Introduction

21st century learners are active learners who are producers, writers, directors and
lifelong learners on their own. It is the task of the teacher to make sure that these learners are
fully equipped when they are going to go outside their classroom. To make sure that the
learners we produced are an asset not a liability in the society, we need to make sure that the
learning process is successful and they are ready to face real life challenges. Thus, a lot of
teaching techniques and strategies are emerging today to cope up to the need of the students
and one of this is the brain based learning.

Brain based learning is teaching with the brain in mind. Moreover, it is the "engagement
of strategies based on principles derived from an understanding of the brain." The brain which is
the central part of the nervous system and the organ for learning takes a huge part in the
learning process. Moreover, it is the major controller of the body and the information processor
of the body. Scientist today believes that the brain should be understood and accommodate.

Brain-based learning is biologically driven, and the conclusions developed to date have
not been definitive. Research continues, and our understanding of brain-based learning will be
subject to future changes. The brain-based learning approach is not a recipe for all learning, but
it can be used to develop strategies that are based on the current available research.

Statement of the problem

This paper intends to give answers to the following questions:

1. What is brain based learning?

2. What are the mind learning principles connected to brain based learning?

3. What are the brain-research findings that can affect students’ learning?

4. How brain based learning can help to improve the teaching – learning process?

5. What are the applications of brain based learning in the teaching process?
1. What is brain based learning?

Brain-based learning refers to teaching methods, lesson designs, and school programs
that are based on the latest scientific research about how the brain learns, including such
factors as cognitive development—how students learn differently as they age, grow, and mature
socially, emotionally, and cognitively.

Brain-based learning is motivated by the general belief that learning can be accelerated
and improved if educators base how and what they teach on the science of learning, rather than
on past educational practices, established conventions, or assumptions about the learning
process. For example, it was commonly believed that intelligence is a fixed characteristic that
remains largely unchanged throughout a person’s life. However, recent discoveries in cognitive
science have revealed that the human brain physically changes when it learns, and that after
practicing certain skills it becomes increasingly easier to continue learning and improving those
skills. This finding—that learning effectively improves brain functioning, resiliency, and working
intelligence—has potentially far-reaching implications for how schools can design their
academic programs and how teachers could structure educational experiences in the
classroom. (http://edglossary.org/brain-based-learning/retrieved03-28-17)

2. What are the mind learning principles connected to brain based learning?

a. Making Connections: Teaching and the Human Brain (1991) by Renate Nummela Caine
and Geoffrey Caine

Caine and Caine do not use the principles to prescribe any single teaching method.
Instead, the principles are intended to provide a framework for “selecting the methodologies that
will maximize learning and make teaching more effective and fulfilling.” They may open doors
for educators, increase teaching options, or serve as a guidepost to educators already working
to implement brain-compatible teaching practices. Following is the complete list of the twelve
brain/mind learning principles, as defined by Caine and Caine:

 The brain is a complex adaptive system.

 The brain is a social brain.

  The search for meaning is innate.

 The search for meaning occurs through patterning.

 Emotions are critical to patterning.

 Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes.

 Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral attention.

 Learning always involves conscious and unconscious processes.

 We have at least two ways of organizing memory.

 Learning is developmental.

 Complex learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat.

 Every brain is uniquely organized. (Caine and Caine 1997)

Three Conditions for Learning

Caine and Caine conclude that “Optimizing the use of the human brain means using the
brain’s infinite capacity to make connections–and understanding what conditions maximize this
process.” They identify three interactive and mutually supportive elements that should be
present in order for complex learning to occur: “relaxed alertness,” “orchestrated immersion,”
and “active processing.”

 An optimal state of mind that we call relaxed alertness, consisting of low threat and
high challenge.

 The orchestrated immersion of the learner in multiple, complex, authentic experience.

 The regular, active processing of experience as the basis for making meaning.

 (Caine and Caine 1997)

3. What are the brain-research findings that can affect students’ learning?

 Malleable memories
Memories are often not encoded at all, encoded poorly, changed or not retrieved.
The result is that students rarely remember what we think they should. Memories are
susceptible to inattention, erosion over time, subject bias, misattribution and a host of
other confounding conditions. Memories are strengthened by frequency, intensity
and practice under varying conditions and contexts.

 Non-conscious experience runs automatic behaviors

The complexity of the human body requires that we automate many behaviors. The
more we automate, the less we are aware of them. Most of our behaviors have come
from either “undisputed downloads” from our environment or repeated behaviors that
have become automatic. This suggests potential problems and opportunities in
learning.

 Reward and addiction dependency

Humans have a natural craving for positive feelings, including novelty, fun, reward
and personal relationships. There is a natural instinct to limit pain even if it means
compromising our integrity. For complex learning to occur, students need to defer
gratification and develop the capability to go without an immediate reward.

 Attentional Limitations
Most people cannot pay attention very long, except during flow states, because they
cannot hold much information in their short-term memory. It is difficult for people to
maintain focus for extended periods of time. We are born with the capacity to orient
and fixate attention when it comes to contrast, movement, emotions or survival. But
classroom learning requires a level of learned attention and many teachers don’t
know how to teach this skill. Adapting the content to match the learner provides
better attention and motivation to learn.

 For K-Grade 2, attention span is from 5 to 9 minutes.

 For Grade 2-7, attention span is from 8 to 12 minutes.

 For Grade 8-12, attention span is from 12 to 15 minutes.

 Brain seeks and creates understanding
The human brain is a meaning-maker and meaning seeker. We assign value and
meaning to many everyday occurrences whether it’s on intentional or not. Meaning-
making is an important human attribute that allows us to predict and cope with
experiences. The more important the meaning, the greater the attention one must
pay in order to influence the content of the meaning.

 Rough Drafts/Gist Learning

Brains rarely get complex learning right the first time. Instead they often sacrifice
accuracy for simply developing a “rough draft” of the learning material. If, over time,
the learning material maintains or increases in its importance and relevance, the
brain will upgrade the rough draft to improve meaning and accuracy. To this end,
prior knowledge changes how the brain organizes new information. Goal-driven
learning proceeds more rapidly than random learning. Learning is enhanced by brain
mechanisms with contrasting output and input goals.

 Input Limitations
Several physical structures and processes limit one’s ability to take in continuous
new learning. The “slow down” mechanisms include the working memory, the
synaptic formation time for complex encoding and the hippocampus. While we can
expose our brain to a great deal of information in a short time frame, the quality of
that exposure is known as “priming” and is not considered in-depth learning. Schools
typically try to cram as much content as possible in a day as possible. You can teach
faster, but students will just forget faster.

 Perception influences our experience

A person’s experience of life is highly subjective. Many studies show how people are
easily influenced to change how we see and what we hear, feel, smell and taste.
This subjectivity alters experience, which alters perception. When a person changes
the way they perceive the world, they alter their experience. It is experience that
drives change in the brain.

 Malleability/Neural Plasticity
The brain changes every day and more importantly, we influence those changes.
New areas of brain plasticity and overall malleability are regularly discovered. It is
 known that experience can drive physical changes in the sensory cortex, frontal
lobes, temporal lobes, amygdala and hippocampus. In addition whole systems can
adapt to experience such as the reward system or stress response system.

 Emotional-Physical State Dependency

Nearly every type of learning includes a “go” or “no go” command to the brain in our
neural net signaling process. These complex signals are comprised of excite or
suppress signals. Emotions can provide the brain’s signals to either move ahead or
not. Thus, learning occurs through a complex set of continuous signals which inform
your brain about whether to form a memory or not. Both emotional and bodily states
influence our attention, memory, learning, meaning and behavior through these
signaling systems.

4. How brain based learning can help to improve the teaching – learning process?

Everyone’s brain is unique. It is important to promote active processing, as well as

encourage reflection by the students. Scientific, objective research is proving that learning is an
active and individual process. The implications of research in brain-based learning, for teaching
and learning are remarkable. Educators need to be introduced to this research in a manner that
allows them to understand and interpret the findings. Educators should be prudent when
applying the findings of brain-based research, but at the same time, they should move forward
with what is already known.

Learning styles are cognitive, affective, and physiological traits that serve as relatively
stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning
environment (O’Keefe & Nadel, 1978, p. 32). Previous research (Kolb, Boyatzis, & Mainemelis,
2001) has shown that learning styles are influenced by personality type, educational
specialization, career choice, and current job role and tasks. The indicators of “what” and “how”
a student processes while learning largely determine his/her learning style. Kolb and Kolb
(2005) state that there is no such thing as a fixed learning style; rather, learning occurs on a
continuum ranging from concrete to abstract, or from reflective observation to active
experimentation.
5. What are the applications of brain based learning in the teaching process?

THREE INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUES

o Orchestrated Immersion
o This means to create learning environments that fully immerse learners in an
educational experience. Teachers should take information off the page and black
board to bring it to life in the minds of students. This technique provides learners
with rich, complex experiences that include options and a sense of wholeness.

o Relaxed Alertness

o This technique ensures that fear and threat in learners should be eliminated while
maintaining a highly challenging atmosphere for learning. This is not the same as
being calm and unchanging. This technique involves a dynamic state that is
compatible with great deal of change. This makes sure that the learners are
being challenged within a context of safety. Moreover, personal sense of well-
being allows the learners to explore new thoughts and connections.

o Active Processing

o This technique involves the consolidation and internalization of information by the

learner in a way that is both personally meaningful and conceptually coherent.
This leads to understanding, rather than simply to memory. This necessarily
engages emotions, concepts, and values.

 BRAIN RESEARCH AND SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES/ACTION PLANS

 Brain Research Findings  Strategies/Action Plans
 Getting Students Ready to Learn  Wear your watch on the opposite wrist
a day each week.

 Be an explorer. Do one activity per

month.

 Take a new route to the supermarket.

 Do volunteer work with a generation

different than your own.

 If you watch TV, write a paragraph

about what you saw.

 Use your non-dominant hand one day

a week for the entire day.

 Start a journal.

 Try out a new game or a puzzle.

 Provide enough brain needs (water,

oxygen, nutrition).

 Forming Connections  Use Problem-Based learning

strategies.

 Replace passive listening and rote

memory.

 Use active investigation, participation,

critical learning, and problem solving.

 Use critical thinking skills to interpret

the question, gather additional
information, create possible solutions,
evaluate options, and present their
 conclusion.

 Use variety, pacing, and novelty.

 The Brain as the Meaning Maker  Provide enough downtime for the brain.

 The Key to Learning: Attention  Engage learner’s attention only 20-

40% of the time.

 Keep attentional demands to short

bursts of no longer than the learners
span of attention in minutes.

 Enriching the Brain  Use body movements to dramatize

points and learn Math.

 Story-telling

 Self-disclosure

 Have at least daily or at least weekly

role play.

 Have students do charades to review

main ideas.

 Do one-minute commercials from TV to

advertise upcoming content or review
past content.

 Do cross laterals. Learn and use arm

and leg cross-over activities that can
force both brain hemispheres to “talk”
to each other better.

 Do stretching before a lesson starts or

when you think your students need
oxygen.
  Allow students more mobility in the
classroom.

 Motivation  Eliminate threat.

 Create a strongly positive climate in the

classroom.

 Activate and engage positive emotions.

 Set goals.

 Increase feedback.

 Brain and Challenge  Provide problem solving and critical

thinking activities.

 Do relevant projects and complex

activities.

 Emotions  Games

 Story-telling

 Introspection (journals, sharing,

reflection)

 Role model

 Celebrations

 Purposeful use of physical rituals

 Controversy (debate, dialogue)

 Memory  Use mnemonic devices.

 SOHCAHTOA (Geometry)
  ROY G. BIV (Science)

 My Dear Aunt Sally (MDAS)

 My Very Excellent Mother Just Served

Us Nerds (Astronomy)

 King Harold Died, My Dear Classmates

(Measurement)

 King Philip Came For Grape Soda

(Levels of Classification)

 Theatre, role play, and reenactments

 Class presentations and debate

 Creating a rap or song rewriting the

lyrics of a song

 Dramatic concert reading

 Automated learning through flash

cards, games, quick-reaction activities

Conclusion

In the last 30 years, researchers have developed new technological tools to discover a
completely unknown territory, the brain. Brain-based learning is closely aligned with the
constructivist theory of learning, as well as with current information available on adult learning.
Brain-based research has provided facts and objective information to support how instructors
teach. The way in which the learning process is employed will have the largest impact on
students’ learning. A paradigm shift to constructivism that supports new instructional design and
learning theories is substantiated by the research that has been presented in this paper.
Learning is the beginning of discovery. Educators should consider integrating brain
research into teaching strategies as learning theories continue to be developed, refined, and
implemented. Brain-based research is validating the assertion that learning is individual and
unique. This implies that current practices such as standardized materials and instruction may,
in fact, diminish or inhibit learning. However, instruction should not be based solely on
neuroscience. Brain-based learning provides new directions for educators who want to achieve
more focused, informed teaching. With additional research in brain-based approaches, there
may better options for those struggling with learning. Since no two people have had the same
experiences that modify neural networks, the potential for cognitive differences among
individuals is huge. Brain-based research needs to be interpreted for educators so that they can
utilize this information in the classroom. It is vital for the educator of tomorrow’s students to
understand the importance and implications of brain based research.