"Three
principles from brain research: emotional safety, appropriate
challenges, and self constructed meaning suggest that a
one-size-fits-all approach to classroom instruction teaching is
ineffective for most students and harmful to some."
" No two
children are alike. An enriched environment for one is not necessarily
enriched for another. "
No two
children learn in the identical way.
In the
classroom we should teach children to think for themselves.
One
way is to group children so they are talking to each other, they are
asking questions of each other, they are learning to be teachers. One
of the most important concepts for a 5 year old to know is that he or
she can teach because you have to understand something to teach it."
Marian Diamonds:
Professor of Neuroanatomy at Berkeley
"So our
environment, including the classroom environment, is not a neutral
place. We educators are either growing dendrites or letting them wither
and die. The trick is to determine what constitutes an enriched
environment. A few facts about the brain's natural proclivities will
assist us in making these determinations:
The
brain has not evolved to its present condition by taking in
meaningless data; an enriched environment gives students an
opportunity to make sense out of what they are learning, what some
call the opportunity to "make meaning"
.
The
Brain develops in an integrated fashion over time. Babies do not talk
one week, tie their shoes the next, and then work on their emotional
development. An enriched environment addresses multiple aspects of
development simultaneously.
The
brain is essentially curious and it must be to survive. It constantly
seeks connections between the new and the known. Learning is a process
of active Construction by the learner and enrichment gives students
the opportunity to relate what they are learning to what they already
know. As noted educator Phil Schlechty says, "Students must do the
work of learning."
The
brain is innately social and collaborative. Although the processing
takes place in our students independent brains, their learning is
enhanced when the environment provides them with the opportunity to
discuss their thinking out loud to bounce their ideas off their peers
and to produce collaborative work.
Marian
Diamonds and her team of researchers at the University of California at
Berkeley have been studying the impact of enriched environments on the
brains of rats. Diamonds believes that enriched environments
unmistakably influence the brain's growth and learning. An enriched
environment for children Diamonds says:
Includes a steady source of positive support;
Provides a nutritious diet with enough protein, vitamins, minerals and
calories;
Stimulates all the senses (not necessarily at once)
Has an
atmosphere free of undue pressure and stress but suffused with a
degree of pleasurable intensity;
Presents a series of novel challenges that are neither too easy nor
too difficult for the child at his or her stage of development;
Allows
social interaction for a significant percentage of activities;
Promotes the development of a broad range of skills and interests:
mental, physical, aesthetical, social and emotional;
Gives
the child an opportunity to choose many of his or her efforts and to
modify them;
Provides an enjoyable atmosphere that promotes exploration and the fun
of learning;
Allows
the child to be an active participant rather than a passive observer.
Diamond M. & Hopson. J. (1989)
Magic trees of the mind
Dutton, New York
Extrapolating from the above quotations we may conclude the following:
Not
all students need to be doing the same thing at the same time. Some
group work would therefore be appropriate.
Students are not all at the same level of ability and they don't learn
in the same way. It follows that different groups within the same
class should be working at a variety of different levels of complexity
and/or difficulty simultaneously, but at different rates.
Students need to be actively involved in making decisions and
modifications to their learning efforts.
Students need appropriate challenges, a secure environment, an
opportunity to explore ideas and have fun learning.
Students need to learn to ask questions, think and interact verbally.
Students need to be able to construct meaning by interacting with
peers, problems, issues and with materials.
Learning is more effective if concepts are learned in context and
related to existing knowledge. Content needs to be relevant,
integrating multiple aspects simultaneously.
Peer
teaching may be as valuable for the child who is "teaching" as for the
"learner".
These web pages were assembled
for teachers. There are well over 100 pages on this site and all have a
similar format. All pages that vary in appearance from this page are
linking off site to the work of others. Every effort
was made to validate the educational substance of these
sites. Please remember that the dynamic nature of the Internet requires each of us to use
caution when presenting web sites to students.
