A practical, classroom-oriented guide to best-practice teaching. Learning specialist Leslie Hart once wrote that designing educational experiences without knowledge of the brain is like designing a glove without knowledge of the hand. Making Classrooms Better takes this concept a step further, building from general knowledge of brain-based education science and current educational research to offer specific suggestions for how teachers can improve student learning outcomes. Covering a range of subjects, from creating an optimal classroom climate to maximizing metacognitive skill development, this well-researched, state-of-the-art guide is an essential resource for highly effective practices that teachers, administrators, and curriculum planners can easily use. The first half of the book provides a practical overview of teaching from a Mind, Brain, and Education perspective through an understanding of the intersection of the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and pedagogy. The second half shares 50 evidence-based classroom “best practices” that have a proven positive impact on student learning outcomes and explains why they work.

Establishing the parameters and goals of the new field of mind, brain, and education science. A groundbreaking work, Mind, Brain, and Education Science explains the new transdisciplinary academic field that has grown out of the intersection of neuroscience, education, and psychology. The trend in “brain-based teaching” has been growing for the past twenty years and has exploded in the past five to become the most authoritative pedagogy for best learning results. Aimed at teachers, teacher trainers and policy makers, and anyone interested in the future of education in America and beyond, Mind, Brain, and Education Science responds to the clamor for help in identifying what information could and should apply in classrooms with confidence, and what information is simply commercial hype. Combining an exhaustive review of the literature, as well as interviews with over twenty thought leaders in the field from six different countries, this book describes the birth and future of this new and groundbreaking discipline. Mind, Brain, and Education Science looks at the foundations, standards, and history of the field, outlining the ways that new information should be judged. Well-established information is elegantly separated from “neuromyths” to help teachers split the wheat from the chaff in classroom planning, instruction and teaching methodology.

From the author of Neuromyths, a revolutionary look at teaching and learning via the logical pathways of the brain. A review of the research on brain networks reveals, surprisingly, that there are just five basic pillars through which all learning takes place: Symbols, Patterns, Order, Categories, and Relationships. Dr. Tokuhama-Espinosa proposes that redesigning school curriculum around these five pillars—whether to augment or replace traditional subject categories—could enable students to develop the transdisciplinary problem-solving skills that are often touted as the ultimate goal of education. Heralding a potential paradigm shift in education, Five Pillars of the Mind explores how aligning instruction with the brain's natural design might just be the key to improving students' learning outcomes.

Understanding how the brain learns helps teachers do their jobs more effectively. Primary researchers share the latest findings on the learning process and address their implications for educational theory and practice. Explore applications, examples, and suggestions for further thought and research; numerous charts and diagrams; strategies for all subject areas; and new ways of thinking about intelligence, academic ability, and learning disability.

Compatible with other professional development programs, this model shows how to apply relevant research from educational and cognitive neuroscience to classroom settings through a pedagogical framework. The model's six components are: 1) Establish the emotional connection to learning; 2) Develop the physical learning environment; 3) Design the learning experience; 4) Teach for the mastery of content, skills, and concepts; 5) Teach for the extension and application of knowledge; 6) Evaluate learning. --Book cover.

This book explores the impact of acquired brain injury and developmental disabilities on children's emerging social skills. The editors present an innovative framework for understanding how brain processes interact with social development in both typically developing children and clinical populations. Anderson, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne.

Have you ever wondered how a sheepdog, police horse, leopard or octopus is trained? Carrots and Sticks brings behavioural science to life, explaining animal training techniques in the language of learning theory. The first sections on instinct and intelligence, rewards and punishers are richly infused with examples from current training practice, and establish the principles that are explored later in the unique case studies. Drawing on interviews with leading animal trainers, Carrots and Sticks offers 50 case studies that explore the step-by-step training of a wide variety of companion, working and exotic animals. It reviews the preparation of animals prior to training and common pitfalls encountered. The book's accessible style will challenge your preconceptions and simplify your approach to all animal-training challenges. This exciting text will prove invaluable to anyone with an interest, amateur or professional, in the general basics of animal training, as well as to students of psychology, veterinary medicine, agriculture and animal science.