The Adult Learner

Chapter 9 - The Brain and Cognitive Functioning

Jill Bolte Taylor´s Inspiring Story

It sounds ironic that a scientist who decided to dedicate her life to study the brain could suffer a massive stroke! One could think, well, she knows how to take care of herself to avoid any illness of this sort to affect her life. Well, think twice... In her TedTalk, Dr. Jill Bote Taylor explained that she decided to study the brain because she has a brother who suffers from schizophrenia. She not only studied the brain but also was a advocate for the National Alliance for Mental Illnesses, encouraged by her own brother´s journey through his illness. Jill was a normal person, full of life, but one day on December of 1996, she experienced how her brain shut down and she was not able to "walk, talk, read, write and recall any of [her] life and, in her own words, she continues saying, "I essentially became an infant in a woman´s body". Recalling the day of her stroke, she wrote in her book, My Stroke, of Insight (2009), "Wow, how many scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain function and metal deterioration from the inside out?" (Merriam, S. B, & Bierema, L. L., 2014, )

The Brain in the process of Learning

Source: www.biausa.org

Dr. Taylor explains that in a healthy brain, "if the experience that originally created the memory was associated with positive feelings (happiness or pleasure), then the response to the new experience will also be positive" (...) Although we may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think" explains a lot of what we know about adult learning (Taylor 2009, p. 17, italics in original)" (Merriam, S. B, & Bierema, L. L., 2014, 170).

Source: http://college.usatoday.com/2015/06/19/5-way-your-brain-learns/

Erica Cirino came into a list of five things all of us should know about how our brain learns. Her intention was to give advise to students in college. She says, "1. Learning builds of prior knowledge. (...) to learn new knowledge, a person must build on information that is already stored in the brain. For this reason, having a strong understanding of the foundational content in a given subject is essential if you wish to accomplish higher-level learning.
2. Practice leads to stronger connections in the brain. When it comes to creating stronger, faster connections in the brain, practicing the skill or information that you wish to fully master is essential. This is because regular practice — whether it involves reading a history textbook, listening to a science podcast or solving a calculus problem (...) Thus, continually practicing a given skill to acquire information or ability can help solidify that information or ability in your brain more permanently.
3. The type of practice you do directly impacts what you learn. It is important to remember that the brain grows fibers that relate to what you are practicing. This fact is especially important to keep in mind if you are enrolled in courses that require hands-on skills, such as calculus, chemistry, physics and studio art. In such classes, it’s essential to not just listen to and watch how to perform a specific skill, but to also perform that skill yourself. This will help you truly learn it.
4. Your working memory has limits. Working memory is the part of your brain that allows information to be stored and mentally manipulated for short periods of time. This is the type of memory you rely on to do mental math, such as when you’re out to dinner and must calculate a tip, or when you’re trying to memorize the five or six items you need to purchase at the grocery store.

Though the capacity of working memory differs from person to person, scientists believe that its general limit is five to seven items. But don’t let that limit intimidate (or frustrate) you — researchers also believe that memory can be improved by taking proper care of your brain and body.(...)
5. Sleep impacts learning and memory. (...) scientists have found that it is extremely important to get a full night’s rest within the first 30 hours of learning new knowledge. Try to prioritize your rest (i.e. get seven to nine hours of sleep) each day of the week. This may mean changing your schedule, lifestyle, and habits, but it will provide you with extraordinary health and learning benefits."

Having in consideration all these facts and the way our brain connects by neurons, fibers, and dendrites, it makes sense how Dr. Taylor was able to re-shape her brain and re-learn. The brain is an amazing organ that based on the use we give to it, can become lazy and stop growing, or if we constantly are active and take care of it intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically, it will continue growing to let us learn each day more and more. Dr. Taylor is a living example of the amazing power of the brain that is able to recuperate and reach beyond any boundary. If Dr. Taylor was able to re-teach her brain, all of us, active learners, can achieve whatever we put into mind because I count we an extraordinary ally that will never fail us as long as we put the effort to nurture it in a healthy way!