We're Born to Learn: Using the Brain's Natural Learning Process to Create Today's Curriculum

"This is an important and useful book--readable, practical, and inspiring advice for the practicing teacher. This is a great translation of theory into practice, and Rita's stories of her own work are especially compelling."
Jean MacGregor, National Learning Communities Project
The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA

"This author not only summarizes the theories and research regarding how the brain functions in the process of learning--natural learning--she also shows how she has continued to apply it in her own teaching and learning."
Robert Pinney, Director
Extension Teacher Education Programs, Western Washington University

We all have an innate, natural ability and motivation to learn. We are natural pattern-seekers, thinkers, and learners from birth--and the brain uses the same innate processes throughout life. This exciting new resource provides parents and educators of students of all ages with important information about how the brain learns.

In We're Born to Learn, Smilkstein reframes traditional education, transforming the student who "can't" into the student who is simply not experiencing his or her birthright as a naturally motivated learner. This book provides research-based, concrete strategies for creating a student-centered curriculum in which every student can learn!

Smilkstein has broken down the Natural Human Learning Process (NHLP) into six stages from foundational knowledge through higher-level thinking. She then provides guidelines and models showing educators how to create learningexperiences at each stage of the process for individuals, small groups, and whole classes so all students can experience the joy and satisfaction of success.

We're Born to Learn includes:

• Detailed field/classroom and neuroscience research combined into principles for developing brain-compatible, natural-learning curricula for any classroom
• Simple charts detailing the six-stage Natural Human Learning Process
• Practical methods for developing curricula and selecting pedagogical strategies that are most effective in helping students utilize their innate learning processes
• Guidelines and models for how this theory can be applied to the development of classroom-proven lesson plans and curricula

This extraordinary book provides the missing link between brain research and the classroom-the author's unique research with almost 7,000 students and educators, revealing how people experience their own natural learning. It shows teachers how to create and deliver curriculum that helps all students become the motivated, successful natural learners they were born to be!

Dr. Rita Smilkstein's area of expertise is teaching-learning theory based on brain research and how to teach according to the brain's natural learning process. A frequent speaker nationally and internationally, her publications include textbooks for teaching study skills and grammar as well as articles on how to apply the brain's natural learning process to curriculum development and instructional methods across the disciplines. Her book, We're Born to Learn: Using the Brain's Natural Learning Process to Create Today's Curriculum (Corwin Press, 2002), won the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International's Educator's Award for 2004.

In 2005, Dr. Smilkstein received the prestigious Robert Griffin Award from the College Reading and Learning Association for long and outstanding service. In 2006, she was elected a Fellow of the American Council of Developmental Education Associations. Fellows are selected based on their long-term and significant contributions to the field and a fellowship is the highest honor that may be conferred upon professionals in learning assistance, tutoring, and developmental education.

Dr. Smilkstein has degrees in English (B.A., State University of Iowa; M.A. Michigan State University) and a doctorate in Educational Psychology (University of Washington) and has taught in middle school through graduate school, including 28 years at North Seattle Community College in both developmental and college-transfer programs. She was one of the founding members of the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, a leader in the national learning communities movement. Currently, she is Professor Emerita (English),North Seattle Community College, and, as invited faculty, teaches educational psychology at Western Washington University's Woodring College of Education.

She has received a number of teaching awards, including the Excellence Award from the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development in 1995, 1991; Outstanding Teacher Award, Washington Association of Developmental Education, 1994; Award of Recognition for Outstanding Contribution to Education Excellence, Washington Community Colleges/Vocational Technical Institutes Councils, 1991; and the Burlington Northern Award for Significant and Meritorious Teaching, 1990.