National University School CounselingCED 605

What Do We Know About Learning? Unit IIHarvey Hoyo, Ed.D.

Tonight’s Topic

How it has changed.

What current research tells

us.

Brain Research

About Learning

I. Free Write

Take 3 minutes and write some key statements about what you know about learning.

Take another 3 minutes and write about what you would like to learn about “Learning.”

How Has Our Understanding of the Learning Process Changed?

BehavioristMod

el

• Meaning in eye of beholder: Incomplete

• Can’t teach all the same way

Individual Learners

• Learning Style• Cultural Backgrounds

Brain

Research

• An organ seeking patterns• From chaos to order

Key Theories of Learningor “Understanding Understanding”

• How

Constructivist Principals

• Learning

Cognitive Learning Theory

• Changed

Theory of Multiple Intelligences

The Constructivist ModelConstructivistmod

el

• Learning is non-linear• Requires connecting new learning

with what already is known & experienced.

Constructivistmod

el

• Learning, teaching, & assessing are integrated

• Active participation in meaningful activities solidifies learning

Constructivism● Defines knowledge as temporary,

developmental, and socially and culturally mediated.

● Learning is a self-regulated process of resolving inner cognitive conflicts that often become apparent through

concrete experience, collaborative discourse, and reflection.

Constructivism…A Look at School Environments

Traditional Classrooms►Curriculum is presented part to whole, with emphasis on basic skills. ► Strict adherence to fixed curriculum is highly valued.

► Curricular activities rely heavily on textbooks and workbooks.

► Students are viewed as "blank slates" onto which information is etched by the teacher.

►Teachers generally behave in a didactic manner, disseminating information to students.

►Teachers seek the correct answer to validate student learning. Students learn that school is about learning "what the teacher tells them."

►Assessment of student learning is viewed as separate from teaching and occurs almost entirely through testing. ►Students primarily work alone.

Constructivism…A Look at School Environments

Constructivist Classrooms►Curriculum presented whole to part with emphasis on big concepts. ► Pursuit of student questions is highly valued. ► Curricular activities rely heavily on primary sources of data and manipulative materials. ► Students are “thinkers with emerging theories about the world”. ► Teachers generally behave in an interactive manner, mediating the environment for students. ► Teachers seek the students' points of view to understand students' present conceptions for use in subsequent lessons. ► Assessment of student learning is interwoven with teaching, including observations and student exhibitions and portfolios. ► Students primarily work in groups.

II. Think-Pair-Share

Visualize yourself in a ninth grade history class presenting a guidance lesson on the entrance requirements to the Cal States.

In what ways would Constructivist thinking impact

your presentations?

Cognitive Learning Theory (CLT): What Do the Researchers Tell Us?Knowledge is constructed

by creating personal meaning from new information when connected to prior

knowledge and experience.

Transfer only occurs if support ed through

scaffolding and bridging. People perform better

when they know the goal, see models, and know how their performance

compares to a standard.

Variety in learning styles, attention spans, memory, developmental paces, and

intelligences.

Cognitive Learning Theory (CLT): What Do the Researchers Tell Us?

Successful learning involves the use of

numerous strategies.

Students need to know when to use knowledge, how to adapt it, and how to manage one's own

learning.

Motivation, effort, and self-esteem affect

learning and performance.

Learning frequently occurs as a result of social interaction. Group work and

cooperative learning are highly valuable.

“It is of the utmost importance that we recognize and nurture all of the varied human intelligences, and all of the combinations of intelligences.

We are all so different largely because we all have different combinations of intelligences.”

Howard Gardner (1987)

Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Linguistic - reading, writing, speaking, listening

Logical/Mathematical - working with numbers and abstract patterns

Visual/Spatial - working with images, mind mapping, visualizing, drawing

Musical - rhythm, melody, patterned sound, song, rap, dance

Bodily/Kinesthetic - processing information through touch, movement, dramatics

Interpersonal - sharing, cooperating, interviewing, relating

Intrapersonal - working alone, self-paced instruction, individualized projects

Naturalist/Ecological - awareness of the natural world and our relationship to it

III. Think-Pair-ShareReflect on Howard Gardner’s Multiple

Intelligence Theory.

Select any three intelligences, how will those impact the delivery of a future guidance lesson?

Site specific examples of activities that you could use.

What Does Brain Research Tell Us About the Learning Process? Various models of our brain's architecture have been proposed over the years: The holistic brain: the brain as a pattern-seeking, holographic

organ

Two cerebral hemispheres: linear thought/language (left); creativity/the gestalt (right)

Paul MacLean's (1978) model of the brain as a triune organ that evolved to process survival, emotional, and rational functions

Howard Gardner's (1983) suggestion that our conscious brain functions through multiple forms of intelligence processed in different brain areas

Gazzaniga's (1985) conception of the brain as a vast number of interconnected, semi-autonomous networks of neurons called modules, each specializing in a limited cognitive function. Neural modules are formed to consolidate activities in order to process complex cognitive functions.

Brain Structure

Brain StructureExtend both arms palms open and facing

down and lock your thumbsCurl your fingers to make 2 fistsTurn your fists inward until knuckles

touchPull connected fists to your chest to look

down on your knucklesThis is the approximate size of your brain!

Sousa, D. (2006). How the Brain Learns, Corwin Press

Brain StructureYour thumbs are in front and crossed to

remind us that the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa

The corpus coliseum connects the two halves (250 million nerve fibers)

Brain StructureTips of your fingers are the LIMBIC

systemBuried deep in brain, symmetricalHypothalamus controls homeostasis of the

body (hormones, appetite, thirst, sleep, etc.)Amygdala regulates emotions, especially fear,

encodes emotional content of memoriesThalamus monitors incoming sensory

informationHippocampus moves information from

working memory to long-term storage (mostly during sleep)

Brain Structure

Brain Research suggests the following about the learning process:

Every brain is a uniquely-organized system. The brain is a social organ. 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 focused and peripheral perception. Learning always involves conscious and unconscious

processes. Learning is developmental. Complex learning is enhanced by challenge and

inhibited by threat. Sources: R. Sylwester. A Celebration of Neurons. (1995);R.N. Caine and G. Caine. Making

Connections. ASCD (1997)

How Does Dimensions of Learning Reflect Brain Research?

Developing Positive

Attitudes and

Perceptions About

Learning

Acquiring and

Integrating Knowledge

Extending and

Refining Knowledge

Meaningful-Use Tasks

Productive Habits of

Mind

How Does the Brain Construct Meaning?1.Relevance. On a cellular level, it's the activation of existing

connections in neural networks. It relates to something the learner already knows some information about. The more relevance this has to the learner, the greater the meaning.

2.Emotion. When the learner's emotions are engaged, the brain "codes" the content by triggering the release of chemicals that single out and "mark" the experience as important and meaningful. Emotions activate many areas in the brain, including the prefrontal cortices, amygdale, hippocampus. This may give meaning to something without your having any understanding of it.

3.Pattern. Isolated information has little meaning. The brain builds larger patterns to help form genuine structures of meaning. The context helps make it part of an overall pattern. Context can be social, intellectual, physical, economic, geographic, political, or any other pattern which makes meaning.

What Are Neurons? Why Are They So Important?Neurons are nerve cells. Thirty thousand

of them fit into a space the size of a pinhead. A typical neuron is composed of a main cell body with nucleus and two branches; the outgoing is called the “axon” while the incoming branch is called the “dendrite.” The connecting point for the two is called the “synapse.”

All information processing in the brain consists of neurons “talking” to one another. Learning is defined as “the establishment of new synapses” and the “modification of connectivity among neurons.” (Pat Wolfe)

What Are Neurons? Why Are They So Important?Seven strategies can help to enrich

students' environment to help them make new connections or “neural branching”:

(1) hypothetical thinking; (2) reversal (what happens if we reversed...?); (3) application of different symbol systems

(e.g., explaining the Graduation Requirements in pictures or symbols);

(4) analogies (looking for correspondences); (5) analysis of point of view; (6) completion (filling in incomplete elements); (7) web analysis (uncovering the complex

multiple effects extending from a single source). Cardellichio and Field (Educational

Leadership, March 1997),

How Can Counselors Use Knowledgeof the Brain to Promote

Attention and Retention of learning?Manage discipline through changes of activity,

emotional arousal, or curiosity in order to help students control their reactive brain stems.

Our neo-cortex is a pattern-seeking, pattern-making organ. Something goes from information to meaning by organizing data into patterns.

Feedback, immediate and dramatic, is the all-time best way to foster intelligence. Learners are constantly switching from internal to external, focused to diffused learning. It is natural that students will move in and out of phase during the learning process.

“Enriched” environments mean greater companionship and more active involvement in challenge and novelty, helping neural branching to occur with appropriate stimulation.

How Can Counselors Use Knowledgeof the Brain to PromoteAttention and Retention of learning?

The brain is not designed to take on big ideas easily. It has to chunk them in pieces or build up its own mental models over time

Use Graphic organizers. Experience-based learning reinforces context-based learning, the form of learning proven best in promoting long-term retention.

“Our brain is a box packed with emotions.”

How Can Counselors Address the Implications of Brain Research?

Orchestrate the learner's experience so that all aspects of brain operation are addressed (i.e., emotions, imagination, analytical thinking, etc.).

Everything that affects our physiological functioning affects our capacity to learn. We need to be sensitive to physical needs and the maturation continuum.

The learning environment needs to provide stability and familiarity; at the same time, provision must be made to satisfy students' curiosity and hunger for novelty, discovery, and challenge.

Learners are patterning, or perceiving and creating meanings, all the time in one way or another. Ideally, present information in a way that allows brains to extract patterns, rather than attempt to impose them.

IV. Think-Pair-ShareFor yourself as a future professional school

counselor, which strategies do you think would be hardest to implement in promoting student learning and retention? Why?

What can School Counselors Learn from the National Curriculum Reports Recommendations?

More active learning in the classroom, with all the attendant noise and movement of students doing, talking, and collaborating

More responsibility transferred to students for their work: i.e., goal-setting, record-keeping, monitoring, and evaluation

More enacting and modeling of the principles of democracy in schools

More attention to affective needs and the varying cognitive styles of individual students

More cooperative, collaborative activity: developing the classroom as an interdependent community

More heterogeneously-grouped classrooms where individual needs are met through inherently-individualized activities, not segregation of bodies

How Can School Counselors Promote Learning and Thinking?

Encourage active

learning and promote

higher-order thinking

higher levels of Bloom's

Taxonomy when asking

questions

Incorporate writing

Incorporate

cooperative learning structures.

Use a “Three-Minute Pause.”

How Can School Counselors Promote Learning and Thinking- when processing information?

•Remember “Wait Time.”•Use think-pair-share strategies.

•Ask follow-up questions and related probes.•Withhold judgment during key sections of discussions.

•Ask for summaries to promote active listening.•Use class surveys to determine opinions and check for

understanding.

•Ask students to defend their positions.

•Call on students randomly.

•Encourage student questioning.

V. Think, Pair, ShareReview your free write from slide

three.

How has your

concept of learning changed?

What five things will you consider when preparing a classroom lesson