We're Born to Learn: Using the Brain's Natural Learning Process to Create Today's Curriculum
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Overview
This updated edition of the award-winning bestseller shows teachers how to help students become the motivated, successful, and natural learners they were born to be.
Synopsis
"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
Make it possible for all students to realize their potential as natural learners!
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!
Editorials
Patricia Jamie Lee
"I encountered Rita Smilkstein's work as I struggled with teaching entry level students on an Indian Reservation. The natural human learning process described in the book transformed my experience. My students were engaged, attending classes, and reprogramming their past from the frame of 'failure' to the frame of 'born to learn.' No teacher, new or experienced, should enter any class without a copy of this book."Laura Symons
"Dr. Rita Smilkstein has inspired thousands of students and educators with her practical application of the Natural Human Learning Process. This new edition brings us up-to-date, and maintains the clarity and generosity of spirit that is Smilkstein's trademark. Her enthusiasm rekindles the joy of learning that is hard-wired in all of us. If you read one book this year, make it We're Born to Learn, then put it into action."Doctor -
"We're Born to Learnis one of the most valuable instructional tools teachers will ever use. Knowing 'how' students learn should be absolutely mandatory, yet is rarely taught in college prep. All teachers believe that they are teaching, but few know how students actually learn, and don't consider how the brain processes new information whiledeveloping their lesson plans. Dr. Smilkstein likens the learning brain to twigs on a tree; the twigs grow from a branch that is already there (prior knowledge). After reading this book, the most treasured seven words in every classroom will be, 'See if you can figure this out.' "Reneau Waggoner
"Dr. Rita Smilksteinoffers aprescription for what ails our developmental students: lack of critical thinking, lack of understanding of the learning process, etc. While the previous edition is a must read, this latest edition is teaching and learning’s pharmacology textbook…a collector’s item for developmental education."Karen J. Sides
"This book is a must read for anyone with ADHD or ADD students who are drowning in the public education system.The author presentsrecent research that opens the door for teachers to immediately create an environment conducive to helping these students learn."James A. Cox
"Packs in in practical methods for achievement and is a top pick for any education collection."Dr. Deborah Daiek
"We're Born to Learnis one of the most valuable instructional tools teachers will ever use. Knowing 'how' students learn should be absolutely mandatory, yet is rarely taught in college prep. All teachers believe that they are teaching, but few know how students actually learn, and don't consider how the brain processes new information whiledeveloping their lesson plans. Dr. Smilkstein likens the learning brain to twigs on a tree; the twigs grow from a branch that is already there (prior knowledge). After reading this book, the most treasured seven words in every classroom will be, 'See if you can figure this out.'"Irving Pressley Mc Phail
"A new theory more directly linking culture, information processing, instruction, and how the brain learns is needed to transform classroom practice for culturally diverse learners. Rita Smilkstein, the ranking scholar-practitioner-activist in the brain-based, natural learning movement, offers concrete, research- based classroom strategies for achieving this vision."Robert Pinney
"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."Jonathan Baylis
"The stunning correspondence between Rita Smilkstein's research results and Piaget's six stages validates this book. Smilkstein's work grounds in brain research theories and assumptions that educators have worked with for years. It is as if a missing link has now been unearthed to connect all that we have observed in our teaching."Julie Noble
"Being a community college English instructor who has used the Natural Human Learning Process approach for several years, I have had the opportunity to see the results it produces. There is no better way to experience the joy of teaching than to see students' joy of learning blossom. There is no greater motivator than success, and that's what all of us—students and teachers alike—experience in an NHLP learning environment."Irving Pressley McPhail
"A new theory more directly linking culture, information processing, instruction, and how the brain learns is needed to transform classroom practice for culturally diverse learners. Rita Smilkstein, the ranking scholar-practitioner-activist in the brain-based, natural learning movement, offers concrete, research- based classroom strategies for achieving this vision. "Jean Mac Gregor
"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."Hunter R.Boylan
"I would certainly recommend that developmental educators read this book and implement its findings. This work is [also] going to be particularly helpful to high school teachers. It summarizes vast amounts of research and experience in clear and practical terms. It offers a whole new approach to teaching and learning that is well grounded in fact and science."