The research for learning and retention is vast. Self consciousness places a premium on skills that manage information and integrate thought rather than on rote memorization. Intelligence- a property of the mind that resides in the brain -is about innovation, which results from the novel associations of ideas found in information gained from experiences. More information has been obtained about how the brain learns in the past five years than in our entire human history. Until recently, we have had few clues to unlock the secrets of the brain.  Brain based research findings on how the brain processes and accesses information has improved and revised our understanding of the learning process. This provides a solid foundation on which I base my educational decisions in teaching, and I continue to research better ways to teach today's digital age students. 
 

Quality education works by a simple principal: contrast. If there is no difference between what you already know and what is offered, there is no contrast and there is no new learning. Enrichment is key.  Enrichment is a positive biological response to a contrasting environment. An enriching environment is where measurable, synergistic, and global changes have occurred within the brain. Enrichment creates cortical imprinting needed to release the acetylcholine (the common neurotransmitter known to help memory formation) necessary to form memory to save the new learning. We need meaningful context for an activity to get purposeful changes in the brain, and studies show that more relevant, meaningful learning is better. Enrichment is synergistic - enrichment can only be created, not offered. There are many forms of enrichment from physical classroom environment to teacher enthusiasm to meaningful and relevant academic content, which encourages and encourages student vesting in the subject and the classroom.
 

Skills and knowledge learned in a classroom can be taken into the real world by teaching and learning with brain science. Examples include:
            * Use of the 7E Learning Model Elicit, Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate, Expand (see also memory 1 and memory 2 charts below).
            * Understanding the Primacy-Recency effect in class-time management. This also incorporates the 10-80-10 rule, 10% review, 80% new content, 10% reinforcing new content with future applications.
            * Knowledge of Retrieval, and Scaffolding and Chunking of Information
            * The Power of Transfer (see below)
            * Differentiation and Learning Styles
            * Brain Lateralization, plasticity, and the incorporation of neuro-modulators and neuro-transmitters in teaching and learning
            * Use of Bloom's Taxonomy (The Revised Version 2001)
 

The Power of Transfer. "Transfer is the basis of all creativity, problem solving, and the making of all satisfying decisions." -Madeline Hunter, Mastery Teaching. Transferal refers to how the skills and knowledge can be synthesized into the real world of the student. It is the process that allows amazing inventiveness to unfold. Transfer enables the ability to learn in one situation and then use that learning in a modified or generalized form in another situation. Transfer is the core to problem solving, creative and critical thinking. 
Two types of transfer include:
Low Road Transfer: the automatic transfer of highly practiced skills, with little need for reflective thinking.
High Road Transfer: the explicit conscious formulation of abstraction in one situation that allows making one connection to another. From: Salomon, G. 1989. Rocky Roads to Transfer. Educational Psychologist 24 (2) 113-42.

Transfer can also be Positive and Negative. In Positive Transfer, past learning helps the learned deal with new learning. For example; a violin player and a trombone player both want to play the viola. Who will learn the new instrument more easily?  The violin player already possesses the skills and knowledge that will help learn the viola. Negative Transfer interferes with the learner's understanding of new learning, often resulting in confusion and errors. For example, you have driven a car with automatic transmission for most of your driving career. You are placed in manual shift automobile and are asked to drive. Your left foot is not accustomed to plunging down the clutch, nor is your right foot accustomed to releasing itself from the gas pedal when you shift. You have great difficulty driving the manual shift car. The skill you used before is now interfering with the skill needed in the new situation, this is negative transfer. Studies show that students are often not successful in recognizing how the skills and knowledge they learned in school apply to new situations they encounter in other classes or outside school. For example, students often have difficulty transferring computational skills they learned in mathematics class to solving problems in science class. David Sousa wrote: "Rote learning does not tend to facilitate transfer, but learning with understanding does. Thus, trying to learn too many concepts too quickly may hinder transfer because the learner is simply memorizing isolated facts with little opportunity to organize the material in a meaningful fashion and link it to prior related knowledge." -David Sousa; How The Brain Learns 2007

10 Elements promoting transfer include:
    1. Providing constructivist (what students already know) opportunities.
    2. Cues and support frequently using a scaffolding approach to learning. (building knowledge laterally to vertically).
    3. Providing real world connections with examples and activities that have meaning for learners.
    4. Encouraging communication and collaboration (part of constructivism).
    5. Consistent incorporation of both High and Low road.
    6. Encourage and prepare for Positive Transfer, and assist where Negative Transfer occurs. Help overcome the negative emotions associated with failure by providing the support that leads the student to success, no matter how small that success is.
    7. Use humor (not sarcasm) as an integral part of the lesson.
    8. Encouraging and providing opportunities for reflection, inferences, connections and interpretations.
    9. Explicitly reviewing the purposes behind activities with goal setting in mind.
   10. Spend less time on class rules and test schedule, and more time on asking "How did you learn?"  "What part of the lesson worked best for you?"  This is "thinking about their thinking", e.g. meta-cognition. A 2004 Gallup poll of students indicated that they respond best to teachers who have plenty of latitude to be highly creative, to build strong relationships, and to tailor the learning process to the needs of each individual student.

Eric Jensen encouraging teachers to immerse students in an enriched and positive-thinking environment. He also describes specific areas of research that have important implications for learning and memory:

    The hormonal brain: hormones can and do impact cognition
    The moving brain: how movement influences learning  
    The spatial brain: how space and relational learning and recall works
    The attentional brain: the prefrontal cortex, what really drives attention and ADD
    The emotional brain: impact of threats on hormones, memory, cells and genes
    The patient brain: the role of time in the learning process
    The computational brain: the role of feedback in forming neural networks
    The artful brain: the role of arts and music
    The connected brain: how our brain is body and body is brain
    The developing brain: what to do and when to do it; value of the first 3 years
    The hungry brain: what to eat; the role of nutrition in learning and memory
    The chemical brain: which chemicals do what and how to activate the right ones

"Too often children are given answers to remember rather than problems to solve." -Robert Lewin

Brain Based Teaching & Learning: Power Points, Articles, Principles, and more:

        A Fresh Look At Brain Based Education by Eric Jensen also at: http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v89/k0802jen.htm

        A Walk Through Your Brain

        Childhood Environment Today vs Yesterday

        The Framing Effect

        Bloom's Taxonomy (Revised 2001)

        Memory 1 and Memory 2  charts

        Brains in Science

        Mindscape of Human Thought

        Self Determination Theory  An Approach to Human Motivation and Personality

        The Teenage Brain

        Fist for a Brain

        What is Vesting?

        Our Student's Future

        Brain Books List (see also, sources & resources page)

        The Brain, Diet & Rewards

        Zen and the Art of Teaching Science

        The Myth of the Teenage Brain (Scientific American Mind Article)

        The Multi-Tasking Generation (Time Magazine Article Excerpt)

The following is from : "Thinking Maps"   by David Hyerle:

Thinking Maps Options p1
Thinking Maps Options p2
Thinking Maps
Rose Example p1
Thinking Maps
Rose Example p2