The Brain, How do we learn anyway?

Sleep – How important is it?

It may surprise you to know that when we are awake there is a part of the brain that wants us to sleep and when we are asleep there is a part of the brain that wants us to waken. We are learning when we are awake; however, when we sleep we are still learning. The brain replays what we learn thousands of times while we are asleep. We know that we are less effective when we do not sleep. We lose working memory, our moods are affected negatively, our reasoning is affected, our fine and large motor skills and responses are affected. There is no specific determined amount of sleep that each of us needs. This is also dynamic depending on our age and our gender. We do know that mid day or around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, we flat line and that a nap increases productivity. This is about mid way from your sleeping time and your waking time.

How the brain works

Exercise

We all know that the brain is good for the body. Do you know that the brain is part of the body? Of course you do. Then why do we not stop to realize that exercise is important to development and learning? Exercise will reduce the risks for dementia, it will help to reduce stress, it increases problem solving skills and it helps to increase skills needed for attention. Studies have shown that people who exercise out perform their counterpart couch potatoes hands down. When the exercise ceases, the brain function is diminished.

Years ago we were nomads. We moved our bodies constantly. We have now become couch potatoes. We sit at our desks in the office. We sit in front of our computers. We sit period much more than ever.

Why does movement increase cognition? The answer is fairly simple. Exercise increases oxygen flow into all areas of the body, which not surprisingly includes the brain. This leads to mental sharpness. Exercise affects the molecular structure of the brain in a positive manner. Thirty minutes of aerobic exercises just a mere twice a week increases the brain function much more effectively than toning exercises. The brain also needs glucose. It will take as much oxygen from food as it can. We need more blood vessels to get more oxygen. How do we get more blood vessels? You guessed it, exercise. Exercise is like fertilizer, it like the Miracle Grow for the brain. In a nutshell, exercise reduces risk for diabetes, it aides memory formation, strengthens muscles and bones, controls appetite, improves fluid intelligence, reduces heart disease and it helps to reduce depression. Always check with your doctor before beginning any exercise regimen. The brain craves exercise. So get to it!

Why do we have such a complex brain?

It is believed that our ancestors walked on all fours. We evolved to walk upright to move more efficiently. This freed up our hands. We were no longer building up our muscles. We were building up our minds. The brain is basically centered on survival. Over time we were in the great outdoors with many dangers. The brain adapted and evolved as needed.

Our brain evolved from a single lizard brain to containing three parts. We have what is referred to as a dual brain which enables us to view an object and see it as more than what is physically present. We can transform it into other objects using our brains. This is the element that makes us uniquely human.

As a teacher, I am often reaching out to a bright student to help them feel proud of their skills. Athletes are revered. Brainiacs are often put down. Did you know that it is not the strongest body that survives; it is the strongest brain that survives. Humans have never been the strongest physically of the creatures; however, we have the strongest brains. The climate changed rapidly in a number of areas. Only those with the brains to adapt survived. Humans survived because they had the strongest brains to understand they needed to adapt to their new environment.

Feeling safe is also important to brain development. As an educator I have often observed that those who feel the safest progress on a more rapid continuum, which is why I work very hard with my students to create a safe learning environment right from the beginning of the year.

When the brain receives information it takes it all in. The information is converted into electrical signals. The information is then spurted off to separate sections of the brain. Colors are broken down into yellow, blue, green, etc. Shapes are also broken down and sent to individual sections and so on. An example of this is a man had a stroke. He lost the function of vowels. When he wrote a sentence such as: The red barn is up the hill, he wrote it: Th_ r_d b_rn _s _p th_ h_ll. Each of our brains is different as we each have different experiences. If I mention Red Skelton, the comedian and I have a memory of him, I have an area of the brain that recognizes this information. If you have no knowledge of this comedian, you will not have an area of the brain that I have developed. In the same context, you will have experiences that I do not have; thus, you will have developments that I do not have. These are our neuron connections. We are thus wired differently. This makes it very challenging for brain surgeons as each of us have different brain schema. The surgeon must thus view each patient differently.

Brain Capability for multi-tasking

There is a great deal of talk presently about cell phones and texting. There have been an increasing amount of accidents. That is because the brain is just not capable of such multi-tasking. The brain must switch off for a few seconds to perform the task of texting. Even a half second can make the difference in when we are able to brake as needed to stop a car. Texting and using cell phones is actually more dangerous than driving drunk. Yes, you will see students, teachers and office personnel instant messaging, answering phones, etc. This is when the error rate increases fifty percent and efficiency is reduced considerably.

From an educational standpoint

Unfortunately, we have created an environment in the classroom that does not support the research. Students are sitting at desks. As teachers, we must become increasingly aware of the need for movement.

The attention structure is another factor which must be considered. Each of us can pay attention for a mere ten minutes at a time. Beyond that the presenter must do something to get the attention of his or her audience.

We all ignore boring things. It is the way our brain is structured. If we are to pay attention to something, it needs to be connected to our memory in some manner. It is because our experiences tell us what we should pay attention to, which is why cultural influences our decisions also.

We forget 90 percent of what we learn in a classroom within a month and a half. What happens in the first few seconds of a presentation determines whether we will remember it or not. The human brain is only able to retain seven bits of information for thirty seconds or less. The only way to remember something longer is repetition.

We have two types of memory. We have automatic memory. This encompasses events that we will remember forever even if we do not repeat it. Then we have effortful processing. This may be a new phone number that you need to repeat a number of times to remember it. We also have working memory. This is memory that will remain with us for perhaps an hour or so while we need it. It is then forgotten information. We also have long term memory which is information that we commit to memory through repetition. This is the phone number that we memorized by repeating it until we know we will not most likely forget it. This is why educators of all types apply spiral learning with information being repeated over time.

Multi-sensory classrooms have more effective learning. The brain will retain more while watching a movie if the smell of lemon or other food in introduced. Walk into a bakery. Trust me those great smells are not an accident. Two senses affected are better than one. Three are better than two or one and so on. Research shows that problem solving improves when two senses are included. The sense of sight trumps all. If you hear bits of information, you will remember it for a short time. If you see the information, you will remember it for much longer. If a presenter combines both visual with auditory, the brain will remember the information six times longer than one or the other in isolation.

Males and females differ not only in the obvious but in their brains as well. There is much research being done presently to understand how such differences affect each gender.

Babies are wonderful to observe as they are a clean slate. They show how humans have a natural curiosity for learning. This is based on the need for survival which is how the human brain evolved initially. So, if you are the teacher in any format business or the classroom, I hope this information will help you better understand how humans learn.

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