The Mind, Brain, and Education
In 1.5, 3.0 or 4.5 continuing education units
Course Description:
Experienced teachers know that education is an art and a science. Educators are well trained in the transmission of new ideas to their students, but how the student’s brain receives that information and absorbs it into their knowledge base remains a mystery. In this course, you will discover how the brain develops and learns how to read, compute, integrate sensory information, communicate and create novel ideas. Topics such as how we learn and apply number sense, the nature of creativity, how students learn phonemic awareness and the implications for struggling readers, how brain differences can contribute to varying mathematical abilities, and how our emotions can impact the learning process, will be explored. Students will learn how to apply this knowledge about the brain into new teaching strategies that use the learning styles and strengths of their students.
Goals and Objectives
As a result of this participation in this course, students should:
1. Understand how neuroscientific research has an impact on teaching and learning.
2. Discover how students acquire spoken language and learn to read.
3. Discover how the brain represents quantity and numbers.
4. Learn how to stimulate student creativity and how emotions can impact learning.
5. Translate neuroscientific research into innovative learning techniques for all students’ learning styles.
Texts/Readings
The required text is:
Sousa, D.A. (ed.). (2010). Mind, Brain and Education: Neuroscience Implications for the Classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.