About the Process

NeuroCognitive Application Protocols

About the Process

| | | | | | | | |

Neurocognitive Teaching and Learning: What It Is and Does

Neurocognitive study is a means of teacher/parent education. Neurocognitive epistemologists study brain research, isolate data that impact formal and informal learning, interpret the data, and present it to teachers, parents, and professionals who design learning environments and curriculum. During the 1990s, The Decade of the Brain, a huge literature of research was generated. This research ought to directly affect teaching strategies and learning methodologies and, if appropriately studied and understood, change the ways schools function. While some of these data are not yet fully applicable to schooling environments, much of it is. Such data addressed in neurocognitive protocols are organized to teach basic brain information, explain effective acquisition skills, and suggest reasoned approaches to the presentation of information and testing.

left and right hemispheres

In the age of accelerated information processing there is a growing need for learners to acquire skills of inquiry to the same level at which they have typically acquired information. Neurocognitive protocols offer ways to think about the development of an interrogative teaching style. Neurocognitive protocols solicit thinking about the lateralization of brain hemispheres and emphasize the critical need for learners to have an aesthetic quality in their learning styles. From the earliest ages there is a biological urge to "use" aesthetic means to learn and confirm learning. Relegating the “arts” to a minor role in the learning process disables an important segment of the acquisition process.

Eat a balanced diet

Issues of nutrition and hydration are essential physical support features for appropriate brain functioning. They must be included when thinking about learning and associated problems. Neurocognitive protocols suggest that the brain and body are coequals in the learning process. Research shows that nearly 66% of all school-aged children struggle with sleep deprivation. Such deprivation significantly affects both learning acquisition and retention. Children are well served to follow an established bedtime. Environmental stress is much more difficult to manage and has a doubly destructive effect in sleep-deprived children and youth. Neurocognitive protocols are designed to assist parents in thinking about appropriate ways to meet the challenge of establishing opportunities for quality sleep.

Classroom

Teachers need to be encouraged to create physical learning environments that assist attention rather than misdirecting it. Any modification a teacher makes to reduce physical and emotional stress in the climate of her classroom provides direct and positive effects for learners.

§ Knowing the extreme cognitive need for language/vocabulary teaching enrichment,

§ Understanding neuro-epistemological concepts of memory enhancement,

§ Learning to be a careful observer of learning behavior for diagnostic purposes,

§ Lowering the intensity of artificial lights,

§ Providing semi-private spaces for quiet reflection and rumination,

§ Knowing the extreme cognitive need for language/vocabulary teaching enrichment,

§ Understanding neuro-epistemological concepts of memory enhancement,

§ Learning to be a careful observer of learning behavior for diagnostic purposes,

§ Lowering the intensity of artificial lights,

§ Providing semi-private spaces for quiet reflection and rumination,

§ Having Baroque background music playing in the classroom for the purpose of lateralization,

§ Only having teaching materials and children's work products displayed on the classroom walls to limit peripheral distraction,

§ Providing an emotionally safe climate in all learning spaces to reduce stress and to allow learners to perform at high levels of competence.

These concepts woven together form a neurocognitive approach to teaching and learning. Our work emphasizes the responsibility of teachers to become competent diagnosticians of learning problems. Knowing why learners are having problems with any acquisition skill is critical to the individualization of instruction. Neuro-appropriate teaching is premised on the ability to carefully diagnose problems in and of learning. Learning diagnostics is a fundamental skill that must be informed by research data and practice. A neurocognitive protocol takes diagnosis of the problems of/in learning as central to the whole of the teaching task. Workshops that offer an up-to-date flow of research data and seminars on developing and organizing for quality diagnosis and prescriptive response are central to neurocognitive education.