Advances in technology enable us to view the working of the brain as it learns. One such process, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), can provide images highlighting the active regions of a brain when performing a given task. This provides researchers with evidence-based neuroimaging and brain-mapping studies that may help analyze effective ways to teach.

I am not a neuroscientist, but teachers are brain changers. So I'm very interested in information that helps me understand the learning process. The more we know about how the brain learns, the better equipped we will be to help students learn how to learn. The more we know, the better we can tell fact from hype when it comes to brain research. This knowledge can help teachers plan lessons and study cycles that will have positive and long-lasting results on students learning.

Go to How the Brain Learns to find four short informative lessons about how we learn and what can effect our learning success.

The Literature and Resources segment includes a list of some of the resources that I found very useful and interesting.

Here is an fMRI image where colored sections show active regions of the brain performing a complicated task for the first time, and then after an hour of practice.

When a part of the brain becomes active, the need for oxygen and nutrients increases. Oxygen is carried to the brain cells by hemoglobin. Hemoglobin contains iron, which is magnetic. The fMRI uses a large magnet and compares the amount of oxygenated hemoglobin entering brain cells with the amount of deoxygenated hemoglobin leaving cells. The computer colors in the brain regions receiving more oxygenated blood and can locate the activated brain region to with one centimeter. (Sousa, How the Brain Learns, 2011)