We now know more about how humans learn than we ever have before. Research in everything from evolutionary biology to cognitive science to neurobiology has contributed to our current understanding. Some information is very new, like the amazing insights only recently available through brain-imaging technology. Other pieces of information are not so new, but they paint a new picture when they are put together with different pieces of the puzzle.

There is, of course, no way to summarize everything about human learning in a few pages on a website. Nor is that the intent. There are far too many individual details on everything from optimal group size to how minute portions of the brain decode written language. This site is instead about intersection and synthesis – about stepping back to look at the big picture instead of latching on to disconnected bitsof information to try to repair problem areas here and there.

This site is also about filling out the picture where there are gaps and questions. That’s why this is a community project and a work in progress. Add your comments, resources and new research – get involved. Better yet, add a new page to give insight into a particular issue. Learning is a social activity and it is something we need to construct together for it to be meaningful. Together, we can start to build a vision for real educational transformation. Imagine schools, families and communities actually working in alignment with what we really know about how kids learn, grow and thrive.
Born to Learn
We are a learning species, designed and born ready to learn. 

Your brain is the most remarkable, complex organism in the entire known universe. It has more neurons than all the trees in all the forests of both North and South America combined – and more synapses (potential neural connections) than all the leaves in all the forests throughout the world1!

Human brains are a result of an incredibly long saga of evolutionary adaptations that have brought us to a point where we can build cars, write operas, cry at another’s misfortune and send ourselves into outer space. Precisely because humans have evolved with brains big enough to allow for such activities, human babies can’t possibly be born with fully developed brains like the offspring of other mammals (They would need to gestate for 27 months!). 

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How We Learn Best
If we know that humans have evolved with a brain built to learn and primed for growth and development, what can we do to take full advantage of this amazing design and the vast array of ready-to-activate features? 

There are many things that we already know about the circumstances, experiences, and situations that help humans learn. We learn better when we collaborate, instead of when we compete. We learn better when we are motivated, engaged and when the material is personally relevant and interesting. We also learn better when we make connections to what we already know and when we actually do things for ourselves. More than anything, we learn best when our experiences work with ‘the grain of the brain’ instead of against it.

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When asked what a set of national standards should be like if you had to adopt them, former US Commissioner of Education Harold Howe II replied – "they should be as vague as possible".
Harold Howe II, Former US Commissioner of Education

Featured Video

John Abbott on Brain Development: Windows of Opportunity for Learning

Programs at Work
 Endnote
  1. John Abbott. Battery Hens or Free Range Chickens What Kind of Education for What Kind of World? This presentation was given by John Abbott as the keynote speech to the Canadian Child Care Federation’s Linking Research to Practice: Second Canadian Forum held in Ottawa in November, 1999.