Have you ever noticed how much more enjoyable it is to learn something when you're actually doing it?  That's the joy of situated learning!  It's like learning to bake a cake by actually baking one, not just reading a recipe.

You have built towers with blocks, right? You know, LEGO, DUPLO, or any of the gazillion other types of blocks. At first, you stack them however you want. Your tower falls over if it gets too high. So, you start over, determined to build it so it stays upright. The more you build it, the higher you can go without it falling over. You learn what works and what doesn’t. Your learning transforms, which is a fancy way of saying it changes.

You learn a lot of things through trying them out. Mostly, you make decisions about what you’ve experienced. That plate of vegetables with dinner? You try them out and, like many kids, you decide you don’t like them. Before you decide, though, you have to experience the taste. You have to be actively involved in the process.

You’re kid, right? You play with stuff, yes? Do you know how much learning goes on in that brain of yours while you’re playing? You can turn that pile of plastic blocks on your bedroom floor into anything you want.

This week’s post is all about cognitive learning. That’s: cog-NIT-iv. Say the middle part with a little more strength than the other two. Cognitive simply means using your brain to think. We are thinking all the time. Our brains never shut down, even when we’re sleeping.

Now, you can think of all sorts of things. Some are important, many aren’t.

Working with friends or peers is a great way to learn. You can hang with your mates and perhaps break a large project into smaller chunks. You often get to find out something about someone you didn’t know.

Learning something new can be fun. It can be a painful process as well. You might be a math star, but spelling and grammar give you the shakes.

You’re not alone because Social Learning is here for you. We humans learn things at different times and rates. Why not find someone who can work with you? Learning shared is much more fun than learning alone.

Does your teacher talk about thinking? Most likely, they do. Humans think all the time. Even when we think we’re not thinking, we are. Our brains churn away 24/7 thinking. It’s a natural process, almost like running, walking or talking.

Just like fast runners, there are quick thinkers. Being able to think fast doesn’t mean you’re thinking smart. It can, but most often, fast thinkers miss things. Smart thinkers, on the other hand, take their time.

Are your brains warmed up and ready for some high-powered thinking? Our brains work 24/7. Unlike leg muscles, we can’t feel them working. We know they’re active because they carry out crucial tasks such as keeping us breathing, our hearts pumping, and our food digesting.

Hey, welcome back to another school year in Australia! If you’re reading this from somewhere else, most likely, you’re already there, almost a month in.

We’ve covered these before, but it’s worth repeating them. Here are some interesting facts about your brain:

Merry Christmas, kids!

Alright, kiddos. Let's talk about why staying lively and active is so important for your brains to soak up all that smart stuff! When your body feels good, your mind can work its magic, too.

Fact: when you treat your body well with exercise and good eats, it's like giving your brain a high-five. Healthy bodies lead to sharp brains, making it easier to crush those math problems and ace that spelling test.

Your fabulous brain helps you make sense of your world. Your senses feed it information, and your brain instructs you on what to do about it. There are also many things that your brain takes care of without you having to think about them.

Okay, we have tuned our ears to listen, and we’re using our eyes to observe. Now, we need to store the stuff we’ve heard and seen. This is where our memory steps onto the field.

Our ears feed information to our brains when we listen. Of course, our eyes play a part as well. Scientists estimate that about one-third of your brain is linked to vision (your eyes). It takes a lot of brain power to make sense of what you’re seeing.

Information is pouring into our brains because we’re actively listening. Your teacher has made the classroom free of distractions so we can focus. The next thing on our learning list is processing what we hear and see.

Now that those ears are actively sending messages to your brain–you’re listening, right–it’s time to ask questions.

Let’s check what’s going on in our brains when we listen. Sounds go straight to our temporal lobe, where our gatekeeper, the hippocampus, decides whether or not to let them in.

Your listening skills are improving, right? Remember, listening is different from hearing. We hear things all the time, but our brains are good at picking what we listen to. Listening requires a focused brain–a brain that participates instead of sitting on the sidelines.

Listening takes an active brain.

Tune in with your senses. We have five that we use all the time. There are others, like that ‘gut feeling’ you have when something doesn’t feel right. You know the one–your friend shares a story with you. You’re not sure everything in the story is true. The wrong information keeps wriggling away.

Of course, you know about your senses. You use them to take notice of what’s going on around you. Your brain constantly receives information from them, which causes you to do something. Or nothing.