Arguing that evolution designed us to both teach and learn, this book explains how, and how much, babies and young children know and learn, and how much parents naturally teach them. The chapters are: (1) "Ancient Questions and a Young Science," including the concept of brain as computer, and the developmental science of Piaget and…

Although neuroscience has much to offer teaching and learning conceptualizations, educators must be cautious about applying lab research to classrooms. Brain research seems hazy, confusing, and contradictory because it is new. Myths about synapses, low-stress learning, memorization, enrichment, and learning styles are debunked. (MLH)

Brain is the source of all human thoughts, feelings and emotions. Now the mysteries of the human brain are rapidly being elucidated by neuroscience research. For more than 150 years, neuroscience has held that most of the brain's functionality develops during critical periods in early childhood and that once past these critical periods, the window…

The brain, a pattern-finding organ, seeks to create meaning through establishing or refining existing neural networks; this is learning. Emotion affects what is learned and what is retained.

An item that stands out (is isolated) from its context is better remembered than an item consistent with the context. This isolation effect cannot be accounted for by increased attention, because it occurs when the isolated item is presented as the first item, or by impoverished memory of nonisolated items, because the isolated item is better…

Stressful life events can have profound effects on our cognitive and motor abilities, from those that could be construed as adaptive to those not so. In this review, I discuss the general notion that acute stressful experience necessarily impairs our abilities to learn and remember. The effects of stress on operant conditioning, that is, learned…

In order to explain the cognitive and cerebral mechanisms responsible for the visuospatial peak in autism, and to document its specificity to this condition, a group of eight high-functioning individuals with autism and a visuospatial peak (HFA-P) performed a modified block-design task (BDT; subtest from Wechsler scales) at various levels of…

This book offers practical applications for exploring multiple intelligences in the classroom to help each student express his or her own personal learning rainbow. Special features of the book include seven complete lesson plans ready to be adapted to any grade level; objectives, activities, and applications that meet U.S. and California…

Three articles explore current research and theory regarding children's learning styles, covering: (1) four basic ways children approach learning and corresponding teaching methods; (2) "multiple intelligences" and new thought about the boundaries of innate ability; and (3) classroom teachers' perspectives and instincts about the mystery of…

Aversive conditioning is an ideal model for studying cholinergic effects on the processes of learning and memory for several reasons. First, deficits produced by selective lesions of the anatomical structures shown to be critical for Pavlovian fear conditioning and inhibitory avoidance (such as the amygdala and hippocampus) resemble those deficits…

Metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) are known to play a role in synaptic plasticity and learning. We have previously shown that mGluR7 deletion in mice produces a selective working memory (WM) impairment, while other types of memory such as reference memory remain unaffected. Since WM has been associated with Theta activity (6-12 Hz) in…

Information storage in the brain is a temporally graded process involving different memory phases as well as different structures in the mammalian brain. Cortical plasticity seems to be essential to store stable long-term memories, although little information is available at the moment regarding molecular and cellular events supporting memory…

To clarify the perceptions of college freshmen regarding the kind of teaching they experienced in public schools and how those experiences relate to the split-brain theory, a study surveyed 241 first-semester college freshmen from the fall of 1984 to the fall of 1987 at Southwest Missouri State University. Only students who had completed at least…

Twenty-five male (aged 7 years, 6 months to 10 years, 7 months) and five female (aged 9 years, 3 months to 10 years, 2 months) minimally brain damaged children were examined to determine feasibility of perceptual motor training on the pursuit rotor (which requires Ss to track a light as it revolves under a pattern on a turntable). Experimental Ss…

This book presents results of recent research about the mind, brain, and learning processes. It examines new findings in learning theory and their implications for what is taught, how it is taught, and how learners are assessed. It also shows how theories and insights can translate into actions and practices. It examines research on human…