Brain-Based Learning

Brain-Friendly Learning

Christopher A. Robinson, PhD

John Eric Gampher, Ph.D.

Please watch this (but do not write

anything down)…you will be tested

on it later

non verbal ToM stimuli.avi

Issues in this discussion:

a. What is knowledge?

b. What we store, what should we store,

and how we do this

c. How do we facilitate learning?

d. Cautions about brain-based learning but

attention to physiological needs

“Learning”

Before getting to “brain-friendly”, let us discuss knowledge and learning in general, how this relates to brain function and some suggestions on what is occurring and from that how we can facilitate this.

Someone tell me what you remember about the video clip I showed you at the beginning

Let me tell you a story. Unless the person who answered just now was an ASD, I just showed you that:

Your brain forms a narrative based on the information received

Once upon a time:

10000 years ago, before the invention of writing; people were making pottery, art, and musical instruments. They domesticated wild plants and animals. They built buildings. They told stories.

Willdendorf venus from

25,000 years ago

Hall of Bulls, from Lascaux

France (c. 15000–13000 BCE)

9000 year old flutes

from China

Though you might think of these as art, crafts, or culture; the reality is, it is a type of knowledge (something passed on, from which others learned).

Moving forward to around 2500 years ago and the time of the Egyptians and to the Greek Pythagoras, the recorded “stories” provided more than a description of things being done (or evidence of what was done) but also a solution to problems

Rhind papyrus from c. 1550 BCE.

The Moscow papyrus contains the

solution to many particular

geometrical problems, such as the

surface area of a hemisphere,

problems on the output of workers,

and other mathematical problems.

Moscow papyrus from c. 1850 BCE.

The Rhind papyrus also contains

the solution to many particular

geometrical problems, such as the

volume of a cylinder and rectangle,

or the area of a circle.

Solutions to problems are a type of knowledge. (quick…what

is 7 + 4?)

From the time of Pythagoras onward, we have limited the

discussion of knowledge to:

knowledge that is necessary, universal, and certain.

Not just everything you know or facts (11) but the things you

need to know and ways to generalize or solve problems

It no longer was

sufficient to know that

the hypotenuse of this

triangle was 5.

3

4

One had to know that

for any right triangle

the answer was: a2 + b2

= c2

Your brain (necessarily) works to generalize information to predict future outcomes

TOM example and a friend to describing something that happened to them

a2 + b2 = c2

A hallmark of this type of thinking is

quantification: the desire to put numbers (or

other symbols) to the issue.

To this end (attempting to learn a large amount

of sometimes abstract information), a system

of learning quickly developed that seemed to

allow people to recall a near infinite amount of

information: the method of loci.

Renowned for his poetic greatness, Simonides of Ceos had been hired to write about and sing praises of the deeds of Scopas, a certain nobleman.

Scopas objected to having received only half a panegyric, and told Simonides that he would only pay him half.

Later in the evening, Simonides was informed that he had two visitors at the door. After Simonides went outside to greet his visitors (who mysteriously disappeared), the roof of the hall that he had been performing in collapsed, mangling the bodies of those that had been inside including Scopas. (karma?)

The friends of those inside wished to bury the dead but

were unable to identify their bodies.

Simonides succeeded at this gruesome task by

remembering where each person had reclined while

eating dinner.

This experience suggested to Simonides the key to a

superior memory: orderly arrangement.

It is in this manner that Simonides discovered the

method of loci. Use of spatial relationships and

imagery, two elements which can help increase

memory.

How the Method of Loci works

“One must employ a large number of places which must be

well lighted, clearly set out in order, at moderate intervals

apart; and the images of which are active, sharply defined,

unusual, and which have the power of speedily encountering

and penetrating the psyche”

Your brain is good at

recognizing spatial

relationships. Utilize this

by combining spatial

locations and declarative

knowledge

To understand the importance of memory of declarative knowledge, we need to reflect on historical and cultural issues.

In particular, we have to realize that books were once hand-copied, rare and expensive.

For example the Codex Sinaiticus of the Bible cost enough to buy nearly eleven thousand loaves of bread.

While not all books were this expensive, we should not imagine that books were common.

The average scholar would only rarely have access to books and only then for a short period of time. (explain this to students who complain about text books).

Thus, it was no surprise that people put an emphasis on memorization of contents.

Though powerful, the method of loci, should be reserved when it is essential that a list of things needs to be memorized by rote (exactly).

A critical part of the story, which we glossed over, is the

invention of writing.

Prior to this, all knowledge had to be transferred either

orally or by practice.

With the invention of writing, it became possible to

have a document to consult if one forgot.

This then presents a question we might want to

consider: what is the purpose of education?

Storing information in the head?

Knowing how to store information in the head?

or

Knowing what information to store in the head and

what on the page?

We are in an era where information is highly accessible

(and hopefully accurate).

In one click, one can get images and text, immediately

follow up on that idea by hyper-texting from one idea

to another.

And we can do this with our portable device (tablet or phone).

Easy access to information does not necessarily

or automatically lead to knowledge. Remember

that memory and use of that information is

knowledge. As such, we must we careful about

reliance on the page. If you are not comfortable

taking my word on this matter….

Reliance on what is on the page…

If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.

(Plato, Phaedrus 275a-b)

Image of medieval university by Laurentius de Voltolina (1350s)

In a world of

universities, technical

colleges, professional

schools, the Internet,

the Teaching

Company, TedTalks,

what is the goal of

formal education?

Learning how to

store information,

learning what

information to store,

actually storing

information, and

manipulation of

information

Your memories, your feelings, the information

I mentioned on the previous slide; are all

based on patterns of neural activity. Learning

(based on current neuropsychology) is thus

reinforcement and potentiation of these

patterns so they are more easily activated.

Which brings me to…

Representations

Even though we can easily access specific information via “the page”, we must maintain them mentally in order to use the information.

Imagine an apple. What did you need to know in order to do that? What can do with your representation of the apple?

Memory is activation of a pattern of neural activity, knowledge is ability to manipulate and apply this

How to Facilitate Remembering

Activating those patterns of neural

activity

If we wish to remember something, we have multiple tools at our disposal.

a. Obviously the first tool is to pay attention in the first place.

b. Actively read the material (e.g., making it personal, deeply interlinking, multimodal presentation).

c. Distribute learning over a period of time

regularly quiz yourself, going over both material you already know and material you don’t.

e. If possible, reduce the strain on memory

http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html

Deeply Process

One of the best tips to retain material is to deeply process the material.

One way to do this is to come up with your own personal examples. Relate the material to things you know well

Like the method of loci where you associate less familiar, more abstract, less salient items with more familiar, concrete, highly salient ones

Research suggests that we rarely remember material verbatim. Rather, we tend to

build up a picture of what we are learning (multimodal representation with visual

primary as it is the modality we rely upon most heavily).

One way to facilitate learning is to start with a simplified form of what one is

trying to teach and gradually increase the complexity.

Let us say we are trying to teach how the heart works.

The heart takes un-oxygenated blood from the body, sends it to the lungs, it comes

back and is then sent through the body.

Heart---Lungs---Heart

Right Heart---Lungs---Left Heart

Have students

create their

own visual

representation.

This is

another way

to make the

learning

“active.”

Actively Integrate

You should also be able to link what you are learning with other information that you already know—either by contradictions, implications, or applications.

Use conditional statements, “if this is true, then what else must be the case . . .”

Ask yourself whether the material contradicts (or relates to) something learned before .

Part of this process is also trying to find other material that supports what you are trying to learn (e.g., lectures combined with documentaries combined with texts).

Does this phenomenon help

explain the location of

other deserts?

Explain What You Are Trying to Learn

With What You Already Know

This means that you need to relate what we are studying

to something that you know better and is more salient

(something of greater interest).

Work back and forth explaining what you already

know using the words and concepts you are trying to

learn.

I advise students after they have studied, to try to

explain the material to someone (if they cannot do

this then they do not have a full grasp of the material

Scientific literacy as riding a bike; the brain as a computer…

For your information…the brain has always been explained using the most current technology

(hydraulics, mechanical engine, etc.) none of which are accurate but more about that later

Repackaging

All of the methods I have described

involve combining/associating,

repackaging the information in a

way that facilitates your memory.

There are other things that you can do

as well to reduce the demands on

memory, such as making acronyms

(RoyGBiv), diagrams and pictures,

songs (e.g., Righty tighty),

mnemonics, connections between

words (e.g., learning Greek/Latin

roots). Some lovers try positions that

they can’t handle.

psyche = “soul” or “mind”

logos = “the study of”

How can one tell if the moon is waxing or waning?

If light on right, soon will be bright.

The First 14 days of the lunar cycle

Reduce the Strain on Memory

One great mnemonic tip is to reduce the strain on memory by reconstructing what one needs to know. Decreasing or eliminating what is unnecessary

Since poker is not my specialty, I will use a different example than the one Christopher used

(my apologies to anyone who was hoping to gain an advantage in their local card game)

Chess

• 8x8 grid (64 available spaces)

• 16 pieces (each side)

• 6 distinctive pieces: king, queen, bishop, knight, rook, pawn (each with a different movement pattern)

• The object is to prevent the escape of the opponents King (checkmate)

• It is one of the most popular games in the world, has

been around for 1500 years

• People spend their lives trying to master it

• Men have been programing computers to play chess

since the 50’s but it was not until 1997 (or 1996

depending on who you ask) that one could beat a

human chess champion

Why?

• There are 400 different possible positions after each

player makes one move apiece.

There are 72,084 positions after two moves apiece.

There are 9+ million positions after three moves

apiece.

There are 288+ billion different possible positions after

four moves apiece.

• 169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000 after 10

moves apiece

• Mathematically there are 5,949 possible moves in a

game but don’t worry the record number of moves is a

mere 100 (per player).

Garry Kasparov

Deep Blue

• So how do humans do it?

• We do not (can not) calculate or evaluate all

possible moves, responses to those moves,

responses to those responses, etc.

• Humans recognize patterns, grandmasters

recognize many more and much faster than

less skilled players

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=rWuJqCwfjjc&feature=player

_embedded

The same researchers who did the

Monkey business research

(selective inattention)

Shall we play a game…

First, let us get out common words that we already know (28).

Then, we have the notes of the musical scale (5 new ones)

Then, we can eliminate the names for the English letters of the alphabet (7).

After this, we can learn the 18 interjections.

Eleven of the forms are abbreviations.

Four of the forms are Greek letters.

We have reduced over 100 two

letter words into 6 groups

(chunking), which is within the

5-9 range (thus comfortably

maintained in memory

Distributed Study

One would be better off if you regularly study and test yourself, even over information that you already know.

First, if you are regularly studying, you will be able to quickly realize when you cannot recall or have not maintained understanding of something and have a chance to review it.

Second, you are less apt to be overwhelmed by a great deal of material at once.

Finally, distributing your study over time helps you retain it better.

The greater the number of times you activate a representation and in different (mental situations) the easier it will be to recall/activate later

Quick review:

a. pay attention (and attend to the correct things)

b. Actively read/study the material (e.g., making

it personal, deeply interlinking, multimodal

presentation).

c. Distribute learning over a period of time.

d. Regularly quiz yourself, going over both

material you already know and material you

don’t.

e. If possible, reduce the strain on memory

by organizing material into a reasonable number

of groups

Brain Based Learning?

It is quite fashionable to attempt to link learning with what we currently know (and think we know) about the brain (e.g., right-brained, VAK learning).

But we need to be very cautious in doing this.

Knowledge of brain function continually evolves and the effects of things such as laterality, state dependent learning, learning styles, etc. are often relatively small.

Ventricle Storage of Memory

Though we tend to identify the substance of the brain as the crucial part, till around 400 years ago the ventricles (fluid filled cavities devoid of neurons) were given primacy of importance.

Memories were believed to be stored in the back ventricle.

Nemesius of Emesa (c. 450s CE) explains the idea as follows: “The senses have their sources and roots in the front ventricles of the brain, those of the faculty of the intellect are in the middle part of the brain, and those of the faculty of memory are in the hinder brain”.

In the middle ages, Aquinas argued that “recollection involves a re-presentation of images imprinted in the matter of the brain’s posterior ventricle, which are then ‘scanned’ or ‘seen’ as object by the intellect in some way analogous to how the eye saw them in the first place.”

In our language, he argued that when remembering you re-viewed things with your mind’s eye.

PRINTING

Descartes’ View

Building his views on an old view of physiology, Descartes offers his explanation of memory.

The vestiges in the brain render it fit to move the soul in

the same fashion as it was moved before, and to make it remember some thing, even as the folds which are in a piece of paper or cloth make it more fit to be folded as it was before, than if it had never been folded.

Descartes later gave a hydraulic metaphor of the nervous

system (which oddly enough, Sigmund Freud relied upon) “pressure to relieve stress from the mind pushes unwanted

thoughts into the unconscious”

ORIGAMI and

HYDRAULICS

Hebbian Synapse

In 1949, Donald Hebb proposed what was to become the standard explanation of the biology of memory.

When an axon of cell A is near enough to excite cell B and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing it, some growth process or metabolic change takes place in one or both the cells so that A’s efficiency, as one of the cells firing B, is increased.

COMPUTERS

We have only known that the brain is

composed of cells for a century. Even with

rapid advancement, there is still much we

need to learn.

Current LTP based models cannot fully explain

memory. Like the historical models they

will continue to be revised.

COMPUTER

NETWORKS

Your Brain (and mine) • Attempts to create a narrative

• Establishes relationships

– Spatial, temporal

– Attempts to predict future outcomes

• Creates multimodal representations

– With vision as the primary mode

– and has the ability to manipulate these representations

• Has limited resources with regard to processing information

– attention is necessary to determine what is processed

• Interprets new information using previous information

– Neural patterns utilize different combinations of the same cells

• Requires repeated activation of neural patterns to maintain

them long term

– And multiple access points to these patterns

Review of how to learn

• Create a story using the information

• Utilize imagery and spatial relationships

• Organize information into a reasonable

number of groups or chunks

• Process information deeply relating it to

previous knowledge and personal experience

• Distribute and vary study of material to

reinforce and create cues for recall

And…hopefully I have not run out of time

Take care of physiological needs

first

Please notice sleep on

the bottom line,

which I wanted to

discuss but had to

sacrifice due to time

constraints

Conclusion:

a. What is knowledge?

b. What we store, what should we store,

and how we do this

c. How do we facilitate learning?

d. Cautions about brain-based learning but

attention to physiological needs

Thank you

Are there any questions?