Instruction is more effective when it aligns with how the brain best attends to, understands, and retains information. A number of principles of brain-friendly learning have been established. It turns out, to a remarkable degree, that systematic use of cooperative learning implements some of the most important principles of brain-friendly learning. In this article, I point out how cooperative learning aligns with five important principles of brain-friendly learning.

I. Brains Need Nourishment

When brain oxygen and glucose levels drop, so does brain functioning. Increasing the supply of oxygen and blood to the brains of students in a classroom increases alertness, sense of well-being, and learning.

Many classbuilding structures have students get out of their seats and move in the classroom (Kagan, Robertson, & Kagan, 1995). There are a host of brain-breaks and energizers that take but a few minutes but dramatically increase energy level among students (Kagan, 2000). The movement and interaction increase breathing rate and volume and heart rate and volume, which in turn increase blood supply to the brain. Increased blood supply to the brain increases the delivery of oxygen and glucose, the primary nourishments that fuel s cognitive activity. Thus cooperative learning structures actually nourish the brain!

II. Brains Are Social Organs

In a remarkable book, Friday's Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human Mind, Leslie Brothers (1997) provides a wealth of evidence demonstrating that our brains have evolved to selectively attend to social stimuli. In Mapping the Mind, Rita Carter (1999, p. 150) displays results of active brain imaging studies which show that brains are dramatically more active learning in interaction with others than when alone, reading or listening to a lecture. Opiate-like substances are released in mammalian brains during care-giving and play, explaining why these activities are so rewarding. Our brains, to a remarkable extent, are social organisms.

If we naturally attend far more to social stimuli, it makes sense to have students interact, discuss, debate, and work together on academic content. For example, if rather than turning to a text to seek an answer, students are allowed to use Find Someone Who, they are more engaged and enjoy the learning more. If they use Numbered Heads Together rather than responding alone to an instructor's question, they are far more engaged. Cooperative learning provides the kind of stimuli that brains crave.

III. Brains Seek Psychological Safety

Our brains have evolved to help us survive. When we are frightened, primitive fight or flight defense alarm systems kick in. The limbic system in the brain, seat of emotions, becomes highly activated, and we engage primitive modes of functioning evolved to give us a survival advantage. When this happens, the cortex is less efficient, diminishing our ability to engage in higher-order cerebral functioning. Higher-level thinking occurs best when we are in a state of relaxed alertness — when we feel psychologically safe. Anything that creates anxiety or threat decreases the probability of learning.

Cooperative learning teambuilding structures (Kagan, Kagan, & Kagan, 1997) and classbuilding structures (Kagan, Robertson, & Kagan, 1995) are explicitly designed to create social safety. The classbuilding and teambuilding structures allow students to know and support each other and to accept individual differences. Because of the teambuilding and classbuilding structures, students drop their fear of social rejection and their worry about social acceptance — they are free to focus more on the academic content.

Communication building structures (Kagan, 1994) also create a safe context for learning. Communication building structures teach students to express understanding and concern for each other's ideas. For example, during Paraphrase Passport, every student knows his/her ideas will be listened to and validated, creating a caring, safe context for the exchange of ideas. Thus teambuilding, classbuilding, and communication building structures reduce the risk and create a psychologically safe environment, freeing the brain for optimal higher-level cerebral functioning.

IV. Brains Are Emotional

Emotions are the primitive signals which keep us alive by motivating us to flee from being bitten or eaten, care for and protect our progeny, and hunt for a tasty morsel. It is elegantly argued by Antonio Damasio (1999) that the very origin of consciousness resides in the brain's capacity for emotion. Each neuron in the brain is responsive to what Candace Pert (1997) aptly calls "Molecules of Emotions." Our brains are structured so that which makes us feel is remembered.

A brain-friendly classroom is one in which emotions are not avoided, but rather elicited in service of learning. Various cooperative learning structures help link emotions to the academic content. In Agree-Disagree Line Ups, Agreement Circles, Corners, Proactive Prioritizing, and Paraphrase Passport, to cite a few examples, students learn to take a stance depending on their feelings about an issue, and to listen with respect to opinions of other students who hold different feelings about the issue. In the constructive controversy which results, students find the content more memorable.

V. Brains Seek and Process Information

There is a great deal to say about how cooperative learning aligns with how brains seek and process information. Space here allows me to mention only that brains seek and attend to novelty; are parallel processors; seek feedback; seek patterns and construct meaning; have multiple intelligences; and have multiple memory systems. Cooperative learning better aligns with how brains seek and process information in all these dimensions in part because cooperative learning activities are multi-modal events providing multiple sources of feedback, engaging multiple intelligences and multiple memory systems.

Today’s youth are bombarded by high levels of stimulation; their brains seek high stimulation. Cooperative learning with its simultaneous interaction of all students meets that need far better than the traditional sequential, call-on-one-student-at-a-time or work-alone-on-a-worksheet classroom structures.

In Sum

There are many ways quite apart from cooperative learning to create brain-friendly instruction. But instructors who use a range of cooperative learning methods can be assured they are aligning instruction with some of the most important principles derived from brain science. Without changing what is taught, by simply delivering her/his content via cooperative learning, an instructor increases dramatically the probability of learning for all students by aligning instruction with how the brain best learns.

References

Brothers, L. (1997). Friday’s footprint. How society shapes the human mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

Carter, R. (1999). Mapping the mind. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Damasio, A. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness. New  York: Harcourt Brace.

Kagan, S. (1994). Cooperative learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.

Kagan, S. (2000). Silly sports and goofy games. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.

Kagan, S., & Kagan, M. (1998). Multiple intelligences. The complete book. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.

Kagan, L., Kagan, M., & Kagan, S. (1997). Cooperative learning structures for teambuilding. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.

Kagan, M., Robertson, L., & Kagan, S. (1995). Cooperative learning structures for classbuilding. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.

Pert, C. B. (1997). Molecules of emotions. Why you feel the way you feel. New York: Scribner.

Spencer Kagan, Ph.D., directs Kagan Publishing and Professional Development, the world's largest distributor of cooperative learning and multiple intelligences workshops, training institutes, books, and teaching resources.