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Group 1 - Chapter 2 (T/Th section)

What Brain Research Tells Us About Learner Differences
The brain is a very powerful learning tool that everyone uses differently. The brain has three networks that are associated with learning. The three networks are: recognition, strategic, and affective networks.

**Recognition Networks:**
Light, sound, taste, smell, and touch. Our recognition networks allow us to identify and analyze the patterns of these important senses. This, in turn, helps us remember voices, faces, and other complex patterns. The process of recognition is distributed throughout different parts of the brain. In this picture, the person on the left heard a set of words, and the PET scan picked up the brain activity. On the right, the same person read the same set of words, and the PET scan picked up the brain activity.

This shows how the different parts of the brain process the different senses. In other words, each area of brain tissue processes different senses. So, the brain is split up into sections, rather than being an "all-purpose" brain. This is fascinating because this is what makes a person unique - Everyone uses different sections of their brains for different things.


 * Strategic Networks **:

The strategic network of the brain allows us to plan, execute, and self-monitor actions and skills. This network is specialized to generate and oversee mental and motor patterns, such as tying your shoe, cooking dinner, or typing on the computer. Many people do not realize that strategy is involved in everything we do. The steps that are taken during a strategic process are: identifying a goal, designing a suitable plan, executing the plan, self-monitoring, and correcting or adjusting actions.

Differences in strategic processes affect classroom learning due to the fact that each child learns differently. Teachers are then limited to what technology should be incorporated into the lesson. Some students may excel with technology, while others have a hard time grasping the basic concepts. Awareness of different strategic processes can help teachers design lesson plans for different kinds of learners.

**The Affective Network**:
The affective network in the brain deals with motivation and emotional attachments to things in that person’s life. It could be an emotional response to an object, a smell, or an event. For example, if you smell cookies baking you might suddenly feel happy because you are suddenly remembering all those happy times when your parents made you cookies. This part of your brain can also motivate you into doing things that you might not want to do, like an five page essay for a class.

Psychologists often use inkblot tests in order to determine if a subject has a particular emotion to whatever thing they happen to see in the ink blot. Psychologist tend to think that the object someone sees in an inkblot can determine how that person thinks and kind of emotions that person has most of the time.

Not everything in the affective network is connected, they are distributed. There are some people who can have very strong emotions but they might be unable to read the emotions of others and there are some people that have little to no emotional response but can read the emotions of others extremely well. Also, the affective network in different people may be similar, people can easily respond differently to similar situations. Even though we can makes some generalizations about people’s emotions to certain events (being sad at a funeral), most of the time people have very different emotional responses to similar events.



Implications for Educators
Educators need a basic knowledge of how the three networks work in order to best help their students. Knowing this information helps educators understand there is no “regular” student. We can’t put students into little boxes, such as smart or stupid or any of the other ways to describe a student. Everyone one learns differently, and uses the networks of their brain differently. As the world starts to learn more about brain learning, educators start to understand how learning differs for each person. As a result of this, they are able to help their students increase their learning.

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