Above: A picture of the brain with basic subdivisions showing the areas involved in learning. The prefrontal cortex in the frontal lobe is the place of most development in children. Below: This picture denotes the specific areas that are engaged in learning and their interaction with each other. Memory is better encoded and then more readily retrieved with the multiplicity of areas engaged here.
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Development & the Prefrontal CortexAt present, methodologies of teaching adolescents is providing underachievement in the United States. Although the basics are well apprehended, many of the more challenging topics and trains of thought are not reaching an adequate level of proficiency. In particular, English Language Learners (ELL) are having an even more profound effect due to lack of efficient teaching styles. According to Rachel B. Slama (2012), currently 57% of ELLs are still considered to be learning the English language by the end of their education. That is to say, the majority of students in this program are not gaining the acquisition necessary to fully be able to participate in our society.
From the start, these students will be disadvantaged adults and will face a significant amount more hardship in their lives. Of the students that marginally make the mark, many are predicted to continually struggle in higher education situations which will indeed lead to less opportunity in their future careers (Slama, 2012). Being in California, a state which encompasses much immigration and therefore more ELLs, changing the manner in which teachers teach students is of utmost importance and should take precedence. These problems arise in middle childhood and early adolescence, which is a pinnacle period of development. Specifically, the brain will undergo its last major alteration in an area called the prefrontal cortex. The current method of teaching does not take the immature brain into account and as so that led us to research ways to improve teaching styles to cater toward developing teenagers in this critical period. To begin, I will give background information on what the prefrontal cortex is intended to do and why these children are not able to effectively utilize this area of the brain yet. The prefrontal cortex is involved in higher order operations such as abstracting meaning and forming meaningful representations to store information that is pertinent. Finn, Sheridan, Hudson Kam, Hinshaw and D'Esposito (2010) surmised that this is the main method that adults use to extract information from their memory in order to apply it to the real world. During this critical period for teens, however, the prefrontal cortex is not yet myelinated, so any functionality of that area is greatly impaired. When this area of the brain is fully myelinated, the speed of ability of processing increases. Instead, teens have to compensate by using different parts of the brain to approximate the ability of the prefrontal cortex. The areas that are being used include the hippocampus (for intermediary memory consolidation), temporal lobe (for audition) and the occipital lobe (for vision) (Finn et al., 2010). |
Although these areas are all fully developed by the early teen years, they are not meant to do the complex tasks that the prefrontal cortex is capable of. Consequently, the current style of audio-visual input, typically done by lecturing and powerpoint presentations, is inadequate. This is especially true for ELLs who are just beginning to grasp English in any form. Once the prefrontal cortex is properly functioning, it is already to late because the development continues into early adulthood when children are already out of school.
Since there is no way to expedite the myelination process, teaching methods can incorporate various other forms of learning. Tactile and learning that involves motor coordination readily increases learning capabilities as evidenced by Butler, James and James (2011). The basic premise of their research is that allowing another area of the brain, the motor cortex, to be simultaneously activated during the learning process will improve acquisition and performance on learning tasks. In accordance with ELLs, motion is more universally known and then they will be able to associate those motions to the English language. This will also overall improve memory since there are more cues to retrieval of memory from the brain allowing for less activation of other unimportant areas of the brain.
Since there is no way to expedite the myelination process, teaching methods can incorporate various other forms of learning. Tactile and learning that involves motor coordination readily increases learning capabilities as evidenced by Butler, James and James (2011). The basic premise of their research is that allowing another area of the brain, the motor cortex, to be simultaneously activated during the learning process will improve acquisition and performance on learning tasks. In accordance with ELLs, motion is more universally known and then they will be able to associate those motions to the English language. This will also overall improve memory since there are more cues to retrieval of memory from the brain allowing for less activation of other unimportant areas of the brain.