Brain-Based Teaching Strategies for Improving Students' Memory
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This article was downloaded by: [John Meyer] On: 22 July 2013, At: 11:40 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Childhood Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uced20 Review of Research: Brain-Based Teaching Strategies for Improving Students' Memory, Learning, and Test-Taking Success Judy Willis MD, M.Ed a a Santa Barbara Middle School, Santa Barbara, California, USA To cite this article: Judy Willis MD, M.Ed (2007) Review of Research: Brain-Based Teaching Strategies for Improving Students' Memory, Learning, and Test-Taking Success, Childhood Education, 83:5, 310-315, DOI: 10.1080/00094056.2007.10522940 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2007.10522940 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions Brain-Based Teaching Strategies for Improving Students’ Memory, Learning, and Test-Taking Success Judy Willis, MD, M.Ed Judy Willis is a neurologist, author, and teacher at Sarrta Barliara Middle School, Sarrta Barbara, Califorrria. The past two decades have pro- research, because it gives us a way formation (Kang, 1997). Once these vided extraordinary progress in to see which techniques and strate- dendrites are formed, it is the brain’s our understanding of the nature of gies stimulate, and which impede, plasticity that allows it to reshape learning. Never before have neu- communication between the parts and reorganize the networks of roscience and classroom instruc- of the brain where information is dendrite-neuron connections in tion been so closely linked. Now, processed and stored. response to increased or decreased educators can find evidence-based use of these pathways (Giedd et al., neuroimaging and brain-mapping Plasticity and Pruning 1999). studies to determine the most ef- It was a long-held misconception Brain plasticity is evident when fective ways to teach, as advances that brain growth stops with birth people repeatedly practice activities in technology enable us to view the and is followed by a lifetime of controlled by parts of their visual, working brain as it learns. brain cell death. Now we know that motor, sensory, or coordination althoughmost of theneurons where systems for specialized learned Watching As Brains Learn information is stored are present activities. Blind people who read Studies of the brain’s electrical at birth, there is lifelong growth Braille, for example, have signifi- activity (EEG or brain waves) and of the supporting and connecting cantly increased the size of their metabolic activity (from specialized cells that enrich the communication somatosensory cortex, as the sense Downloaded by [John Meyer] at 11:40 22 July 2013 PET brain scans measuring glucose between neurons. These “den- of touch in their right finger is em- or oxygen use and blood flow) show drites” sprout from the neuron’s ployed over and over. Similarly, the pattern of movement as infor- arms (axons) or cell body. violin players who use the fingers mation travels through the brain. Dendrites increase in size and of their left hands to do the compli- Synchronization of brain activity number in response to learned cated movements along the strings occurs as information passes from skills, experience, and information. show increased somatosensory the data intake areas, through the New dendrites grow as branches regions of the brain’s parietal lobe emotion-regulating limbic system, from frequently activated neu- associated with the fingers of the and into the memory storage re- rons. This growth is stimulated left hand. gions. For example, bursts of brain by proteins called neurotrophins. A 2004 report in Nature (Dragan- activity from sensory receptors in Nerve growth factor is one of these ski, Gaser, Busch, &Schuierer,2004) the cortex are followed milliseconds neurotrophins. Although the brain found that people who learned how later by bursts of electrical activity measurementsof neurotrophins are to juggle increased the amount of in the limbic system. This is then highest during childhood, when gray matter in their occipital lobes followed by increased electrical the brain’s connecting cells are (visual memory areas). When activity in the frontal lobe execu- undergoing their greatest growth they stopped practicing juggling, tive function zones and subcortical and development, continued learn- the new gray matter vanished. A memory storage regions. This activ- ing elevates neurotrophin activity similar structural change appears to ity constitutes one of the most excit- in the brain region responsible for occur in people who learn, and then ing areas of brain-based memory new learning and new memory don’t practice, a second language. 310 + CHILDHOODEDUCATION This process is called pruning, the The More Ways Multiple Stimulations term for the decrease in connecting Something Is Learned, the To Build Memory dendrites and other connecting More Memory Pathways The more regions of the brain that cells that are not used. The loss of Are Built store data about a subject, the more native language ability, juggling When children are between ages interconnection there is. This re- skills, or learned academic material six and 12, their neurons grow dundancy means studentswill have that is not practiced is the flip side more and more synapses, or more opportunities to pull up all of of the brain’s growth response to connections between each other those related bits of data from their learning. It is the use-it-or-lose-it that are new pathways for nerve multiple storage areas in response phenomenon. Pruning occurswhen signals. This thickening of gray to a single cue. This cross-referent- some brain pathways and connec- matter (the branching dendrites ing of data means we have learned, tions are selectively maintained of the neurons and the synaptic rather than just memorized. and ”hard-wired,” while others are connections they form) is accom- For example, when we learn about selectivelyeliminated, or “pruned.” panied by thickening in the brain’s cars, we store the information in Since active cells require blood to white matter (fatty myelin sheaths brain association areas under mul- bring nourishment and clear away that insulate the axons carrying tiple categories that relate to the waste, cells that are inactive don’t information away from the neu- context with which new informa- send messages to the circulatory ron and making the nerve-signal tion about cars is learned. When system to send blood. Eventually, transmissions faster and more ef- we see a car, it goes into the visual these cells self-destruct. ficient). As the brain becomes more image cortex. When weseethe word To think about pruning in terms efficient, the less-used circuits are C-A-R spelled out, that information of brain cell growth, first consider pruned away, but the most fre- goes into a language-association the astonishing development of the quently used connections become region. After learning about the embryonic brain-by week four, it thicker with more myelin coating, internal combustion engine, cars is producing half a million neurons making them more efficient (Giedd are associated in our brain with every minute. During the next sev- et al., 2004). other engines powered by inter- eral weeks, these cells travel to what nal combustion. Later, we build will become the brain. It is there that Helping Students associational memories about cars they begin to form branching axons Grow More Brain we‘ve experienced as a passenger and dendrites, connecting them to Connections or driver. each other. The synaptic junctions The more ways that the material Because the information about that are present at each connection to be learned in the classroom is cars is stored in multiple brain between neuron, dendrite, or axon introduced and reviewed, the more areas and cross-referencing occurs reach a maximum development dendritic pathways of access will be among these areas when we think rate of 2 million per second. This created in the brain. More synaptic about cars, connecting networks of Downloaded by [John Meyer] at 11:40 22 July 2013 plethora of neurons and neuronal cell-to-cell bridges will emerge, dendrites sprout among