The Learning Cycle: Insights for Faithful Teaching from Neuroscience and the Social Sciences

How teachers teach is not necessarily how learners learn. Educators generally focus on content delivery. But much of the learning process involves affective and behavioral factors that shape learners' outcomes. Veteran educators Muriel and Duane Elmer provide a holistic model for how learning takes place. Their learning cycle moves beyond mere recall of information to helping learners value and apply their learning in ways that are integrated into behavior and practice. With insights from neuroscience, educational psychology, and learning theory, they address how the brain can become more receptive, how emotional environments affect learning, and how learning tasks and experiential exercises can help foster the development of skills and habit formation. They do so in the context of a thoroughly Christian framework that emphasizes not just knowledge, but character, integrity, and wisdom. Learning can be accomplished in and beyond the classroom to move from content mastery to life experience. Here are sound avenues for helping your students become the lifelong learners God intends.