The Neurological Basis of Learning, Development and Discovery: Implications for Science and Mathematics Instruction

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Springer Science & Business Media, Apr 30, 2003 - Business & Economics - 283 pages
A goal of mine ever since becoming an educational researcher has been to help construct a sound theory to guide instructional practice. For far too long, educational practice has suffered because we have lacked firm instructional guidelines, which in my view should be based on sound psychological theory, which in turn should be based on sound neurological theory. In other words, teachers need to know how to teach and that "how-to-teach" should be based solidly on how people learn and how their brains function. As you will see in this book, my answer to the question of how people learn is that we all learn by spontaneously generating and testing ideas. Idea generating involves analogies and testing requires comparing predicted consequences with actual consequences. We learn this way because the brain is essentially an idea generating and testing machine. But there is more to it than this. The very process ofgenerating and testing ideas results not only in the construction of ideas that work (i. e. , the learning of useful declarative knowledge), but also in improved skill in learning (i. e. , the development of improved procedural knowledge).
 

Contents

The Neurological Basis of SelfRegulation
27
Brain Maturation Intellectual Development
57
Brain Maturation Intellectual Development
79
Creative Thinking Analogy and a Neural Model
99
The Role of Analogies and Reasoning Skill in Theoretical
119
What Kinds of Scientific Concepts Exist?
159
Psychological and Neurological Models of Scientific
183
Rejecting Nature of Science Misconceptions By Preservice
211
Implications for The Nature of Knowledge and Instruction
225
References
261
Index
277
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