Engage the Brain: How to Design for Learning That Taps into the Power of Emotion

Research on the brain has shown that emotion plays a key role in learning, but how can educators apply that research in their day-to-day interactions with students? What are some teaching strategies that take advantage of what we know about the brain?

Engage the Brain answers these questions with easy-to-understand explanations of the brain's emotion networks and how they affect learning, paired with specific suggestions for classroom strategies that can make a real difference in how and what students learn. Readers will discover how to design an environment for learning that

• Makes material relevant, relatable, and engaging.
• Accommodates tremendous variability in students' brains by giving them multiple options for how to approach their learning.
• Incorporates Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and guidelines.
• Uses process-oriented feedback and other techniques to spark students' intrinsic motivation.

Author Allison Posey explains how schools can use the same "emotional brain" concepts to create work environments that reduce professional stress and the all-too-common condition of teacher burnout.

Real-world classroom examples, along with reflection and discussion questions, add to the usefulness of Engage the Brain as a practical, informative guide for understanding how to capture the brain's incredible power and achieve better results at all grade levels, in all content areas.

Allison Posey is a curriculum and design specialist at CAST, the Center for Applied Special Technology. There, she engages in curricular design, leads professional development trainings for the Universal Design for Learning framework, and supports online course instruction, including the UDL Affect and Engagement course. She works with educators across the United States and internationally to integrate and apply current understandings from brain research about learning into instructional practices so that all learners can engage in rigorous learning opportunities. She coordinates the CAST free webinar series and presents on the central role of emotions in learning.