BRAIN-BASED

EDUCATION

Brain-based Education

Prominent advocates in brainbased

education
Caine
and
Caine(1997) considered curriculum
and instruction from brain-based
approach. They begin with brain-mind
learning principles derived from brain
research findings and apply these
principles in the classroom and in
designing a curriculum.

12 Principles of Brain-based

1. The brain is a whole system and

includes
physiology,
emotions,
imagination and predisposition. All of
these must be considered as a whole.
2. The brain develops in relation to
interactions with the environment
and with others.
3. A quality of being human is the
search for personal meaning.

12 Principles of Brain-based

4. People

creating
meaning
through
perceiving
certain
patterns
of
understanding.
5. Emotions are critical to the patterns
people perceive.
6. The brain processes information into
both parts and wholes at the same
time.
7. Learning
includes
both
focused
attention and peripheral input.

12 Principles of Brain-based

8. Learning is both unconscious and

conscious.
9.Information(meaningful and fragmented)
is organized differently in memory.
10.Learning is developmental
11.The brain makes optimal number of
connections in supportive but challenging
environment
perceptions
of
threat
inhibiting learning.

12 Principles of Brain-based

12. Every brain is unique in its

organization.

O Resnick(1987) Theorized that learners learn

more if they are given several ways to look

at a problem and if they are asked to give
more than one way of solving it.
O Caine and Caine(1991) Also cited studies
showing that the brain learns best when it
works to solve problems or accomplishes
specific task instead of merely absorbing
isolated bits of information and that the
brains primary function is to seek patterns
in new learning.

O Sylwester(1995) pointed out that

classrooms in the future may focus more on

drawing out existing abilities rather than on
precisely measuring ones success with
imposed skills, encouraging the personal
construction of categories rather than
imposed categorical systems and
emphasizing the individual, personal
solutions of an environmental challenge
over the efficient group manipulation of the
symbols that merely represent the solution.

O Brain-based education has direct

implications in the development of

curriculum. It postulates that brains do not
exist in isolation. The brains exists in
bodies, which in turn exist in a culture, the
culture in which on happens to live
becomes an important determinant of the
brains structure and organization(Gardner).
This offers an immense possibility for
including social concerns ad cultural
matters in the curriculum.

THE END