Brain-Based Learning Blog #1 due by Sunday night January 28th at midnight
This week many of you will be introduced to brain-based learning (or brain-compatible learning). This is a perfect compliment to the development of cognition. I mentioned that I’ve studied this field for many years and am certified as a brain-compatible expert. I’m even a member of a Brain Club (total nerd, right?!). I think this is an interesting theory in education to be aware of primarily, as some of the week’s readings explain, because it is the first-ever biological model for learning theory.
I often begin the methods courses I teach here at CSUDH (Go Toros!) by having students share about their most memorable positive experiences. After a class of around 35 share these marvelous experiences, we draw some generalizations about what makes learning memorable. For instance, many of the stories are about a learning experience that was rigorous! I love that! Many of the stories are about hands-on learning and learning that takes place outside of the classroom and/or school setting, i.e. in the community itself. I love this activity because it sets the stage for a methods course by helping us all ask the question: “How can I make rigorous learning memorable?”
But, you know what? I never asked students to speak about brain-antagonistic learning. Obviously, the opposite of brain-compatible learning would be brain-antagonistic learning and, although we’ve not read about the latter, I think we all know it and many of us have experienced it. So let’s focus on that just to read some scandalous stories (makes for more interesting reading, right?). Here is the question: What was your WORST learning experience and why?” No names, please! Ha! Just the story, let’s not smear anyone! Here, I’ll share mine first.
Circa 1964 I was in first-grade and I had my first spanking (my first!). The reason I got spanked was because we were coloring a Halloween ditto of a hissing cat and I colored my cat brown vertically and yellow horizontally. That’s it. I got beaten for that alone. My teacher (She Who Must Not Be Named) spanked me because she said, “You either color up-and-down or across, but you don’t do both on the same picture.” And I got spanked. She thought she was introducing me to reading that year and I guess in a way she did...but what she was spelling out to me is that teachers have all the power and can, if they want, be cruel. Here - I once wrote a little story about it.
Let’s be aware of what we DON’T want to do in a classroom as a result of these stories.
Okay. Brain-antagonistic stories! Let it rip!