“The human brain is an incredibly complicated mechanism that involves somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred billion neurons” (Goodman & Tessier-Lavigne, 1997; Siegel, 1999 in Ormrod, Schunk & Gredler, 2009). This week we have learned about the brain and learning. The brain is a vital organ that is responsible for teaching itself and learning by itself (Suarez, Martinez & Mendoza, 2018). Pretty amazing! An excellent article called, “Brain and Learning” (Suarez, Martinez, Mendoza, 2018), shared a study conducted around the functioning of the brain as it is related to educational processes. Some key points that were pointed out in the study were that the brain has the ability to store an unlimited amount of information; the brain has different memory systems; and the brain produces more complex responses when there are greater environmental stimuli (Suarez, Martinez, Mendoza, 2018). The impact of this knowledge on the brain is that when a teacher knows the process of information acquisition, storage, and evocation, he/she can develop more appropriate instructional tasks (Suarez, Martinez, Mendoza, 2018). Furthermore, the knowledge of the brain, its systems, functions, and implications for learning allows a teacher educational opportunities (Suarez, Martinez, Mendoza, 2018). Finally, the article explains a nuanced area of academic exploration known as neuroeducation, which is the joint understanding of neuroscience and education to harmonize within teaching methodologies (Suarez, Martinez, Mendoza, 2018). Overall, this resource does a great job of sharing how neuroscience and education can be blended to benefit students in the classroom.
Another area of focus this week was on the cognitive process in problem solving. Ormrod (in Laureate Education, n.d.) shared that the three cognitive processes of problem solving include encoding, retrieval, and metacognition. “In a similar vein, cognitive processes are defined as the mental processes of an individual, with particular relation to a view that argues that the mind has internal mental states (such as beliefs, desires and intentions) and can be understood in terms of information processing, especially when a lot of abstraction or concretization is involved, or processes such as involving knowledge, expertise or learning” (Ekwait et al, 2019, p. 22). This resource contains a study of twenty-five seventh graders to trace their cognitive processes with regard to learning a specific math concept. Through data collection and analysis, researchers found which cognitive processes were helpful to the seventh graders in their pursuit of new math material (Ekwait et al, 2019). The study helped to show that an understanding of the cognitive processes activated and employed while learning a new math skill can help inform teaching and methodologies (Ekwait et al, 2019).
Overall, these two academic articles on the brain and problem solving shed light on the world of teaching and learning. The implications of neuroscience can be very helpful to teacher professionals who want to design instructional tasks that meet the needs of all learners.
References
Ekawati, R., Kohar, A. W., Imah, E. M., Amin, S. M., & Fiangga, S. (2019). Students’ cognitive processes in solving problem related to the concept of area conservation. Journal on Mathematics Education, 10(1), 21-36.
Goodman, C. S., & Tessier-Lavigne, M. (1997). Molecular mechanisms of axon guidance and target recognition. In W. M. Cowan, T. M. Jessell, & S. L. Zipursky (Eds.), Molecular and cellular approaches to neural development (pp. 108–137). New York: Oxford University Press.
Ormrod, J., Schunk, D., & Gredler, M. (2009). Learning theories and instruction (Laureate custom edition). New York, NY: Pearson.
Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are. New York: Guilford.
Suarez, A. M. S., Martinez, M. E. M., & Mendoza, L. R. M. (2019). Brain and learning. International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 3(2), 128-135.
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