Guest post by Dr. Thomas E. Rojo Aubrey | Counseling Department | Director of Behavioral Health Sciences | e-Course Supervisor
As a prior practitioner of behavioral medicine, I was fascinated with how neurosciences can provide brain-based treatment interventions for common child, adolescent, and adult disorders (e.g., depression anxiety). My captivation was further fueled during my doctoral Clinical Neuropathophysiology class (IBC 609), and other courses that focused on integrated brain-based therapy treatment, at Arizona State University. After moving away from mental health to the higher educational setting, however, I became passionate about learning how neurosciences can provide brain-based learning to improve student’s lives. As I explain to my students, these are extraordinarily exciting times for college students since newer and newer research is paving the way for students to optimize their journey through college, career, and life success.
In order to help my students optimize their journey, I decided to read the book How the Brain Learns by David A. Sousa for my faculty development summergrant project. In all honestly, chapter one (basic brain facts), chapter 2 (how the brain process information), and chapter 3 (memory, retention, and learning), and a few other chapters, would be a monotonous read for anyone with a basic understanding of neuroscience, especially since the information found in these chapters are rudimentary. On the other hand, this book was intended for educator who may not have taken any brain or cognitive science courses in graduate school. In fact, this book is a great resource to help educators understand and learn practical ways to apply brain-based research to improving student’s learning. For example, Sousa points out the functional limitation capacity of working memory, which according to various studies, although the capacity seems to be decreasing, “varies with the learner’s age and the type of input (factual information, virtual, spiritual, etc.; p. 52). The practical implications for teaching is to “keep the number of items in a lesson objective within the capacity limits of students” with the intent to improve the likelihood that students will “remember more of what they learned” (p. 53).
I was specifically pleased to see that Sousa, contrary to other books that focus on how the brain learns, emphasized the importance of the learning climate. Similar to Sousa, I have advocated the importance of creating a safe learning environment to avoid triggering students. The fact is that students that are emotionally charged enter a classroom with an activated brainstem and sympathetic nervous system. These activated systems hinders the student’s ability to fully focus on the content of the class and blocks the release of brain-derived neurotropic factors (BDNF) to form long-term memories. The brain’s activity starts to slow down in the neocortical areas (frontal and temporal lobes) to allow the brainstem to focus on the more important concerns of safety and survival. These and other classroom knowledge and strategies are important for educators to know if they would like to help their students become successful in the classroom. Therefore, I would strongly suggest this book if you would like to learn ways to help your student become successful in the classroom setting.
