• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.487-497
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate how a teaching approach influences student's ability of classification at the brain level. Twenty four healthy and right-handed college students participated in this study, which investigated a brain plasticity associated with category-generation and -understanding in classification learning. The participants were divided into one of two groups, one each for category-generation and -understanding learning programs, which were composed of twelve topics taught over a twelve-week period. To measure the change in student competence and brain activations, a paper and pencil test and an fMRI scanning session were administered before and after the training programs. Unlike the understanding group, the generation group showed significant changes in classification ability quotients and learning-related brain activations (cerebral cortex and basal ganglia were increased and prefrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus were decreased). Nevertheless, the understanding group showed an increased activation in the cerebral cortex and parahippocampal gyrus and a decreased activation in the right prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. Therefore, it can be concluded that teaching styles could influence students' brain activation patterns and classification ability. The results might also be used to develop a brain-compatible science education curriculum.