Learning is a complex process that occurs interactively between the brain and the environment, with the learner in between, who has the capacity to orchestrate this process through a strategic decision-making. Although many aspects of learning are the product of structural changes in the brain, which happens biologically and physically at different life stages, studies have shown a reciprocal relationship between the brain development and learning. That is to say, brain maturity develops learning, and the learning also further develops the brain maturity. In fact, the plasticity of the neurons renders to the brain the ability to reorganize itself physically by reshaping the neural connections in response to a stimuli or specific tasks. This fact points out an important role for the learner who can benefit his own brain by discovering and exploring applicable rules and principles to engage actively, rather than passively, in the process of learning.
In its evolutionary development and general structure, our brains have many things in common; A normal process of the brain maturity occurs in all of us nearly at the same periods of the life span. With a normal maturity process of the brain before the birth (25 days to 9 months), for instance, an infant owns motor and sensory systems as well as visual and auditory capabilities at the time of the birth, enabling him to interact with his environment. For example, with his sensation, he can feel the pain and avoid it by his motor systems. Nevertheless, he can start learning only when the skills involving remembering are developed. The learning, at the first, is done by habit through repeating and later by coping the letters until the neural networks grows and the connection between the neurons increases sufficiently for transmission of the information. Only then, the learning by reasoning (inferential learning), through making connections between new learning and what has been learnt previously, would be possible. According to research, a healthy brain continues developing into one’s twenties with some sooner (18) or later (25) exceptions. At this stage, the person is fully able to combine concepts, take perspective on a matter, or acquire advanced cognitive skills of interpretation and conclusion.
The evolution of the brain and the effect of the neural network growth on learning, however, is one side of a bidirectional relationship between brain development and learning. Actually, the task demands can also have influence on the nature of the neural networks and the connection between the neurons. Say it with another words, this is not only our brain that controls our tasks and what we do, we can also control the complex system of our brain. But how is it possible? Well, despite the fact that brain development follows the same trajectory during a life span for all humans, there is something unique about every brain: its resources; That is the information which has been stored either as learnt materials or as a product of personal experiences and emotions. These information are the resources of the brain and would be freed up at the time of need in response to new tasks. Imagine the brain as a computer; Though there are many debates about this assumption, the fact that at many levels of our daily activities (not all of them) including learning process the brain does indeed act as a supercomputer is undeniable; A computer that can never be simulated not because of its complexity, but due to the uniqueness of the resources. The hardware of this supercomputer- the structure and the overall shape of the brain as a product of biological evolution- is mostly the same for everyone , but not the software, over which we have full control.
We have the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn; This capability makes us a complete owner of the resources of our brain. It’s not a big claim if we say that every person is a software designer of his own brain. Just think about it this way; The input data are the information you enter into your brain; In fact the things you can initially (at the time of birth) just see, hear, or sense become later more complex data as the brain matures. That is also the reason why learning everything new is challenging and difficult; Simply because there is no associated data stored from previous learning in our brain. As we keep learning, the task would be easier since the brain has now more related data to process in accordance with the task. So, the maturity of the brain seems to happen not only biologically, also conditionally in response to the environment and the input data. In addition, and more importantly, the capability of the person when he decides to act like a programmer and take the programming of his supercomputer into his own hand plays an important role in brain development.
We are able to connect and combine various kinds of data sets by defining some logics that might not always come from the proved facts. This ability gives us the possibility to have some level of control on the programming task of our mind. When we think about programming, the key elements in addition to the input data are the conditions and the constraints that make the program running. Logically, these constraints should be somehow involved in the task of neural networks which transmit the information through the brain. Plainly thinking, in receiving the data, the brain first search for the similarities between the input data and the previous information saved in the brain. In reality, however, the neurons in the brain are so connected that associating a task to a particular part of the brain is impossible. How the learning process takes place and where in the brain the information is stored is still unknown. Even the visual, auditory, and tactile information that seem to have total different functioning intersect in an area in the posterior regions called as association area of the brain. Perhaps because of this intersection we can associate, for example, the smell of the spring to a mere picture of spring flowers, or relate the sound of a music to a scene that we were observing the first time that we heard that piece of music. That is also the reason why a blind person can effectively use his auditory and tactile functioning for the tasks that usually need visual ability. In fact, a research that has examined the reporting of blind people in spatial task (like reporting where in the space they heard a sound) found recruiting a sub-region in the visual cortex associated to hearing and touch. Surprisingly, when the sighted adults start learning to read braille, the brain regions that normally process visual, not tactile, information, start reorganizing. So, we can conclude from these results that the more we engage our mind in combinatorial activities, those which recruit various parts and functionalities of our brain, the more we would be able to control the complex algorithms of this supercomputer.
We are powered by our imagination; We can make pictures out of mere texts, concepts, or a set of plain and row data such as numbers (a famous example is the Fibonacci series where the sum of every two sequenced numbers produce the next one). There are many examples of this kind in science, when a pattern first was created only to simplify a concept (such as the Poincare sphere in physics as geometrical representation for different states of polarization). They were, however, used later for new discoveries in different areas. In fact, it is a powerful technique of learning to discover and explore the applicable rules, patterns, or, principles underlying the phenomena.
There are infinite ways of learning the efficiency of which depend on many factors such as learner’s age, the brain maturity, environmental influences, and many others. However, the bidirectional relation between brain maturity and learning demonstrates not only the importance of discovering specific learning approaches, but also indicates an important role for the leaner to orchestrate this relation through self-teaching or discovery-learning. In addition, studies on the brain activities of the elders showed that the declines in some regions can be compensated by increased neural activities in others This finding proves the capability of the human brain for a life-long learning. Moreover, it is most probable that the knowledge resulted from specific discovery-learning can be applied for solving more complex problems and lead to new discoveries. The important question that should be asked is this: at which age and level of assistance we can expect an effective discovery-learning? As mentioned above, our most important capabilities to develop the functionality of the brain can be categorized in three groups; to continuously examine our knowledge (learn, unlearn and relearn), to combine various concepts or develop our interdisciplinary knowledge, as well as improving our imagination. These capabilities can be, and in my opinion must be, included in practicing methods of learning in different levels from childhood; However, regardless of the age of the learner, an unassisted discovery-learning especially for completely new tasks is not suggested. Rather, an initial guidance to carry the learner up to a point in which he can start a new task (known as zone of proximal development or sweet spot) is recommended.
Forms & Functions 