The Learning Brain

The Learning Brain
Author: Torkel Klingberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2013
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0199917108

Despite all our highly publicized efforts to improve our schools, the United States is still falling behind. We recently ranked 15th in the world in reading, math, and science. Clearly, more needs to be done. In The Learning Brain, Torkel Klingberg urges us to use the insights of neuroscience to improve the education of our children. The key to improving education lies in understanding how the brain works: that is where learning takes place, after all. The book focuses in particular on working memory--our ability to concentrate and to keep relevant information in our head while ignoring distractions (a topic the author covered in The Overflowing Brain). Research shows enormous variation in working memory among children, with some ten-year-olds performing at the level of a fourteen-year old, others at that of a six-year old. More important, children with high working memory have better math and reading skills, while children with poor working memory consistently underperform. Interestingly, teachers tend to perceive children with poor working memory as dreamy or unfocused, not recognizing that these children have a memory problem. But what can we do for these children? For one, we can train working memory. The Learning Brain provides a variety of different techniques and scientific insights that may just teach us how to improve our children's working memory. Klingberg also discusses how stress can impair working memory (skydivers tested just before a jump showed a 30% drop in working memory) and how aerobic exercise can actually modify the brain's nerve cells and improve classroom performance. Torkel Klingberg is one of the world's leading cognitive neuroscientists, but in this book he wears his erudition lightly, writing with simplicity and good humor as he shows us how to give our children the best chance to learn and grow.


The Learning Brain: Memory and Brain Development in Children

The Learning Brain: Memory and Brain Development in Children
Author: Torkel Klingberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2012-10-05
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0199986851

Despite all our highly publicized efforts to improve our schools, the United States is still falling behind. We recently ranked 15th in the world in reading, math, and science. Clearly, more needs to be done. In The Learning Brain, Torkel Klingberg urges us to use the insights of neuroscience to improve the education of our children. The key to improving education lies in understanding how the brain works: that is where learning takes place, after all. The book focuses in particular on "working memory"--our ability to concentrate and to keep relevant information in our head while ignoring distractions (a topic the author covered in The Overflowing Brain). Research shows enormous variation in working memory among children, with some ten-year-olds performing at the level of a fourteen-year old, others at that of a six-year old. More important, children with high working memory have better math and reading skills, while children with poor working memory consistently underperform. Interestingly, teachers tend to perceive children with poor working memory as dreamy or unfocused, not recognizing that these children have a memory problem. But what can we do for these children? For one, we can train working memory. The Learning Brain provides a variety of different techniques and scientific insights that may just teach us how to improve our children's working memory. Klingberg also discusses how stress can impair working memory (skydivers tested just before a jump showed a 30% drop in working memory) and how aerobic exercise can actually modify the brain's nerve cells and improve classroom performance. Torkel Klingberg is one of the world's leading cognitive neuroscientists, but in this book he wears his erudition lightly, writing with simplicity and good humor as he shows us how to give our children the best chance to learn and grow.


Everything You and Your Teachers Need to Know About the Learning Brain

Everything You and Your Teachers Need to Know About the Learning Brain
Author: Sabine Peters
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2020-12-08
Genre: Science
ISBN: 2889660265

Children go to school to learn, and learning takes place in the brain. In the age period of formal schooling, a child’s brain is still undergoing major developmental changes. For these reasons, neuroscience (the study of the brain) and education are closely connected. Learning is possible because the brain is plastic: plasticity refers to the capacity of the brain to reorganize its structure and thereby change function and behavior. But what exactly changes in the brain when we learn something new? What are optimal conditions for the brain to learn? Why do we also forget things? What developmental changes occur in the brain during childhood and adolescence, and how are these processes different or similar to the neural mechanisms of learning and memory? Neuro-imaging research, or ‘brain scanning’, has accelerated our current understanding of brain development, learning, memory and other school-related skills such as reading and math but also creativity, metacognition and learning-related emotions and anxieties. But what do these brain scanning techniques actually measure? What kind of questions can we address with neuro-imaging, and what are the limitations? In this Collection, we will provide an accessible overview of the current state-of-the-art insights into the mechanisms of brain development, learning and memory. The collection will help children understand how their brains learn and develop, and how these processes are shaped by their environment and their own efforts. Moreover, we will discuss why it is important that their teachers and other educational practitioners know about the brain and neuroscience methods. Finally, we will also explain what happens if wrong ideas about the brain circulate, or the correct knowledge is misinterpreted. Neuromyths such as ‘we only use 10 percent of our brain’ are persistent, but important to counter with explaining why they are false, and what is true instead.


From Neurons to Neighborhoods

From Neurons to Neighborhoods
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 610
Release: 2000-11-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309069882

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.


How People Learn

How People Learn
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2000-08-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309131979

First released in the Spring of 1999, How People Learn has been expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning. Like the original edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methodsâ€"to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb. How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system. Topics include: How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain. How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn. What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach. The amazing learning potential of infants. The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace. Learning needs and opportunities for teachers. A realistic look at the role of technology in education.


Learning and Memory

Learning and Memory
Author: Marilee Sprenger
Publisher: ASCD
Total Pages: 132
Release: 1999
Genre: Brain
ISBN: 0871203502

Brain research is much in the news, but what is its relevance in the classroom? Are there ways to take what brain researchers are discovering about learning and memory and apply it to the situations that educators face every day? Practicing teacher and author Marilee Sprenger tells how to do just that in this book. Sprenger has spent years studying neurological research and training other educators in brain compatible teaching methods. This background, combined with her long career as a classroom teacher, has given her priceless knowledge of what works in a multitude of classroom situations. Current brain research is as amazing as it can be confusing. This book discusses in plain terms the structure, function, and development of the human brain. The author describes the five "memory lanes"--semantic, episodic, procedural, automatic, and emotional--and tells how they function in learning and memory. She offers dozens of practical suggestions for teaching and assessing in brain-compatible ways. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, the book offers valid, usable, "What you can do on Monday" ideas to incorporate into the classroom. This is an approach to brain research that educators at all levels can apply in their daily work.


Discovering the Brain

Discovering the Brain
Author: National Academy of Sciences
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 1992-01-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309045290

The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."


The Adolescent Brain

The Adolescent Brain
Author: Valerie F. Reyna
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Total Pages: 488
Release: 2012
Genre: Psychology
ISBN:

The contributors reveal new findings about the basic mechanisms underlying brain development, with particular reference to mathematical reasoning as well as to decision-making in a variety of situations.


Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (Volume 8)

Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (Volume 8)
Author: Donald A. P. Bundy
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 977
Release: 2017-11-20
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1464804397

More children born today will survive to adulthood than at any time in history. It is now time to emphasize health and development in middle childhood and adolescence--developmental phases that are critical to health in adulthood and the next generation. Child and Adolescent Health and Development explores the benefits that accrue from sustained and targeted interventions across the first two decades of life. The volume outlines the investment case for effective, costed, and scalable interventions for low-resource settings, emphasizing the cross-sectoral role of education. This evidence base can guide policy makers in prioritizing actions to promote survival, health, cognition, and physical growth throughout childhood and adolescence.