Resources on Learning and the Brain

Explore the connections between education and neuroscience with this list of articles, videos, and other links.

Learning How Brains Develop

• Five-Minute Film Festival – Learning and the Brain: This collection of videos about the brain will help you think about how neuroscience findings can be used in the classroom. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Nine Things Teachers Need to Know about the Brain. Take a look at this list of neuroscience lessons that have implications for learning. (Greater Good, 2013)
• Understanding the Neuroscience Behind Stress and Learning – Learn how neuroimaging, EEG, and other studies can provide a scientific foundation for student-centered educational models. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Smarter Brains are Better Brains: Learn how educators can help students take control of their thoughts, feelings, and brain chemistry to achieve positive learning outcomes. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Teaching Neuroplasticity to Kids: How to Enhance Learning: Find out how students can adopt a growth mindset by learning about neuroplasticity. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Metacognition – The Gift That Never Stops Giving: Learn how students can learn more independently and become stronger learners through reflection on learning. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Adolescent Growth and Brain Development: Learn how to help teens develop their executive function skills and understand the forces that drive them. For more information about adolescent brains see also ” Understanding Hyperrational Adolescents Brain,” ” How a Middle Schooler Thinks” and ” How a Middle-Schooler Works. (Edutopia, 2016)

Neuroscience and the Classroom

• Strategies to Strengthen the Brain’s Executive Functions – These classroom strategies can be used to help students understand and develop executive functions. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Learning: Putting Working Memory to Use in Learning. Explore techniques such as repetition, gamification, and visualization to activate and enhance the central executive function working memory. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Brain Movies – When Readers Can See It, They Understand It: Help students visualize meaning to increase reading retention. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Move your body, grow your brain: Exercise can have physiological and developmental benefits for children’s minds; find out how to add a new spin to active learning. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Meta-Collaboration: Thinking with Another: Learn four strategies to teach students how their brains function through acts of collaboration. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Educator Resources from BrainFacts.org. Find activities and resources to help students learn about the brain. (BrainFacts.org)
• Matching Edtech Products With Neurological Learning Goals – Use this post’s critical questions to find the best edtech products that will help you achieve learning goals that align with your knowledge about brain learning. (Edutopia, 2016)

The Brain and Social and Emotional Learning

• Brain Labs: An Enlivening Learning: Create a brain lab in your school or classroom to teach metacognition to children and help them develop skills for self-reflection and emotional regulation as well as cognitive flexibility. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Brains in pain can’t learn!: Learn how trauma affects brain function and discover three ways to calm stress and prepare brains for learning. (Edutopia, 2016)
• Breaking the Code of Student Emotional Stress: This article will explain three collaborative processes that can help students reset their expectations and rethink the outcomes of emotional, academic, or social problems. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Enhancing Executive Function Development for Students with ADD: Learn targeted mindfulness exercises to help children with Attention Disorder be more aware and make better decisions. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Practical Optimism – Read about an activity that promotes a positive attitude towards life and encourages taking action. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Calm it Down and Change It Up!: Learn how to integrate brain breaks and focused-attention practices into school days to improve brain health and knowledge acquisition. This earlier post on brain break and focused-attention practices provides more information. (Edutopia, 2016)
• Maslow comes to life for educators and students: Discover a blueprint for classroom practice which transforms Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs into brain-compatible strategies. (Edutopia, 2014)

Brain-Based Student Engagement Strategies

• Humor boosts retention: Read about the research and see how you can better use humor to engage students in learning. (Edutopia, 2015)
• The Engagement Based Classroom Management Model: Invite students to take part in a behavior model that improves their attitude and engagement. It’s akin to a videogame. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Strategies to Get and Keep the Brain’s Attention – Use strategies such as incentives, slowing down your teaching, and helping students feel focused. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Cognitively Priming Students to Learn: Here are some ways you can encourage curiosity and prepare students for a lesson or unit. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Teaching the Brain to Listen – Learn about the brain’s processing of auditory information and how you can introduce the HEAR strategy to students to improve their listening skills. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Strategies to Prevent Neurotoxic Effects of School Stress – Develop strategies to counter the effects of chronic boredom and school stress. (Edutopia, 2013)

Brain-Friendly Assessment Techniques

• Assessment and Choice and the Learning Brain: Explore neuroscientific research regarding assessment and learn how to use it in classroom practice. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Improve your test scores by hitting reset. Learn how to help students cope with stress and other emotions that can hinder their test performance. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Survive, Thrive and Survive During Testing Season: Think about the questions you should be asking yourself during testing season. Also, explore brain-compatible strategies that can help students feel more connected to the material and better themselves. (Edutopia, 2014)
• 5 Assessment forms to promote content retention: Learn about several assessment forms that can help students retain their content and gain higher performance. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Helping students understand what a test is and is not: Find out how students’ performance can be affected by their perceptions about and feelings about the purpose of the test and how it will affect them. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Brain-Compatible Studies Strategies: Discover a variety of brain-compatible strategies for fifth graders. These strategies can be modified for any age. (Edutopia, 2013)

The Common Core and Neuroscience

• 6 Tips to Develop Independent Thinking: Use one of the many suggestions aligned with Common Core to push students out of their comfort zones, exercise brain executive functions, and develop independent thinking. (Edutopia, 2014)
• 11 Tips for Teaching Common Core Critical Vocabulary Let your students learn critical vocabulary using activities suggested by a learning specialist. (Edutopia, 2013)
• Education and the Brain and Common Core State Standards – Learn about the potential benefits and practical uses of the Common Core State Standards through the lens of the Brain Targeted Teaching model. (Edutopia, 2013)
• Student Responses To Common Core Instruction and Assessment – Understand the implications of Common Core-aligned instruction and assessment. (Edutopia, 2013)

Brain Research

• Neuromyths & Edu-Ca$h In: Vetting the Expert Claims. These guidelines will help you evaluate educational marketing claims regarding “brain-based products.” (Edutopia, 2016)
• The High Cost of Neomyths in Education Learn about neuroscience research on the right/left brain and learning styles. Also, learn why only ten percent of brains are used. (Edutopia, 2015)
• Why curiosity enhances learning: Learn about a neurological study that has shown that curiosity increases our brain’s receptivity for learning. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Effective Intervention: Understanding Dyslexia’s Causes: Learn how neuroscience research can help you make effective dyslexia interventions. (Edutopia, 2014)
• Neuroscience: The Bilingual Brain – Follow neuroscientific research to show that bilingual children have better focus and judgment. (Edutopia, 2012)