The Learning and Developing Brain

Chapter 6 of the Janet Nay Zadina book, Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain", focuses on how language and math is processed by the brain. The thalamus and corpus callosum are the two parts of the brain that heavily focuses on language. The thalamus recognizes incoming data and send its to the auditory cortex, which determines what type of sound it is. If the sound is recognized as language, it is sent elsewhere in the brain to be further processed. Math is processed differently than language because it is different processes strung together to complete the math task. For math, you need to be able to retrieve the memory/information of the basic math skills before targeting higher quality math like algebra and geometry. Knowing how the brain processes language and math is important because educators have to know the possible misconceptions they face with teaching both reading/language and math. If the educator can spot these misconceptions or have prepared responses for certain m

The attention and memory pathway are the neural networks that control what information is retained into the memory and your attention span. Chapter 5 of the Janet Nay Zadina book, Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain , focuses on the attention and memory pathways. Zadina (2014) states, "Attention and memory may be two of the most critical brain processes with regard to learning." (pp. 109). Attention has three networks in the brain: alerting, orienting, and executive. The alerting network is the the alerts we receive from the brain when we need to pay attention. The orienting network is where we decide if we continue paying attention of not. The third network is the executive attention network. This network engages your attention pathway to focus on something that you desire to. Zadina (2014) writes, "This network is impaired in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and anxiety and has been associated with lower socioeconomic status." (pp. 112).

Like other information processed by the body, emotions follow the same trajectory. All of the regions of the brain that are associated with emotions include: thalamus, hypothalamus, cingulate gyrus, amygdala, hippocampus, and basal ganglia. The frontal lobe is involved, but it only controls the emotion and evaluates potential threats made to the person. As educators, it is our job to make sure students have a healthy emotional standing because it heavily affects their learning. Emotion can affect memory and attention, two things heavily relied upon in education. Zadina's Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain has a chapter that evaluates the effects on emotion on learning. Zadina (2014) states, "Emotion can have positive or negative effects on learning. The effect we most often think about in regard to learning is that strong negative emotions impair thinking and, therefore, learning in general." (pp. 66) Educators need to remind themselves to model positive emotion and i

The sensory motor pathway is the trajectory a sensory takes from being inflicted on the body to its' processing in the brain and body. Each of the five senses is introduced to the body in a different way: sight for the eyes, smell for the nose, taste for the tongue, touch for any appendages, and hearing for the ears. One the sense is detected by the body, how it travels through is differently. For example, according the Janet Nay Zadina book Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain (2014), "The eyes are the conduit for visual information sent to the thalamus, the relay station. The thalamus evaluates the information. If it is recognized as visual stimuli, it is sent to the visual cortex in the back of the brain for further processing." (pp. 36) Like vision, the other senses follow a similar path. Everything is relayed at the thalamus to determine what type of stimuli it is. If you look at the visual below, you will see that the thalamus is located at the center of all of th

The brain is a very remarkable organ. The way it gathers and processes information is complex, to say the least. There are four regions of the brain that are responsible for gathering and interpreting information: frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, and occipital lobe. Each lobe is responsible for a different function, but they have to work together. Aside from the regions or parts of the brain, the brain has a specific process that occurs each time someone is learning. Neural synapses run the brain, and the more learning that occurs means there are numerous synapses occurring in the brain. Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain, written by Janet Nay Zadina (2014), has a chapter devoted to how the brain thinks and learns. Zadina's remarks about synapses are that they are "...the firing of chemicals and communication between neurons [which] enables thinking to take place." (pp. 16). Teachers' responsibilities should be to find what makes each individual student