T EACHING E VERY S TUDENT IN THE D IGITAL A GE : U NIVERSAL D ESIGN FOR L EARNING By Katie Burdge Kara Daniels Laura Eigel & Kelly Jackson

W HY R ESEARCH THE B RAIN : E DUCATIONAL I MPLICATIONS The brain is “the most powerful tool that a student brings to the classroom” If we can learn how each individual student processes information, then we as educators can find the best methods to assist our students and help them reach their full potential.

Q UESTIONS TO ADDRESS How does the brain work while we are learning? What conditions help us to learn best? Why do some people learn differently than others? Is everyone’s brain built the same way?

U NDERSTANDING THE L EARNING B RAIN Compared to a telephone or a computer network 1 trillion neurons in the cortex linked to about ten trillion connections This one large network is made into many smaller networks that are specialized for performing particular tasks

T HE T HREE B RAIN N ETWORKS Recognition Networks Strategic Networks Affective Networks

R ECOGNITION N ETWORKS Sense and assign meaning to patterns Enable us to identify and understand information, ideas and concepts

S TRATEGIC N ETWORKS Generate and oversee mental and motor patterns Enable us to plan, execute, and monitor actions and skills

A FFECTIVE N ETWORKS Evaluate patterns and assign them emotional significance Enable us to engage with tasks, learning and with the world around us

A CTIVITY Please sign your full name on the notecard.

A CTIVITY In order to sign a birthday card, you have to understand the concept of a birthday. You have to be able to identify the car, the pen/pencil you are using, your hand as you write, and your signature. All of these tasks require your recognition network. Your goal of signing the card, which includes picking up the pen, moving it to produce your signature requires use of your strategic network. You were given a very tiny piece of paper to sign your name, making small corrections such as reducing letter size so you do not run out of space also requires your strategic network. The motivation to sign the card comes from your affective network. You are using your feelings that connect you to your friends to stay on track and sign the card.

R ECOGNITION N ETWORK : D ISTRIBUTED P ROCESSING Different types of stimuli are recognized in different parts of the cortex Example: Listening to a word and reading a word will use two different parts of the brain Everyone’s brain is unique and uses different parts depending on the task

R ECOGNITION N ETWORK : H IERARCHICAL P ROCESSING Bottom Up processing: going from using less complex regions of the brain to more complex regions of the brain to interpret information Top Down processing: using more complex regions of the brain to make sense of less complex regions CONCLUSION: every student processes information differently

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P ROBLEM : Although research has proved that students learn best with different learning techniques, teachers continue to ignore the research and present information in one way. S OLUTION : Teachers need to understand their students’ strengths and weaknesses so they can provide proper support E DUCATIONAL I MPLICATIONS

E XAMPLE : Mr. Costa and Sophia 7 th grade English Weaknesses: legally blind, uses a desktop magnifier to help see with residual vision Strengths: Good ear for music and language recognition Teacher’s Approach: Make text and images available in digital form Text-to-Speech translation Voice Recognition On-Screen text and image enlargement

E XAMPLE : Mr. Sablan and Paula 3 rd grade literacy Weaknesses: reading comprehension, limited fluency, and context recognition, top-down processing Strengths: single word decoding, spelling, bottom-up processing Teacher’s Approach: Reduce focus on word decoding and help Paula develop strategies to understand the content of reading

R EFERENCES Faces-or-a-Vase-10-Simple-but-Wonderful- Optical-Illusions es/chapter2.cfm