‘Brain friendly’ classrooms
Dr Spencer Kagan, U.S. education consultant and speaker at the Australian Primary Principals Association Conference in Perth last month, said modern teaching methods should concentrate on being more ‘brain friendly’ to reflect the way a child’s brain processes information.
Dr Kagan said traditional instructional methods – where teachers did most of the talking and chose only a select few students to answer questions in class – were ineffective.
“Commonly used worldwide, these methods result in disengagement among many students and decrease student achievement,” he said.
One key to brain friendly learning was getting all students in class answering questions with the help of each other. Teamwork and involvement of the whole class were key principles to brain friendly learning, he said.
“With brain friendly methods no one falls asleep.” The former clinical psychologist said emotion played a big part in how students learned and retained information.
“If the content is associated with emotion or an experience we recall, then it is far better remembered,” he said. “That’s why we all remember where we were on 9/11, but not the day before.”
During the Perth conference, Dr Kagan discussed some of the 200 brain friendly strategies he has devised for teachers to engage students. More than 760 principals from across Australia, New Zealand, England and the Netherlands attended the four-day event.
“This is not about changing the curriculum or information they need to learn, it’s about changing the way it is delivered,” he said.