How Does Dimensions of Learning Reflect Brain Research?

 

Dimensions of Learning (DOL) suggests that five interrelated aspects of learning should be addressed in all classrooms, each of which reinforces one or more of the major brain-based research findings:

1. Dimension One (Developing Positive Attitudes and Perceptions About Learning) reinforces the need to foster relaxed alertness in students by creating a classroom that is low in threat and high in challenge.
2. Dimension Two (Acquiring and Integrating Knowledge) emphasizes instructional activities to ensure that students retain essential declarative and procedural knowledge in semantic, procedural, and episodic/spatial memory.
3. Dimension Three (Extending and Refining Knowledge) reinforces neural branching (i.e., extending neural networks) by emphasizing multiple forms of higher-level questioning and students' hands-on inquiry.
4. Dimension Four (Meaningful-Use Tasks) reinforces the value of providing students opportunities to apply what they have learned in real-world settings and contexts, using their stored knowledge in authentic ways.
5. Dimension Five (Productive Habits of Mind) emphasizes the powerful value of intellectual dispositions (i.e., life-long habits of mind) that are extensions of students' creation of meaning in response to purposeful learning experiences.

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This site was developed by the Department of Staff Development, in collaboration with the Division of Instruction. Questions, comments, and other inquiries may be addressed to Allene Chriest (achriest@pgcps.org) or Jeff Maher  (jmaher@pgcps.org).