What do our brain see?

"Brain seek patterns and sees patterns."

Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain

The brain is a natural pattern seeker; cannot stop it from seeing patterns. It seeks out patterns unconsciously because it has a strong need to make sense of the world for survival. The brain likes to learn through patterning.

Discovering patterns is also our earliest form of learning (e.g. babies are hearing patterns in language). Seeing patterns and figuring things out activate motivation and release the “pleasure chemical” – dopamine. “Figure things out vs Memorising Answers” - The brain gets pleasure from working hard to figure something out or make sense of something.

Figuring things out is a high cognitive load, so guiding students and providing help along the way is important. Think of lessons in terms of patterns and puzzles; e.g. guiding students with SEN in learning Maths' timetables.

Humans learn language by seeing patterns. “Seeing patterns” is a powerful and natural way of learning.

E.g. when teaching singular/plural or subject/object. What is the pattern in this list?

Boy runs, boys run.

Girl walks, girls walk.

Cow grazes, cows graze.