BRAIN RESEARCH

New developments in brain research have implications for teaching and lifelong learning, says Professor Geoff masters.

In December 2002, a forum in Yokohama brought together leading neuroscientists and an international group of educators, to review developments in brain research.

Our understanding of the brain and its functions is due to the impressive progress neuroscience is making. Brain scanning and imaging techniques have provided powerful new research tools that are used to study brain mechanisms such as:

· Visual processing
· Memory
· Language learning
· Reading
· Mathematics
· Problem solving

Scientists at the Yokohama meeting pointed out that many current myths were based on misunderstandings of earlier research studies. An example of such a myth is the popular distinction between the ‘right brain’ learning (assumed to be creative and visual) and ‘left brain learning (assumed to be logical and verbal). In fact, researchers have shown that the human brain is highly integrated and one hemisphere rarely works in isolation from the other.

BRAIN PLASTICITY

Brain ‘Plasticity’ is the ability of the brain to continue to develop, learn and change throughout life. It once was thought that, at birth, the human brain had all the neurons it would ever have. This belief is being questioned by recent research. Neuroscientists also now recognise that the brain retains its plasticity (or flexibility) throughout the lifespan, allowing the brain to remain flexible, alert, responsive, and solution oriented. This finding raises questions about the best ways to cater for the learning needs and potential of the growing proportion of the population who will live healthy lives into their eighties and beyond in a world of constant change.

There appears to be sensitive periods during which the brain is especially ready for particular kinds of learning. The extraordinary speed with which young children learn their first language suggests that the infant brain is especially ready for language learning. There is also evidence that second language learning may be easier for children of primary age than for students in secondary schools.

Researchers report, the later a second language is learned, the more likely it is that the learner will need to use both sides of the brain in learning grammar. The earlier a child is exposed to a second language, the less work the brain appears to do and the faster grammar learning occurs.

Dr Stanislas Dehaene from France reasons that some difficulties in mathematical learning may arise from the fact that three different parts of the brain are involved in processing numbers as numerals (e.g. "3"), numbers as words (e.g. "three") and numbers as quantities (e.g. "3 is bigger than 1"). Children may experience difficulties in building connections between these different representations.These students need to focus on numbers as quantities and by using concrete objects rather than language to represent numbers.