What the Brain Likes

by Wayne Jennings, Ph.D.

The new way to look at learning, brain-compatibility, offers the potential to boost knowledge and skills for all students. I'll talk about what the brain likes, that is, what works for the brain. Unwittingly, teachers often use practices in classrooms that interfere with the brain's efficient and natural processes for learning. Without an understanding of how the brain learns, they may not appreciate the brain's needs.

Real live student brains complicate the topic because, although all brains are similar, learning styles and multiple intelligence preferences make it impossible to say that every brain likes the same thing. Still, much is common among diverse student brains.

It's quite clear that the brain likes, even finds essential, new experiences. It strives to make sense of the world and to develop understanding. It creates meaning from experiences, with each experience contributing to increased refinement about some aspect of life. Children from higher income families generally have the advantage of a wider variety of activities, events, travel, toys, visitors and complex language, all raw material or experiences for the brain to consider and "play" with.

Teachers can make use of the principle of learning from experience or what Dewey referred to as learning by doing. The brain must exercise its powers to learn what works and why something doesn't work. For example, a student makes a presentation in class and observes very directly how interesting it was to classmates and the teacher. Because so much rides on the student's sense of self-worth and acceptance, the brain pays very close attention to what might have been more effective. Without the experience of making a presentation, the student would not learn critical ways of speaking better.

The same example magnified hundreds of times a day through other experiences yields valuable feedback to the brain about how to increase competence. This happens automatically by the brain but can be enhanced with reflection and outside suggestions as long as delivered in what the brain considers a non-threatening manner or direction.

Students deprived of new experiences or who remain largely passive in classrooms starve their brains of needed substance for learning. The brain learns through experiences, exploration, testing its "wings," and receiving feedback, suggestions or coaching.

Teachers help their students' brains grow by making class activities more experiential, active and reflective through meaningful exercises, a greater variety of materials and media, community based learning, field trips and visitors to the classrooms. They can introduce project-based and problem-based learning, key off student interests and questions, and increase student initiated topics. Teachers who use interdisciplinary approaches or thematic study increase student grasp of new material because of greater similarity to real life rather than the thin gruel of isolated bits of knowledge in a single subject area.

Any understanding of the brain begins with accepting the concept of the brain as the organ for learning. The brain handles all purposeful learning, behavior, and emotions. Most educators, including many in training, have not been adequately exposed to the body of valuable new insights which forms the basis of brain-compatible education.

Research on Interdisciplinary and Experiential Approaches

There is a long history of research supporting interdisciplinary approaches from the famous Eight Year Study to research done at the University of Minnesota, research on service learning, project based learning and experiential learning in general. Several recent national reports on secondary schools call for major reform in the direction of the learner-centered approaches and interdisciplinary learning. See for example,

Preparing Schools and School Systems for the 21st-century by AASA.
Organizing for Learning: toward the 21st-century by NASSP.
Breaking Ranks: Changing an American Institution by NASSP.
Turning Points 2000: Educating Adolescents in the 21st-century by NASSP and NMSA.
Paths to Success for Middle Level Education in Minnesota by Minnesota Department of Education.

Deborah Hartzler, "A Meta-Analysis of Studies Conducted on Integrated Curriculum Programs and Their Effects on Student Achievement," and unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University 2000. Dissertation Abstracts International, September, 2000. Conclusion: "Students in integrated curricular programs consistently out-performed students in traditional classes on national standardized tests, on state-wide testing programs, and on program developed assessment. Integrated curriculum has been shown to be a viable alternative to traditional subject-centered programs without fear of student failure or declining standardized test scores."William Wraga, " A Century of Interdisciplinary Curricula in American Schools" Reported in Annual Review of Research for School Leaders , 1996.Gordon Vars, "The Effects of Interdisciplinary Curriculum and Instruction." Reported in Annual Review of Research for School Leaders , 1996.Laura Van Zandt and Shari Albright, " The Implementation of Interdisciplinary Curriculum and Instruction." Reported in Annual Review of Research for School Leaders , 1996.