12 principles of Brain-Based Learning & Teaching
Since 1985 or so, MRIs, PET Scans and similar technologies have allowed scientists to see exactly which parts of the human brain activate when we: take a math test, hear music in class, feel intimidated by a teacher, get engaged with learning, etc. The result? A goldmine of research on "Brain-based" learning and teaching. Here are 12 of the most widely accepted conclusions.
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Blink:
The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell. (2000).
Are snap decisions really effective? Why are some people so much better at snap decision-making than others? Can you improve your ability to make better snap decisions? In this bestselling book, Gladwell translates cutting-edge neuroscience into quotable stories about decision-making in arenas like: speed dating, war games, and, accurately diagnosing heart attacks at Chicago's Cook County Hospital.
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The New Art of Teaching & Training
by Karen Pryor. (1984).
A groundbreaking behavioral scientist and dynamic animal trainer, Karen Pryor is a powerful proponent of the principles and practical uses of positive reinforcement in teaching new behaviors. Here are the secrets of changing behavior in pets, kids--even yourself--without yelling, threats, force, punishment, guilt trips...or shooting the dog.
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The Wisdom of Crowds
by James Surowecki
In 1968 the submarine Scorpion went down in the North Atlantic. Rescue teams faced an impossible 200 square mile search area. Half a dozen experts all suggested different starting points for the search. One maverick Admiral refused to choose, and aggregated the individual locations together. The resulting point was nowhere near any of the points suggested by any one expert - thankfully so. Navy divers found sub 220 yards from the aggregated starting point. Distilling meticulous research into compelling stories and case examples, Surowecki identifies the four conditions that make a crowd's "collective intelligence" produce better results even the smartest expert.
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Made to Stick
by Chip & Dan Heath
The brothers Heath offer an entertaining, practical guide to "stickiness"—that is, the art of making ideas unforgettable. Consider the gruesome urban legend about a man who wakes up in icewater in his hotel bathtub, the victim of an organ-harvesting ring. What makes such stories (true or not) memorable and ensures their spread around the classroom, the town, or the globe? The authors credit six key principles and illustrate each with a host of fun, stirring, and ultimately "sticky" stories.
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Six principles of learning from the best-selling Head First technical training series.
To write their best-selling self-study books on Java and other geeky topics, the authors chucked every "traditional" assumption about learning out the window and baked their own assumptions from scratch. Readers have been thanking them ever since. The fact is your brain craves novelty. It's constantly searching, scanning, waiting for something unusual to happen. After all, that's the way it was built to help you stay alive. Suppose you're out for a hike and a tiger jumps in front of you, what happens in your brain? Neurons fire. Emotions crank up. Chemicals surge. And real learning occurs. Click here to get the authors' fun, irreverent, and brilliant conclusions on "How Your Brain REALLY Learns Best."
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The Power of Mindful Learning
by Ellen Langer
After years of research, Harvard Psychologist Ellen Langer distilled seven myths that underlie "traditional" classroom teaching. Langer reveals how these seven myths (and many teachers' blind adherence to them) are at the root of many educational problems today. She also counters with five principles of her own, the basis of what she calls, Sideways Learning. Langer offers alternative teaching strategies based on her five principles, with startling results. For example, when Langer rewrote a chapter from a standard finance text so that facts were presented as conditional rather than absolute, students applied the material better, AND applied it more accurately than those using the original text.
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The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas With Pictures
Want one more way to cure Death by Slideshow? Start drawing simple diagrams to help illustrate complex concepts in whatever subject you teach. Many of us already know that a teacher co-creating a simple well-planned diagram WITH students is often much more effective than a dozen "professionally" prepared slides shown AT them. If you can draw a stick figure on the back of a napkin, then you can communicate and teach more effectively with pictures.
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