Teaching With the Brain in Mind

Apprenticeships
Encourage the use of more relationship-driven
learning by providing apprenticeship relationships
with experts. Multi-age classrooms, big-brother/
big-sister programs, and community-active adults
are perfect examples of support systems.
Think Big
Do fewer, but more complex projects, especially
lengthy multi-level projects, with sufficient time
and resources. Students in a science class could
plan a five-year trip to Mars. The project would
involve skills in math, science, problem solving,
research, economics, and social skills. Complex
projects present more opportunities for curiosity,
mystery, social interaction, frustration, excitement,
challenge, fulfillment, and celebration than shorter,
simpler ones.
The Importance of Context and
Patterns
In his book Pattern Thinking, Andrew Coward
(1990) says the brain forms quick hierarchies to
extract or create patterns. The patterns give context
to information that otherwise would be dismissed
as meaningless. This desire to form some
kind of meaningful pattern out of learning seems
innate. Children create games that organize behaviors,
and they will arrange objects into patterns
rather than leave them random. Adults organize
dishes, cars, tools, sewing articles, businesses, file
cabinets, and book chapters.
Researchers believe this patterning may begin
on a micro level. Individual neurons do not seem
to exhibit learning, only groups of neurons. These
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The Brain as a Meaning-Maker
networks or “clouds” of neurons seem to be able to
recognize and respond to meaningful learning. In
fact, scientists are currently testing models of perception
and learning that may mimic the brain’s
visual system (Bruce and Green 1990). These “connectionist”
models mirror neuronal groups and
synapses. Although they caution us in calling it a
biological match, early findings are encouraging.
Other areas of neurobiology suggest pattern
making may be innate. In a classic experiment,
infants were shown a series of drawings. Each
illustration had exactly the same elements as a
human face. But only one had them in a coherent,
human face shape and form. The others had the
eyes, nose, hair, and mouth scrambled. To determine
the interest and value to an infant, careful
recordings were made of which figures were preferred
by “gaze time.” The pattern of a human face
in its correct form had much more meaning to
infants, even those a few days old (Franz 1961).
Infants as young as 10 months or less are drawn
to, and can recognize, patterns quicker than nonpatterns
(Mehler and Dupoux 1994). On videotape,
infants show puzzled looks when presented
with scattered, “unpatterned” material. These studies
suggest we are wired to pay attention to certain
patterns.
In tests of visual perception, researchers have
shown not only that we are “naturals” at learning
pattern discrimination but at applying it to other
models. One researcher says it’s the making of
familiar connections (relevance) and locating conforming
neural networks (pattern making) that are
critical to the formation of meaning (Freeman
1995). How important is the process of pattern
making to the brain? Child development expert
Jane Healy says, “I am increasingly convinced that