The Way We Learn

Although students' eclecticism can be overwhelming, all students are identical in at least one respect--they are biologically equipped to learn from experiences. Caine and Caine discuss neurological findings about decision-making capacities built into the brain. They describe Elkhonen Goldberg's concept of actor-centered adaptive decision making focused on questions related to one's life (as opposed to the right-wrong decision making more typical of school). Authentic decision making enriches cognits (organized configurations of brain cells that fire together) and engages the executive functions in the prefrontal cortex. Both processes lead to deeper learning. The authors present strategies for bringing students' interests and questions into the classroom. (Contains 1 footnote.)