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• Research exists to support different ways to support learning styles.
• The research comes from the background of cognitive science and undertakes the theory that the brain is a system.
• Hence, learning certain concepts is a multi-step process that typically involves more than one part of the brain.

What Factors Influence Learning?

There are several variables that affect cognitive functioning and learning. These factors include:

Age

Age is a key factor in learning.

For instance, a developing prefrontal cortex is especially prevalent during the preteen and teenage years, and this part of the brain is responsible for such tasks as planning, working memory, and inhibition.

Practice

What’s interesting is that practicing a habit under the correct environmental stimuli can trigger many synaptic connections to strengthen over time.

Individuals are born with a billion neurons that are unwired and unconnected. It takes a certain amount of time, perhaps years, for the brain as a whole to shape itself with those connections, which can be lost, but also rewired through extensive practice. This is called neural plasticity.

Compensatory Cognitive Methods

There are ways to adapt to certain cognitive weaknesses that a student may display. The brain is an adaptive organ that is filled with many diverse areas that help cater to the way any being adapts to their environment through such cognitive means as:

-auditory skills

-linguistic and verbal skills

-visual skills

-motor skills

-and more

There are many ways to learn and absorb information. Cognitive learning styles help cater to ways to help a student learn better.

For instance, a student who has poor cognitive shifting skills and can only pay attention to one cognitive set of items at a time can practice such skills as chunking in order to help them improve their learning.

E.g Learning how to process and solve 3x + 2x in a grade 10 Algebra question.

One way to fully understand and cater to a student’s list of cognitive strengths and weaknesses is through cognitive assessments, which Tutormates offers.