Effect of a Brain-Based Learning Program on Working Memory and Academic Motivation Among Tenth Grade Omanis Students
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EFFECT OF A BRAIN-BASED LEARNING PROGRAM ON WORKING MEMORY AND ACADEMIC MOTIVATION AMONG TENTH GRADE OMANIS STUDENTS Abstract: This study aims to investigate the effect of a brain- Adel M. ElAdl, PhD based learning program on working memory and academic Full Professor of Educational Psychology motivation among tenth grade Omanis students. The sample Sultane Qaboos University was selected from students in the tenth grade in basic education Oman in the Sultanate of Oman. The participants in this study were 75 Contact: preparatory school students. Experimental group (EG) E-mail: [email protected] consisted of 37 students while the control group (CG) consisted of 38 students. An experimental Pretest and Posttest Control- Mourad Ali Eissa Saad, PhD Group design was used in this study. The brain-based learning Full Professor of Special Education program was conducted to the whole class by their actual Vice president of KIE University teacher during the actual lesson period for 8 weeks with 50 Kie University minute sessions conducted three times a week. The program Egypt was designed based on the three basic fundamentals of brain- Contact: based learning, namely ‘orchestrated immersion’, ‘relaxed E-mail: [email protected] alertness’, and ‘active processing’. The results of this study indicated great gains for students in the experimental group in both working memory and academic motivation. This study goes some way to understanding working memory and academic motivation in Omanis tenth grade primary students.The study shows that students in the experimental group, compared to those in the control group, develop robust working memory and academic motivation due to training in brain-based learning. The study shows that those young students have great chance of developing their g memory and academic motivation. Keywords: brain-based learning, working memory, academic motivation, tenth grade Omanis students. International Journal of Psycho-Educational Sciences | Vol. 8, No. 1 London Academic Publishing, April 2019, pp 42 – 50 https://www.journals.lapub.co.uk/index.php/IJPES International Journal of Psycho-Educational Sciences | Vol. 8, No. 1 (April 2019) INTRODUCTION provide maximal learning opportunities for all students prevails and is created. Accordingly, there Teaching as a system is supposed to be an will be an urgent need to create positive emotional interpersonal interaction between teacher, learner connections to learning so that long-term learning and learning environment. In today’s educational can be transferred easily and successfully to the context the teaching and learning process is not real-world. If students feel unsafe, stressed, or are simple as learners are exposed to wide experiences experiencing a low-cycle of brain activity, learning and opportunities. There is a rapid shift from becomes impossible and they may hate the learning teacher- centered teaching to student centered process as a whole and drop out. Conventional approach. Brain based learning is regarded as a methods might be problematic and no longer is student-centered approach. It confirms that the beneficial to students. Students, as Sousa (2006) learning of the individual is more effective and claims, on average, retain only five percent of lasting. As a learning approach, brain-based information delivered through lecture twenty-four learning is based on the structure and function of hours later. Teachers try to do the teaching without the human brain. In this type of learning, a teacher considering whether the learners are motivated or facilitates approach that utilizes learner’s cognitive not. Hence, employing methods that are more endowments as it is based on brain-based learning brain-friendly may be a way to increase the principles (Thomas and Swamy, 2014). Each effectiveness of teaching and learning. learner is seen to have a huge potential and should Further research is necessary to build on the vast be given the opportunity to learn in an optimum amount of research into brain-based learning environment (Salmiza, 2012). Caine and Caine specially with Omanis students. This will allow (2002) define brain-based learning as “recognition researchers to determine how brain-based learning of the brain’s codes for a meaningful learning and can be best used as an intervention with those adjusting the teaching process in relation to those students as there is a dearth of research with this codes.” Brain-based learning ameliorates students’ population. Thus, the present study addresses the learning through challenge and inherited by following questions. threats, it provides challenging, but not impossible tasks to encourage them to strive. Non-threatening 1. Are there differences in post-test scores mean learning environment stimulates learning between control and experimental groups on experiences depending on working in pairs or Working Memory Test? groups, reflecting on ideas, thinking creatively 2. Are there differences in post-test scores mean through using a variety of resources (Ashraf Atta, between control and experimental groups on 2017). As Jensen (2000) put it "we are placed in Academic Motivation Test? transformation phase", a transformation which 3. Are there differences in pre- post-test scores changes many things such as start time of schools, mean of the experimental group on Working disciplinary policies, assessment methods, Memory Test? teaching strategies, budget priorities, classroom 4. Are there differences in pre- post-test scores environments, technology application and even the mean of the experimental group on Academic way we think about art and education (Afsar, Motivation Test? Soghra and Hamideh, 2015). PURPOSE OF THE STUDY STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM This study aims to investigate the effect of a brain- Educators face the problem of creating a brain- based learning program on working memory and friendly classroom where all students are engaged academic motivation among tenth grade Omanis and active. Though overwhelming amount of students. By gaining a better understanding of this considerations have emerged from current brain process, teachers can apply the findings to create research, not all educators all over the world in safe, stress-free classrooms that will engage the general, and in our Arab world in particular , are minds of students, improving their working aware of the findings of these studies. In such a memory, and that will help to ameliorate their case, an unbalanced prospect for teachers to academic motivation. 43 International Journal of Psycho-Educational Sciences | Vol. 8, No. 1 (April 2019) LITERATURE REVIEW 9. We have at least two different types of memory: spatial (autobiographical) and rote learning (taxon BRAIN-BASED LEARNING memory). The taxon or rote memory systems Brain based learning theory becomes more evident consist of “facts and skills that are stored by specially in the publication of research-based practice and rehearsal” (Caine and Caine 1994, strategies that educators use in these days. This 169). Spatial, or autobiographical, memory “builds kind of learning This kind of learning allows relationships among facts, events, and teachers to identity a particular theory that they can experiences” (Caine and Caine 1994, 170). use to underlie their teachings in the classroom. 10. Learning is developmental: Children, and their Caine & Caine (1994) developed their 12 brains, benefit from enriched home and school principles for brain-based learning in 1989 and environments. recommend the following 12 principles for brain- 11. Learning is enhanced by challenge and based learning. These principles allow educators to inhibited by threat: Students optimally benefit reach a more diverse set of learners, affirming the when their assignments are challenging and the notion that not all students learn the same way and classroom environment feels safe and supportive. allowing educators to teach in a multitude of ways The brain learns optimally -- makes maximum (Connell, 2009): connections --when appropriately challenged. But the brain "downshifts"–becomes less flexible and 1. The brain is a parallel processor: The brain reverts to primitive attitudes and procedures -- performs many tasks simultaneously, including under perceived threat. thinking and feeling. 12. Every brain is unique: This looks at learning 2. Learning engages the entire physiology: The styles and unique ways of patterning. We have brain and the body are engaged in learning. many things in common, but we also are very, very 3. The search for meaning is innate: “[T]he different. We need to understand how we learn and brain’s/mind’s search for meaning is very how we perceive the world and to know that men personal. The greater the extent to which what we and women see the world differently. learn is tied to personal, meaningful experiences, Caine & Caine (1994) claimed that great the greater and deeper our learning will be” (Caine teaching involves three fundamental elements: and Caine 1994, 96). Relaxed alertness: Creating the optimal emotional 4. The search for meaning occurs through climate for learning; patterning: “The brain is designed to perceive and Orchestrated immersion in complex experience: generate patterns, and it resists having meaningless Creating optimal opportunities for learning; and patterns imposed on it” (Caine and Caine 1994, Active processing of experience: Creating optimal 88). ways to consolidate learning (p. 4-6). 5. Emotions are critical to patterning: Our emotions are brain based; they play an important