Chapter 2: What Brain Research Tells Us About Learner Differences
Three primary networks, structurally and functionally distinguishable but closely connected and functioning together, are equally essential to learning.
Recognition networks are specialized to sense and assign meaning to patterns we see; they enable us to identify and interpret patterns of sound, light, taste, smell, and touch. These networks enable us to recognize voices, faces, letters, and words, as well as more complex patterns, such as an author's style and nuance, and abstract concepts like justice.
…recognition is distributed across different areas, each specialized to handle a different component of recognition called modules. All the modules have the same basic structure, but the tissue in each region is fine-tuned to process one type of input extremely efficiently. The brain's modules are interconnected through multiple pathways, enabling visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile recognition to influence one another.
The distributed nature of processing in the brain leads to myriad subtle differences in recognition between individual learners.
Bottom-up and top-down recognition processing both play critical roles in learning. Consider learning to read: The common assumption used to be that reading was mainly a bottom-up activity, wherein letters are recognized by their features, synthesized into words and sounds, and then analyzed for meaning. But research has shown that it is easier and faster to recognize letters in the context of words than it is to recognize them in isolation. This phenomenon, termed the word superiority effect (Adams, 1994), occurs because familiarity with the larger pattern (the word) constrains the bottom-up process of individual letter recognition and leads a reader to rely more on his or her expectation of what letters will come next and less on the actual visual features of those letters. Use of context and meaning to predict what is coming next is another familiar example of the top-down processing used in reading.
The power, flexibility, and speed of recognition networks are critical to how humans experience the world and are thus worthy of the attention of teachers and curriculum designers. As teachers, understanding the pattern of strengths and weaknesses within a learner's recognition networks can help us individualize the kind of challenge and support we provide, thus maximizing every student's opportunity to learn.
This schematic drawing of the lateral surface of the human brain shows the regions primarily responsible for recognition.
Strategic networks are specialized to generate and oversee mental and motor patterns. They enable us to plan, execute, and monitor actions and skills.
The neural networks responsible for generating patterns of mental and motor action occupy their own unique territory, located primarily in the part of the brain called the frontal lobes. within the frontal lobes, the prefrontal cortex oversees complex strategic capacities and is critical for identifying goals, selecting appropriate plans, and self-monitoring.
The pattern of activity distributed across the modules of the frontal lobes shapes how we plan and execute actions. These modules function in parallel, enabling us to perform highly complex actions with ease.
…being mindful of the parallel nature of strategic processing can help us better understand individual learners and design optimal supports for each.
Understanding the way strategic network function and the differences in students' strategic networks is a useful guide when teaching skills and strategies such as predicting, summarizing, and determining the steps needed to solve a problem or write an essay. Differences in strategic skills manifest as preferences, proclivities, or significant strengths and weaknesses.
This schematic drawing of the lateral surface of the human brain shows the regions primarily responsible for strategy.
Affective networks are specialized to evaluate patterns and assign them emotional significance; they enable us to engage with tasks and learning and with the world around us.
Learning requires interaction with the external world-with varied materials, tools, people, and contexts. But different students experience the same situations in very different ways. What individuals "see" is determined partly by their own internal state-a melting pot of emotions, needs, and memories.
Emotion, like recognition and strategy, belongs to circumscribed networks within the brain. Recognition networks help us to identify objects, such as coffeepots and cars, and strategic networks enable us to act on these objects-reaching to pour, turning to steer. Affective networks attach emotional significance to these objects and actions, influencing in a third way what we see and do.
This medial view of the brain shows the limbic lobe, site of the affective networks. The limbic lobe includes primitive cortical tissue (stippled area), the fontal lobes, and underlying cortical structures (hippocampus and dentate gyrus, not shown).
As with the other two networks, the modules that make up affective networks are hierarchically organized, and the information travels in both bottom-up and top-down directions. Bottom-up connections in affective networks ensure that we are emotionally responsive to the outside world.
Affective top-down processing helps us consciously calm ourselves through a variety of techniques such as breathing, refocusing attention, and visualizing success.
Understanding affective issues can help teachers support all learners more appropriately. Of the three learning networks, affective networks are perhaps intuitively the most essential for learning, yet they are given the least formal emphasis in the curriculum. Teachers know how important it is to engage students in the learning process, to help them to love learning, to enjoy challenges, to connect with subject matter, and to persist when things get tough. When students withdraw their effort and engagement, it is tempting to consider this a problem outside the core enterprise of teaching…Attending to affective issues when considering students' needs is an integral component of instruction, and it can increase teaching effectiveness significantly.
Consider these differences: Some students prefer to read in a quiet environment; others are comfortable reading in the middle of noisy activity. Some like the predictability of reading familiar stories multiple times, whereas others find rereading boring. Some students like the structure of being told what books to read and when to read them
These three networks share two common characteristics that have particular significance for learning: (1) Processing is distributed laterally across many brain regions operating in parallel (enabling, for example, simultaneous processing of color and shape); and (2) Processing is distributed hierarchically, enabling simultaneous processing of sensory information entering low in the hierarchy and contextual influences entering high in the hierarchy (�top-down�).
The notion of broad categories of learners-smart, not smart, disabled, not disabled, regular, not regular-is a gross oversimplification that does not reflect reality. By categorizing students in this way, we miss many subtle and important qualities and focus instead on a single characteristic.
The modular organization of learning networks and the highly specialized subprocesses within networks mean that each student brings a unique assortment of strengths, weaknesses, and preferences to school.
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