Educational Neuroscience

What? - What is the individual you chose currently researching?

Marilee Sprenger. She is an expert who internationally provides professional advice about educational neuroscience(Educational neuroscience consultant). She has taught at all levels from pre-kindergarten to graduate school. She is an assistant professor at Aurora University, and she teaches courses on brain compatible strategies and memory. For the past fifteen years, she has been involved in raising student achievement using brain based teaching strategies, differentiation, and memory research. She assists schools, teachers, and regions internationally to develop skills that will promote higher achievement.

So What? How does this person's research have to do with education?- Professor Sprenger is able to get teachers to gain an in-depth understanding of the brain structures that influence memory so that the students can have better recall for daily classroom instruction, tests, and overall learning. Sprenger gives a seven-step approach on how to gain this kind of deep memory learning skill. On her list, one of the main keys to implementing learning into long-term memory is by teaching to pathways in the brain that are already connected. By connecting the students' prior knowledge with the new knowledge being taught, teachers can facilitate a greater attention span in their students and a better overall recall. Also listed, by having reviews and assessments, the students' can have the information organized in a way that will assure greater recollection. Education is all about teachers and students. The ideal relationship between them would be to have the teachers be able to explain and relate new information to students in a way that makes sense and is processed deeper than short term memory for completion of performance goals. Sprenger has researched, like many others, ways to be more effective in this relationship.

Now What? - How might you use this person's research in your future classroom?

Based on Marilee Sprenger's research, namely the seven step approach to better memory recall, I could take into consideration many of her insights to improve the outcome of my future classroom. I can take her expertly researched advice into my teaching philosophy to fulfill my role in becoming a great teacher. Part of becoming a great teacher is researching methods and techniques to allow students the opportunity to grow and learn the very most. I especially like these few of her seven steps and would like to understand better how to incorporate them into my teaching style: Structure a framework to show students what is important to remember, connect new content to students' prior knowledge, and use multiple rehearsal strategies that provide students with ways to retrieve stored material. Already, I have begun to see similar ideas come into my teaching philosophy like the ones mentioned in Sprenger's suggested teaching approach. As I continue to focus on these ideas and come up with more ways of how I can create a positive learning environment for my future students, I will better be able to improve, as educators must continually do.