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There is some confusion in education about the meaning of four different terms:
- Accelerated learning
- Brain-friendly learning
- Constructivist learning
- Differentiated learning
This website already offers a thorough focus on brain-friendly; so, let us review the other three terms in detail.
1. Accelerated Learning (= 2. Brain-friendly Learning)
This is one of the first terms that evolved as a label for some techniques that were observed to increase both the speed and the retention of learning. In the 1970s, Georgi Lozanov, a Bulgarian educator and psychologist developed a teaching method he called Suggestopedia (from suggestion and pedagogy). Using music, pictures, color, dramatic readings, etc., the method accelerated the rate of learning a second language by three times or more for many students.
Today, the term “accelerated learning” is more commonly used, especially in business and industry training, to refer to a broad range of “brain-friendly” teaching techniques that have been shown to increase both the rate and the effectiveness of learning. Internationally respected consultant firms help business and industry and education trainers and teachers to use these proven techniques. However some ivory-tower types continue to question and criticize the techniques with such ambiguous claims as:
- Brain research is not ready for application in teaching. (These critics shy away from the broad reality of techniques proven to improve learning and pretend that “brain-friendly” teaching must be narrowly based on such physical evidence as brain scans.)
- The evidence on using different learning styles is not clear. (If you are a visual learner whose understanding of information is greatly enhanced by graphics or pictures or a seeing process, you might laugh at these critics. However, many are part of a group who mistakenly and unrealistically believe that using learning styles means that a teacher must prescribe individual style activities for each student. They miss the practical path that is working in thousands of classrooms and industry training programs - - instructors providing a variety of learning opportunities from which informed students can select. See Topic #4 on this website for an example of measured results.)
Today the simplest explanation of accelerated learning is that “accelerated” learning is “brain-friendly” learning. The two terms are essentially synonymous. They refer to teaching techniques whose effectiveness have been proven and documented. They are techniques that should be used by all front-line teachers while ivory-tower critics waste time on semantic debates.
3. Constructivist Learning
Constructivism is a pedagogical theory derived from the work done by Jean Pioget. It states that learning happens when students construct meaning from information and experiences. Those pursuing this theory provide instruction that includes active student involvement in multiple (different) experiences followed by reflection including group discussion to extract meaning from the experiences. The variety of experiences, reflection, and group discussion are all consistent with the broader principles of brain-friendly instruction and differentiation (discussed next). Thus, constructivism can be properly considered one element in brain-friendly instruction.
4. Differentiated Learning
Differentiated learning is based on the recognition that:
- Students have different preferred learning styles and degrees of talents.
- Students have different backgrounds, home lives, and learning rates.
This basic recognition then leads to recommendations for multiple or “different” options for pursing learning and for different ways of demonstrating learning and for use of pre-tests and formative tests. All of these recommendations are consistent with one of the broad principles of brain-friendly learning - - the importance of providing students with variety and choices. In fact, for the most part; if you buy a book or attend a conference on differentiated learning, you are going to be reading or hearing about brain-friendly learning. In fact, one can not so jokingly conclude that the different names “differentiated” and “brain-friendly” and “accelerated” are just different titles for the same researched advice - - a way to sell more books perhaps! Most presentations under any one of these titles could use either of the other two titles and be accurate.
So, good luck as you accelerate learning with differentiation and constructivist techniques. You will be pursing brain-friendly learning.
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