Teaching and Learning from Neuroeducation to Practice: We Are Nature Blended with the Environment. We Adapt and Rediscover Ourselves Together with Others, with More Wisdom

By Adriana Volpiansky

In this book, I expound and suggest a space for reflection, and a thorough analysis which places its greatest emphasis on a detailed review and examination about the knowledge early-childhood educators should have regarding the concepts that define the functioning of the human brain as a fundamental organ in students’ lives. On the whole, it involves discovering how we learn, in which ways emotions influence the learning process, and why it is necessary to create enriched environments for teaching-learning, based on contextualized projects.
The purpose is to discover the motivation which will enhance skills and competences in young learners.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palibrio
• Release date: Apr 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781506536934

Adriana Volpiansky

Professor Adriana Volpiansky is a Spanish and Italian language educator with more than 35 years of experience helping minds understand and learn language and culture. With both, a Master’s (Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Spain, 2018) and Bachelor’s (Profesorado Superior de Lenguas Vivas, Argentina, 1988) degree in Italian and Spanish Language and Culture, she has taught at every level of school and university. She used her experience to develop this book on language learning through the neuroscience framework. Early on, Adriana saw the need for teaching materials that would help teachers understand how emotions and neuroscience influence language learning. This book was inspired by some of her experiences throughout her career, including: • Being a 3rd grade teacher for 3 years at the Escuela Argentina in Maryland, USA • Dean of the Professional Training Courses for Kindergarten Teachers at Escuelas Santa Cruz, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. • Head of the Italian History of Culture and Civilization Department at the Profesorado Superior de Lenguas Vivas in Salta, Argentina. • Founder of the Department of Italian Language and Culture at the U.N.A.T.E. Universidad de la Tercera Edad in Salta, Argentina, with programs specifically designed for seniors and immigrant pensioners. • Taught Italian and Spanish native speakers at all language levels - 1 through university, at the Italian Institute Dante Alighieri in Salta, Argentina. • Held a faculty position on six different Courses of Study in the Campus for Humanities at the Universidad Nacional de Salta, Argentina. Dedicated to bilingual research, she also published “When the world turned the page” (1992) and translated “L’evoluzione dell’estro” (1994), which became reference books for Universities around South America. Currently, Professor Adriana Volpiansky works at the International School in Washington, D.C, USA.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Dedication

With my most sincere thanks

Introduction

CHAPTER 1

Theoretical Basics

What do the theoretical basics offer us?

A different map of the same territory

Mental models

CHAPTER 2

The Brain

A complex system

Brain structure

Neurons

Mirror neurons

Which is the brain function?

What about the senses?

CHAPTER 3

The Environment

What do we define as environment when we talk about education?

The reason for personalized teaching

CHAPTER 4

Learning

When do children learn?

a) Review is the key to learning

b) Take note actively rather than listen passively

c) There is no learning without activity

d) Allow calculation of probabilities

e) Guiding a classmate generates commitment

f) Collaborative interaction and learning in action

g) We are visual animals with an enormous potential

h) To acquire meaningful knowledge, students must attend class being well-informed about the subjectt

i) The importance of sleeping and diet

j) Be lucky to have passionate teachers

CHAPTER 5

Emotions

Why are emotions related to curiosity?

Curiosity

CHAPTER 6

Games

Why is it important to play?

What is the relationship between games and memory?

What can a learner remember about what the teacher has explained?

Dramatic play as a teaching-learning instrument

A close relationship between study groups and learning dynamics

Procedural paradigm

Digital games

CHAPTER 7

Creativity

Creativity in democracy

CHAPTER 8

Classroom Practice

Methodology applied in classroom practice

Some action-learning experiences in the classroom

Project # 1

Our Storybook of the Senses

Project # 2

Our Storybook of Emotions

Project # 3

The way I see it

Project # 4

We learn to memorize an illustrated poem in Spanish: La Calabaza - The Pumpkin

Conclusion

Bibliography

DEDICATION

In memory of my father Isaías, who with all his love brought me up in the intrinsic values of human being, taught me to love and respect life, and instilled in me the search for the meaning of things in the generous and inspiring source of knowledge.

WITH MY MOST

SINCERE THANKS

This work has only been feasible thanks to the immense collaboration of my family. We understood we are a team; not only we love each other but also we are together to share, grow and respect our personalities under any circumstance.

I thank my husband Héctor, who knew how to contain me with his love and understanding, in both calm and difficult moments; and my daughter Estefanía, whose tenderness and sense of humor have accompanied me every day in the different stages that make up this research.

Likewise, I thank God for giving me the opportunity to enrich myself with new knowledge and for being able to offer it in good faith to all those aspirants who are part of this profession.

The most momentous achievement of man should be the conquest of his own brain.

Ramón y Cajal, 1906

INTRODUCTION

The choice of this topic arises as a need to expand among educational community special knowledge that is very relevant to develop a lesson among students without specifying the subject and their age.

At the beginning of my teaching career, I was motivated by curiosity. For many years, after observing students at different levels, I have wondered how they learn and I have compared myself asking how did I learn? How is it possible to generate motivation and understanding about a topic? I began the search for the answers of those questions that arise from schoolchildren interaction -a heterogeneous study community-, whose most relevant characteristic is diversity.

To break down this interweaving, it is a priority to begin by understanding what the brain is, some peculiarities in terms of knowledge assimilation, how the brain works and what we mean when we talk about intelligence. As teachers, we try to awaken interest in the topics to be developed, but are we aware of how these stimuli reach the minds of our dear students? When a student manages to specify a thought and produces, for example, a painting or a writing, where do these ideas come from?

Research shows that it is possible to support students learning to learn so that they acquire independence in the construction of their academic attainment. They only need the guidance of a teacher to not stray from the goal. Thanks to linguistics advances, new fields of action that benefit the student in their grammatical, lexical, phonological and semantic learning processes are offered. This is one of the proposals that I stick to when it is necessary for students to discover, in a contextualized way, the richness of the Spanish language.

This research composition is a reflection that arises from the need to communicate to other education workers relevant concepts that would need to be incorporated as knowledge prior to teaching, in order to link them to the understanding of:

■ emotions;

■ sensory systems:

■ attention span;

■ memory;

■ intelligences; and

■ motivation, where curiosity is the starting point to reach knowledge.

In addition to all this, incorporating art into educational events, will also mean students feeling free to externalize? What does a student expressing himself/herself depend on? Is it possible for us as educators to facilitate learning? Will we respect their creativity? Let us try to delve into these questions.

CHAPTER 1

THEORETICAL BASICS

What do the theoretical basics offer us?

These pages of serious thought are based on the scientific knowledge provided by neuroeducation¹, and on research carried out by experts in the field. Each year, education professionals have the privilege of developing new understanding-seeking goals, always trying to venture into scientific fields that provide us with the skills and abilities that allow us to discern the unavoidable realities of our society. Uncovering the unknowns and transforming them into relevant knowledge is a long way to go, made of life experiences that contribute to the cultural and collaborative heritage within the learning community. I feel that it is necessary to share knowledge within this crowded and diverse group since democratic values are what facilitate a peaceful coexistence. It is not about creating a unique mold for everyone, but about motivating minds, each one independently and with their different intelligences or talents to join in the search for innovative solutions.

Having the contribution of honest people dedicated to rigorous scientific research to achieve the appropriate ends for each science branch has a commendable value. In any case, this should not be overlooked since we would not have time to cover everything, then I ask myself: if knowledge is within our reach, why not involve ourselves deeply in it to get away from the lack of information, from spiritual hollowness, and thus immerse ourselves in the vast horizon of understanding. I have always thought of ignorance as the main enemy of human being.

I began by inquiring into the safest source: the sciences that reveal the unknowns about the brain functioning. However, as my specialty is not medicine but education, I felt that I should not study the structures of the most complex human organ. Moreover, it is necessary to go further in the investigation and delve into the processes of attention, assimilation and production of knowledge to achieve a critical analysis of what has been learned. I consider neuroeducation as the science that encompasses integrated knowledge related to brain functioning -therefore neurology with psychology along with sociology-, in an attempt to improve and enhance both the learning processes and the memory of the students, and how to include them in teaching-learning processes in the classroom.

A different map of the same territory

Mental models

We all have a different map of the same reality. Otherwise, it would be very boring and diversity would be lost. The problem arises when everyone believes that his or her point of view is the only most reasonable and logical one. The mental models that we each have are important. As Senge (1990) explains, "They are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or images that influence how