Understand How The Brain Processes, Interprets And Stores Information

As teachers, our goal is to have students successfully learn and remember the information being taught. However, we need to first understand how the brain processes, interprets and stores information. According to David A. Sousa (1998), “when teachers have a thorough understanding of how the brain develops, learns, and organizes itself, they will make better decisions about teaching, and will use programs such as multiple intelligences, learning styles, and cooperative learning more effectively.” By understanding different exterior and interior parts of the brain, we can achieve our goal. The first part of the brain we need to understand is the executive control center, which is the frontal lobes and prefrontal cortex, located at the front

The brain stem is where the vital body functions are supervised and controlled. The Limbic System is right above the brain stem and has four parts that are significant to learning and memory. The first part is the Thalamus which receives all the sensory information, besides smell, and relays to other parts of the brain to process. The second part is the Hypothalamus which monitors the internal system to maintain the normal state of the body, also known as homeostasis. The third part is the Hippocampus which consolidates learning and converts information from working memory to long term memory. Amygdala is the fourth part and is the emotional triggering mechanism of the brain. “Researchers believe that it encodes an emotional message, if one is present, whenever a memory is tagged for long-term storage” (Sousa, 2011). The Cerebrum is the soft covering of the brain and contains wiring for higher order thinking process and the Cerebellum coordinates all movements and balance. By understanding the exterior and interior parts of the brain, we can see how information is processed from one place to another. I have personally learned that the frontal lobe, pre-frontal cortex, and amygdala play a huge real on students’ higher order thinking skills and their emotions, which can easily affect them in my