A Webinar on Neuroscience

Hi friends,


As I promised you all, about sharing the key points of the webinars. Today I am keen to share what I learnt about the fascinating subject of neuroscience. The subject of the webinar was “Using your brain: what neuroscience can teach us about learning” flawlessly presented by Rachael Roberts. It was a intensive webinar. Actually, its one of my preferred and favorite subject. In this webinar, We looked at what recent researches have to tell us about learning. And when I came across it, I was wondering, how rarely teacher education focuses on neuroscience. Do course books/Syllabus usually reflect on the science of learning ? Anyways…

At this juncture, I would like to share some Food for thought.
✍️ Brain is the organ and the key tool of learning.
✍️The presenter focused specifically on motivation and memory, and how to apply these findings in the classroom to help students learn more easily and effectively.
✍️We found People have some obscure statements on brain like-
a) People mostly use about 10% of their brain.
b) Language is the function of the left hand side of the brain.
c) Right brained people are more creative.
d) Adults can grow new brain cells.
e) Stress should be avoided in the classroom.
f) It is harder to learn a new language as you get older.
g) It is better to focus on one topic or area of study at a time, master it and then move on.
h) if we guess the answer to a question and get it wrong you will remember the wrong answer later.

✍️ She gave the references of the recent researches and proved these statements are not facts . these are myths.
✍️Rachael mam newly introduced ‘Dopamine’ harmone . It is responsible for remembering information or the learning areas.
✍️She explained and referred to dopamine as the “save button” in the brain.
✍️She interpreted that when dopamine is present during an event or experience ,we remember it; when it is absent nothing seems to stick.
✍️Dopamine is responsible for basic functioning in the brain. It helps neurons to connect. People with dopamine related diseases, for ex Parkinsonism, also have motor problems. It affects our entire system.
✍️The brain uses 20% of our calorie intake.
✍️She highlighted that some stress is good for learners but that stress would be for sustaining Curiosity and for happiness of learning.
✍️Intrinsic motivation leads autonomy, mastery and purpose.intrinsic motivation (curiosity) may depend on level of life, feeling safe and abundant (food, home, family etc.) also memory works better if kid feels safe
✍️Extrinsic motivation leads compensation,punishment,and rewards.
✍️She gave the tricks for how to trick our brain into working better. The tricks are-
a) Use spaced learning
b) Encourage intrinsic motivation
C) Encourage curiosity and guessing
d) Repetition (What fires together, wires together)
e) Use salience.
f) Set a ‘goldilocks’ level of arousal.
✍️We will get more information on learning on this site http://www.learningscientists.org/

It was an insightful and extremely helpful webinar. We considered that the teacher as "bible" and the student as "parrot" can be very hard to overcome. While discussion I liked one statement “we have to take a holistic look at learning.” It is very important for healthy relaxed learning environment.



Kalpana Bansod
SARP, DIECPD
Chandrapur.