Understanding how the brain processes information can help teachers and parents help students learn quickly and efficiently, according to the Middle Tennessee State University. Both parts of the brain are active during learning, but each person has a preference as to which side of the brain dominates learning. The brain's right hemisphere is adept at seeing the big picture and processes information intuitively. The left brain processes information more logically and analytically. Using methods that appeal to right-brain learners can help them gain mastery of educational material.
Touch
The Home School Legal Defense Association notes that while left brain learners adapt easily to memorizing lists of information or learning through repetition, right brain learners benefit from the use of touch to help them remember facts. For example, the Touch Math method uses dots drawn on numbers that encourage the student to touch the number as they count. Adding eight and four becomes easier for right brain students when they say the number eight and touch each of the four dots on the number four as they count forward from eight until they reach the answer of 12.
Visual Aids
Learning methods targeted to right brain thinkers should use visual aids such as pictures or maps to help with ideas and facts. In addition to providing lecture material verbally, use pictures to emphasize the material visually. When teaching new words, write them on the chalkboard in sentences so right brain learners can visualize how the words are used in context.
Encourage right brain learners to draw "webs" that link ideas together in a lecture, rather than taking notes in a down-the-page linear fashion. Drawing small pictures on classroom notes is another way right brain learners reinforce information. Rather than viewing these drawings as simple doodles, recognize them as memory aids and encourage their use.
Whole Picture
Maximize the strengths of right brain learners by showing them the whole picture for facts they need to learn by rote. When using flash cards to teach math or compound words, put the answer on the front of the card in a different color. The right brain learner will incorporate the formula and the answer for the math or vocabulary problem into their memory and can visualize the answer when the problem is presented in the future.
Motion
Right brain learners use motion as a means to remember information. For example, students can physically move around the room to reinforce each step of a process, associating step one with the door, step two with the window, step three with a table, and so on. Right brain students who "act out" history lessons will gain better retention of the material because they have "lived" it.
