Mary Jo Loch

EdHD 5003
7-20-09
Brain Based Education

This paper is about brain based education. Some aspects of brain based education that can

be applied in the classroom are novelty, meaningfulness and relevance to students' real lives, and

emotion.

“Novelty attracts the attention of the brain” (Strother 2007). One of the challenges of

teachers is keeping their students' attention. Introducing something new that students will be

curious about is a good way to do this. Just as babies always want to explore anything new in the

room, students will be drawn to new objects or problems that you introduce to them. In fact, if

students enter the room and there are unfamiliar objects laying on a table, a teacher could have a

hard time getting students to stop and listen to directions before they begin tinkering with the new

items (Rodgerson 2009). It is best to wait to introduce novel items until the moment you want

students to start interacting with them.

A teacher could use novelty in a second language classroom by bringing in cultural artifacts

for students to look at. Or, a more interactive way to use novel objects is to bring in various items

of interesting clothing to teach clothing vocabulary. The teacher can teach the vocabulary while

holding up each item for the class to see. The teacher should bring two of each item. Students can

form teams and have a relay race to see who can put on each item the fastest when the item is

called. I find that the uglier or sillier the clothing is, the better. Using clown shoes for shoes is a

good example. Students will be eager to try on the novel clothing items.

Another aspect of brain based learning is the role of emotion. Students learn best in a

positive environment with minimal stress and fear (Hinton et al 2008). If students have learned that

being called up to write on the board will result in embarrassment and disparaging remarks from the

teacher, they will become conditioned to fear coming up to the board. This fear can disrupt their
concentration so that they will never do well when called to the board (Hinton et al 2008). High

levels of stress disrupt learning, so teachers would do well to eliminate bullying and focus more on

learning rather than judging performance. Emotion also has an influence on motivation; if students

get emotionally involved in a topic, they will have more interest in it and can learn the material

better (D'Arcangelo 2000).

In a language classroom, a positive learning environment is very important so that students

will learn but also so students will not be afraid to try out their new language. Fortunately, it is

relatively easy to make a language learning environment positive and fun by playing games and

avoiding over-correcting students. Teachers should focus more on getting students to produce a lot

of language that has errors rather than a small amount of correct language. Teachers can also get

students emotionally involved by setting up online friendships between students and peers from

target language countries.

Another brain based factor in learning is making the material meaningful and relevant to

students' lives. “When something has meaning, it is relevant to the person and imbues purpose”

(Strother 2007). Students need to be able to see how what they are learning can apply to real world

situations. Lessons should “make sense,” that is, it should fit into students' experiences and what

they already know about the world (Strother 2007). There are a few ways that this can be applied in

the language classroom.

Again, matching students up with online chat partners from the target culture can show kids

how they can use what they're learning to talk with new friends. Students should also be taught

things they will actually use. For example, high school students want to learn new languages to talk

to peers, so it probably would not interest them as much to learn business or political vocabulary as

much as it would interest them to learn slang or how to talk about things they're passionate about.

These are only a few ways brain based learning concepts can inform language teaching.
 Works Cited

D’Arcangelo, M. (2000). How does the brain develop? A conversation with Steven Petersen.
Educational leadership, 59(3) p. 68-71

Hinton, C., Miyamoto, K, Della-Chiesa, B. (2008). Brain research, learning and emotions:
implications for education research, policy and practice. European Journal of Education,
43(1) p.87-103.

Rodgerson, R. (2009). College of Education and Human Development:

Developmental and
Individual Differences in Educational Contexts. University of Minnesota.
Class lecture notes.

Strother, M. A. (2007). A mind for adventure. Reclaiming children and youth, 16 (1), p. 17- 21.