning://
==Brain-based learning is a philosophy that promotes studying and understanding how the brain works in order to better teaching and increase learning in the educational realm. It is the merging of three academic disciplines: neuroscience, psychology, and education. Though these three disciplines are still developing individually, there is obvious overlap, and this interface is being used to approach educational challenges with evidence-based solutions. Caine and Caine (1991) developed twelve basic principals which are the building blocks for brain-based learning. These principals focus on several ideas including, but not limited to, the make-up of the brain, how the brain deduces meaning, and how learning most successfully occurs. Caine and Caine also recognized three conditions that must be present for brain-based learning to occur. Firstly, students’ brains must be alert and challenged without the student feeling pressured or threatened. Secondly, a teacher’s role is to design genuine experiences for students. Finally, students need to be actively participating in these experiences as well as actively processing the experience. == ==There have been accusations that educators and schools in general are attempting to educate children without sufficient knowledge as to how the brain functions. In fact, some have said that certain educational methodologies may actually be //hindering// students’ abilities to learn. Brain-based education is an attempt for educators to rebase their philosophies and methodologies on scientific neurological evidence of how the brain works. For example, a teacher may teach grammatical punctuation to her class using a direct instruction, paper-and-pencil approach. However, a more effective method that encompasses all three of Caine and Caine’s conditions is providing students with an opportunity to //act// like those punctuation marks as they travel in a circle outdoors. This method keeps students alert and participating in a genuine memorable experience. ==

 Caine and Caine's (1991) Mind/Brain Learning Principles retrieved from Teacher Tap: Professional Development Resources for Educators and Librarians: http://www.eduscapes.com/tap/topic70.htm
 * < == **//The Twelve Brain-based Learning Principles// ** == ||
 * < 1. The brain is a complex adaptive system ||< 7. Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral attention. ||
 * < 2. The brain is a social brain. ||< 8. Learning always involves conscious and unconscious processes. ||
 * < 3. The search for meaning is innate. ||< 9. We have at least two ways of organizing memory. ||
 * < 4. The search for meaning occurs through patterning. ||< 10. Learning is developmental. ||
 * 5. Emotions are critical to patterning. || 11. Complex learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat. ||
 * < 6. Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes. || 12. Every brain is uniquely organized. ||
 * < 6. Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes. || 12. Every brain is uniquely organized. ||