Paul Dwyer Patch 4 Informing Your Practice With Theories of Learning In their very brief review of the place

of what they call brain science within theories of learning, Tusting and Barton (2006) assert confidently that even within the field of brain science, which might seem to be the place where one might most expect to find individual internalised models of human thinking, recent research has demonstrated the socially-situated nature of brain development and the dialectical interpenetration of individual thinking and learning with social context. But this stress on the social appears to be a partial reading of what is a growing, but necessarily emergent body of neuroscience-based research into human motivations for and success in learning. A recent review, in the journal Nature, of the role of the neurotransmitter dopamine in motivation and learning (Wise, 2004) raises the spectre of the kind of Pavlovian stimulus-response process of teaching and learning which Tusting and Barton have dispatched (with evident relief) in their review of behaviourist theories. This work is supported by a range of studies which have traced the role of primary reward systems (feeling pleasant touch, hearing positive words and seeing attractive human faces, achieving social status and interaction with others) in producing individual rewards via neurotransmitters which both motivate behaviour and stamp-in learning which takes place. (See Rilling et al. 2002; Aharon et al. 2001; Rolls et al. 2003; Hamann & Mao 2002). This research suggests that many traditional teaching methods and systems (positive words of encouragement, increased social status associated with learning) can produce measurable learning benefits in the form of what one might reasonably describe as deep learning i.e. the process by which the brain stores longer term memories. Whilst the various forms of memory are clearly not the same as learning in all its forms, they appear to be the most easily operationalised empirically testable proxies. On the other hand, this does not mean that cognitive science has no role to play in understanding the processes by which learning takes place. The work of Gallistel and King (2009) suggests that there is empirical evidence to support the presence of universal processes of cognition via modules in the brain which carry out specific functions (mapping words to objects, recognition of familiar faces/voices, computation of social obligations, imitation of behaviour in social circumstances) which are the basis of learning. Gallistel argues that the operation of these brain modules are fundamental in the process of turning short term into long term memory. Other factors that have been shown to be important in this process are emotional or sexual arousal (Cahill et al. 2004, LaBar and Cabeza 2006) and sleep (Kuriyama et al. 2008). The implication of this neurological and cognitive research is that learning takes place when students receive positive words of encouragement, when they have opportunities to achieve social status and when they are emotionally (or sexually) aroused. It suggests that (leaving aside sexual arousal and probably pleasant touch) teachers should construct their learning sessions around ways of associating these experiences with the acquisition of relevant information or skills.

As I argued in Patch 2, it is the ability of neuroscience and cognitive science to point to universal processes in human learning which brings into question some of the rhetoric surrounding what appears to be a current ethos within higher education surrounding Student Centred Learning, Action Learning and Diversity. The evidence of this research suggests that the relativising emphasis of much of the literature on diversity and Student Centred Learning is unhelpful. Unless there really is empirical evidence of different learning styles (see my discussion in Patch 3) then attempting to cater to these imagined differences is self-defeating. This is not, of course to say that there is no diversity. Rather it is to base our understanding of diversity on evidence, and not to exaggerate the degree of diversity to the extent that it produces a debilitating relativism (everyones different). The arguments in favour of SCL are partly political (its proponents argue for a more equal balance of power between teacher and student) partly pragmatic (larger class sizes mean the individual or small-group tuition which has been the traditional basis of university education is no longer affordable) and partly evidential - some students clearly do get bored during traditional lectures, and there is some evidence (Lonka and Ahola 1995) that more active methods do improve learning. But the importance of the research areas I have outlined is that, contra the constructivist or social constructivist traditions, they have clear evidence about why and how active methods produce learning. This enables us to do teaching which is neither debilitatingly relativist (everyones different) nor a ridiculous concession to pragmatism (got to keep them busy). This is not to deny that there are pragmatic constraints classes of 40 graduates are difficult to make student centred. Rather it is to attempt to create active learning experiences which evidence suggests will enable deep learning which can be measured. By having a rational and evidential (as opposed to a political or pragmatic) basis for devising active learning methods one actually might be able to produce active learning experiences which really do promote learning. Many of the ideas associated with SCL students exercising autonomy, students presenting their work to their colleagues are consistent with the scientific evidence about learning discussed above. Others the degree to which students should choose what they learn are more debatable in terms of the contribution to learning which they can be shown to make. With this clearer focus on how action (and indeed inaction) promotes learning (again contra the Kolb model see patch 3) the question of what sort of activity one should devise for ones lessons becomes (a little) easier to address. I dont yet have a clear set of activities which I can present as examples of how this could be done. But at least I know what Im looking for and why.

Bibliography Aharon, I. et al. (2001) Beautiful Faces Have Variable Reward Value: fMRI and Behavioral Evidence Neuron, Vol. 32, 537551

Cahill, L. et al. (2004) The influence of sex versus sex-related traits on long-term memory for gist and detail from an emotional story Consciousness and Cognition Vol. 13 No. 2 pp. 391-400 Gallistel, R. and King, A. (2009) Memory and the Computational Brain John Wiley, London Hamann, S. Mao, H. (2002) Positive and negative emotional verbal stimuli elicit activity in the left amygdala Neuroreport, 2002 Kuriyama, K. (2008) Sleep Accelerates the Improvement in Working Memory Performance The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 28 No. 40 pp 10145-10150 Labar, K and Cabazar, R. (2006) Cognitive neuroscience of emotional memory in Nature Reviews Neuroscience Vol. 7 pp 54-64 Lonka, K and Ahola, K. (1995) Activating instruction: How to foster study and thinking skills in higher education European Journal of Psychology of Education Vol 10 pp 351-368 Rolls, E. (2003) Representations of pleasant and painful human touch in the human orbitofrontal and cingulate cortices in Cerebral Cortex Vol. 13, Number 3 308-317 Rilling, J. et al. (2002) A Neural Basis for Social Cooperation in Neuron, Volume 35, Issue 2, 395-405 Tusting, K. and Barton, D (2006) Models of adult learning: a literature review. National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (England and Wales) (NIACE) Wise (2004) Dopamine, learning and motivation in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5, 483494