From Zull, James E, (2002). The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning, Stylus, Sterling, VA.

This brief, highly readable book is strongly recommended, especially for those teaching college students.

P. 129

Watch for inherent networks (natural talents) and encourage their practice.
Repeat, repeat, repeat!
Arrange for “firing together.” Associated things should happen together.
Focus on sensory input that is “errorless.”
Don’t stress mistakes. Don’t reinforce neuronal networks that aren’t useful.
Try to understand existing networks and build on them. Nothing is new.
Misconnected networks are most often just incomplete. Try to add to them.
Be careful about resurrecting old networks; error dies hard.
Construct metaphors and insist that your students build their own metaphors. Use analogies and similes, too.

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE, I.E., NEURONAL NETWORKS

pp. 108-9

  1. All students have prior knowledge that affects how they respond to our teaching.
  2. The prior knowledge of students is not an ether; it is physical, real, and persistent.
  3. If we ignore or avoid prior knowledge, it will hinder our teaching.
  4. Prior knowledge is complex and personal.
  5. Students are not necessarily aware of all their prior knowledge.
  6. Writing assignments re helpful in discovering prior knowledge of students.
  7. Prior knowledge is likely to be concrete; teachers should begin with the concrete.
  8. Concepts and broad principles should be developed from specific examples.
  9. Teachers should expect and respect the tangles; it is not our job to set them in order.
  10. Prior knowledge is a gift to the teacher; it tells us where and how to start.

Functional Brain Area / Stages of Learning Cycle
The sensory cortex receives first input from the outside world in form of vision, hearing, touch, position, smells, and taste / This matches with the common definition of concrete experience, with its reliance on direct physical information from the world
The back integrative cortex is engaged in memory formation and reassembly, language comprehension, developing spatial relationships, and identifying objects, faces, and motion. In short, it integrates sensory information to create images and meaning. / These functions match well with what happens during reflection, for example, remembering relevant information, daydreaming, and free association, developing insights and associations, mentally rerunning experiences, and analyzing experiences.
The frontal integrative cortex is responsible for short-term memory, problem solving, making decisions, assembling plans for action, assembly of language, making judgments and evaluations, directing the action of the rest of the brain (including memory recall), and organizing actions and activities of the entire body. / This matches well with the generation of abstractions, which requires manipulation of images and language to create new (mental) arrangements, developing plans for future action, comparing and choosing options, directing recall of past experience, creating symbolic representations, and replacing and manipulating items held in short-term memory.
The motor cortex directly triggers all coordinated and voluntary muscle contractions by the body, producing movement. It carries out the plans and ideas originating from the front integrative cortex, including the actual production of language through speech and writing. / This matches with the necessity for action in completion of the learning cycle. Active testing of abstractions requires conversion of ideas into physical action, or movements of parts of the body. This includes intellectual activities such as writing, deriving relationships, doing experiments, and talking in debate or conversations.