Mindshifts: A Brain-Based Process for Restructuring Schools and Renewing Education

Mindshift provides a research-based model of teaching and learning based on the neuroscience of how the brain works. The authors recognize that this model is a departure from traditional methods of teaching and present strategies for professional development and activities to facilitate this transition for educators. While the book is intended for K12 educators, the ideas are also very pertinent to higher education as well.

If I could have one wish- it may be that all educators read Geoffry and Renate Caine's books. They are truly the authors who speak the truth about where we are and where education needs to go. The honest approach concerning the difficulties one must face when changing an institution (such as education) and the dire necessity for the change make their work a must for those who are trying to create a brain-compatible learning environment. This book is written in a "workbook" format. If you are a member or facilitator of a transition group- moving from a "traditonal" education setting to a brain-compatible environment- I would highly recommend this book to your group.

This book provides a logical organization for the large body of complex, education-relevant data currently emerging from neuroscience. The authors introduce the book with words attributed to Einstein: "No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew." The authors predicate their work on the assumption that Cartesian and Behaviorist thinking are too limited to allow us to fully understand the complexity of reality--a reality which, when better understood, can unleash the potential power of the learner. This book makes philosophical, psychological, biological, and theoretical concepts palatable and interesting even for the person beginning to explore the brain's biology and its intimate relationship to education. The book models the very foundational principles about which it speaks--that learning is a mental-physical-emotional/social process. Alert educators at all levels should appreciate this work.The authors have arrived at the same conclusions to which my current dissertation study has led me, though we have had no contact with each other. I expect this book to be a valuable asset as I continue to train teachers at the university where I teach.