TEACHING
WITH THE BRAIN IN MIND BY ERIC JENSEN
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(Inspired by the book, but not part of the book summary)
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One minute commercials for the
upcoming standards. Also, coming attractions. Then perform the song with
choreography. Their choice.
Each person forms an opinion about the topic The goal is for each
student to convince a partner in 30 seconds why his or her topic is more
important.
When
you finish with a topic, make sure that you allow learners to evaluate the pros
and cons, discuss the relevance,
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In
transitions, have one student lead the class in movements. I must
do the movements too.
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Up and flashcard each other.
Up and flashcard themselves.
Teach the most important material first and last. Open and close the class with the three
most important words or concepts.
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Three questions for the
beginning:
Why is it important for me to reach my goals?
What are my goals for today and this year?
What do I need to do today and this week in this class to reach my goals?
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Tell students Diamond says, "When we enriched the
environment, we got brains with a thicker cortex, more dendritic
branching, more growth spines and larger cell bodies"
There are more support cells too. This can happen within 48
hours after the stimulation.
Make feedback an element of all presentations. But if
you're mean you lose points. At the beginning of the year , give
all standards to the class. Ask them to write a list of what they
know and what they can guess. and what the import might be.
Students use words and dictionaries to weakest link each other from
candy. Spelling bees from your five line essays.
Make metaphors to life experiences often.
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Teaching with the brain in mind by Eric
Jensen
Teaching with the brain in mind by Eric Jensen
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Teaching with the brain in mind by Eric
Jensen
Teaching with the brain in mind by Eric Jensen
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Chapter one--------
------------- Models of education-------------
The education model that dominated much of human history was
uncomplicated. If you wanted to learn about something, you
became an apprentice.
---------The knowledge explosion----------
Primitive models on the workings of the brain have been around
for 2,000 years. The brain has been referred to as a hydraulic
system( The Greco-Roman model), a fluid system (Renaissance), an
enchanted loom (the early Industrial Revolution), a city's
switchboard (early to mid-1900s), and a computer (1950-1980s)
Later educators were educated to the triune model. It is
now outdated and educators should embrace the "whole systems
approach".
---Interpreting
Brain research-----
At the weakest or lowest level you have unreliability. At the
other end you have original sources, fresh confirming sources, a
variety of quality data gathering, and personal verification of
data, perhaps even an eyewitness.
The strategies described in this book will be at a higher
confidence level
Practical Suggestions
What's an educator to do with all this information? Three
steps are indicated. First, become consumer literate in brain
research. Second, more action research should happen in your
workplace. Lastly, make the information public.
CHAPTER TWO THE
LEARNING BRAIN
--The Human Brain--
Its mostly water (78%), fat (10%) and Protein (8%). A
living brain is so soft it can be cut with a butter knife.
In fact, if it were laid out, the cortex would be about the
size of an unfolded single page from a daily newspaper.
The human brain has the largest area of uncommitted cortex.
--
Taking sides in learning--
In general, the left hemisphere processes things more in parts
and sequentially. But musicians process music in their left
hemisphere, not right as a novice would. Among left-handers,
almost half use their right hemisphere for language.
Higher-level mathematicians, problem solvers, and chess players
have more right hemisphere activation during these tasks, while
beginners in those activities usually are left hemisphere active.
The right hemisphere recognizes negative emotions faster;
the left notices positive ones faster.
The territory in the middle of the brain includes the
hippocampus, thalamus, hypothalamus and amygdala.
the mid brain is 20% of the brain by volume.
Others say that there is no "limbic" system, only
specific structures that process emotions.
The cerebrum is up to 75% and is AKA the "Association
Cortex"
--energy for learning--
The brain gets about 8 gallons of blood each hour. The
brain needs 8 to 12 glasses of water a day for optimal functioning.
Many of the so-called "smart drugs" that boost
alertness enhance oxygen flow to the brain. With only 36
percent of the k-12 students in a daily physical education class,
are they getting enough of the oxygen-rich blood needed for highest
performance? Many worry that they are not.
--Where Learning Begins---
Neurons are Greek for "Bow string"
For the sake of comparison, a fruit fly has 100,000 neurons, a mouse
has 5 million, a monkey 10 billion. We have about 100
billion. We have half the number that a 2 year old has.
Glial is Greek for "Glue"
The axon has two essential functions: To conduct
information i the form of electrical stimulation and to transport
chemical substances. Myelin is to speed up the electrical
transmission (up to 12 fold).
No neuron is an end point or termination for information; it
only serves to pass it on.
---How do we learn?------
The stimulus
If we are repeating an earlier learning there's a good chance
the neural pathways will become more and more efficient. They
do that through myelination. Novices use more of their brain
, but they are also less efficient at how they use it.
While exercise is doing what we already know how to do,
stimulation is doing something new. Stimulation produces
greater beneficial electrical energy than old stuff.
Neurotransmitters are either excitatory (like glutamate or
inhibitory (like GABA).
--------------The formation of lasting
learning----
Learning and memory are two sides of a coin to
neuroscientists. You can't talk about one without the
other. After all, if you have learning something the only
evidence of t he learning is memory.
-----learning
and behavior----
Yet our behaviors are more likely governed by our complex
emotional states and memories.
Our every day behaviors are heavily affected by the other
"floating" chemicals in the brain: the monoamines and
peptides.
In fact, one researcher estimates that over 98% of all your
brain's and body's internal communications are through peptides,
not synapses. If the neurotransmitters we mentioned earlier,
like glutamate and GABA act as "cellular phones" offering
specific communications, the other chemicals act more like huge
bullhorns that can broadcast to wide areas of the brain.
These chemicals are usually serotonin, dopamine, and
noradrenaline. These produce the behaviors that you can
actually see in class like attention, stress, or drowsiness.
-----getting smarter--------------
Our brain has been customizing itself for it’s lifestyle since
the day you were born. If you going to be good at music, your
likely to sing, compose or play. If your good at sports,
you're likely to practice.
Almost 10% of children under 5 have a photographic memory as do
1 percent of adults. Savants can calculate huge numbers and,
in subjects that have spoken a dozen or more languages. Could we
engineer the development of another Einstein?
Humans have survived for 1,000s of years by trying out new
things, not by always getting the "right" tried-and-true
answer. That's not healthy for growing a smart, adaptive
brain.
Good quality education encourages the exploration of
alternative thinking, multiple answers, and creative insights.
CHAPTER THREE - GETTING
STUDENTS READY TO LEARN
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Educators continually complain that students are not ready to
learn.
If they have been assigned homework, it's often not done.
Leave it up to the students to be more ready to learn when they walk
in the door, or become a "surrogate family" are our
choices.
---ARE KIDS
REALLY DIFFERENT NOW?---------------
We understand that the first 48 months of life are critical to
the brain's development. But more often than not in today's
world, the first few years are spent in a child-care center.
Typical rations of infants and toddlers to care givers are from 3-1
to 12-1.
How much temperament is learned and howl much is inherited?
About half and half.
For example, parents who recognize appropriate risk taking and
acknowledge it will usually get a more courageous child.
-----PREPARING THE EARLY
BRAIN------
The question is, "For what are you customizing your early
brain?"
----The motor
brain-------
Most educators know the value of "crawl time".
Today's infant is "baby-SAT" by television, seated in a
walker, or strapped in a car seat for hundreds of precious motor
development hours. Today's 2-year-old has spent an estimated
500 hours in a car seat.
"Infants who were given periodic vestibular stimulation by
rocking gain weight faster, develop vision and hearing earlier."
---The visual brain---------
With more than 30 distinct visual areas in the brain (including
color, movement, hue and depth). Television moves fast and talks
about abstractions that are often nonexistence in the child's
environment. The vocabulary is too fast.
The TV allows they no time to relax. This stress can
aggravate learning difficulties. Many researchers say they
would ban tv for all children before the age of 8.
---Early thinking skills----------
The brain is fully ready for thinking through tactile learning as
early as nine months. The cortex is not fully developed yet,
but the cerebellum is ready.
----Language development-----------
Having a stressful pregnancy is highly correlated with the
failure to show structural lateralization. As a result , you
often get stuttering and dyslexia in the child.
Infants whose parents talk to them more frequently and use
bigger, "adult" words will develop better language skills.
82% of parents say they don't encourage reading in the home.
90 % of children 9-13 play video games. 43% play under an
hour a day. 27% play 2-6 hours a day.
Some children will be ready to read at 4 years; others, just as
normal, will be ready at 7 or even 10 years. The child who
reads at 7 might not be "developmentally delayed"
-----Sweet
dreams-----
Teachers often complain of kids falling asleep in school.
Why do they? Puberty.
A teen's natural sleep clock generates a natural bedtime closer
to midnight with a waking time closer to 8 am.
High school kids are grossly sleep deprived...It makes very
little scientific sense to make these kids function at these very early
hours.
Theta state is the first few and last few moments of sleep.
Brain wave cycles are about 4-7 per minute here.
Waking is alpha and beta. From 8-25 cycles per second.
During Theta we can be woken easily and rehash the day's events
or plan tomorrow.
The heavier, non-dream states of sleep are important for physical
renewal. During our "dead to the world" states, the
pituitary gland delivers extra growth and repair hormones to the
blood stream. This helps rebuild tissue and ensure our immune
system is in order.
The critical time in question is the dream state, or REM
time. This state is thought to be critical to maintaining our
memories.
Of all the time to sleep , we need those last few hours the most
for memory.
--eating to learn----
Americans eat too few fruits, vegetables and complex
carbohydrates.
Are specific foods particularly good for the brain?
They include leafy green vegetables, salmon, nuts, lean meats
and fresh fruits.
Vitamin and mineral supplements act as a "cleaner" for
synapses" dissolving protein build up.
Most kids eat to get rid of their hunger and lack sufficient
information to eat for optimal learning.
----drinking to learn----
Dehydration is a common problem that's linked to poor learning.
When we are thirst, it's because there's a drop in the water content
of the blood. When the water percentage in the blood drops, the
salt concentration in the blood is higher. Higher salt levels
increase the release of fluids from the cells into the
bloodstream. That raises blood pressure and stress.
Stress researchers found that within five minutes of drinking water,
there is a marked decline in corticoids and ACTH , two hormones
associated with elevated stress.
Because the brain is made up of a higher percentage of water than
any other organ in the body, dehydration takes a toll quickly.
Soft drinks, juice, coffee, or tea are diuretics that don't help
much. Teachers should encourage students to drink water
throughout the day.
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS
We can ask them to keep a private journal so that they can begin
to link up what they eat with how they feel and do in school.
Guest speakers can provide some novelty or credibility.
At the staff level, we can influence what's served for school
breakfasts or lunches.
At the school open house , we can offer parents a talk and a
handout on "Eating to Learn"
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CHAPTER 4 ENRICHED ENVIRONMENT AND THE BRAIN
-----Environmental influence-----------------
Male pattern baldness is on the x chromosome, which comes from the
mother.
Start by removing threats.
Those include embarrassment, finger-pointing, unrealistic
deadlines, forcing kids to stay after school, humiliation, sarcasm, a
lack of resources or simply being bullied.
-------Our
Malleable Brain----------------
Diamond says, "When we enriched the environment, we got brains
with a thicker cortex, more dendritic branching, more growth spines and
larger cell bodies"
There are more support cells too. This can happen within 48 hours
after the stimulation.
Dendritic branching was easy to find, but the evidence of synaptic
plasticity is relatively recent.
Our brain has areas that are only stimulated by letters, not words
or symbols.
On autopsy studies of graduate students, they had up to 40 percent
more connections than the brains of high school drop outs
The brains of graduate students who were "coasting"
through school had fewer connections than those who challenged
themselves daily.
School age brain almost, "Glows" with energy consumption,
burning at 225 percent of the adult levels of glucose.
-------Enrichment
for whom?---------------------
It's much easier, for example , to learn to play an instrument or
learn a foreign language before age 10 than at any other time.
-------------- What constitutes
Enrichment?-------------------
The critical ingredients in any purposeful program to enrich the
learner's brain are that first the learning is challenging, with new
information or experiences. Often novelty will do it, but it must
be challenging. Second, there must be some way to learn from the
experience through interactive feedback.
Challenge is important; too much or too little and the students
will bgive up or get bored. This includes varying time, materials,
access, expectations, or support in the learning process. Novelty
is important too. CHange in the decor on the classroom walls
every two to four weeks is valuable. But have the students do it.
Change instructional strategies often: use computers, groups, field
trips, guest speakers, pairings, games, student teaching journaling, or
multi-age projects.
Second, maximize learning feedback. Because feedback reduces
uncertainty, it increases coping abilities while lowering the
pituitary-adrenal stress response. The brain is exquisitely
designed to operate on feedback, both internal and external.
Our whole brain is self-referencing. It decides what to do
based on what has just been done.
The peer editing process is a superb way to get feedback.
While there may be little "hard biological research" on
the value of cooperative groups, clearly they do two important
things. When we feel valued and cared for, our brain
releases the neurotransmitters of pleasure: endorphins and dopamine.
This helps us enjoy our work more. Another positive is that
groups provide a superb vehicle for social and academic feedback.
Several conditions make feedback more effective. It must be
specific, not general.
Feedback is ordinarily most useful for learners when it is
immediate.
Immediate and self generating feedback can come from any
sources: having posted criteria for performance, checking against
personal goals.
What should be the content of enrichment? Fortunately, the
sources are endless. Here we'll address just five of
them. Reading and language, motor stimulation, thinking and
problem solving, the arts, and the surroundings.
---------------- enrichment through reading and
language-----------
Without exposure to new words, a youngster will never develop the
cells to discriminate sounds. Parents ought to read to their
children beginning at 6 months, not wait until they're 4 or 5 .
Schools ought to expose children to larger, more challenging
vocabularies and to foreign languages by age 12.
An easy way to get the larger vocabulary is for teachers to role
model it.
Cursive is much easier and it's better to teach that first.
A bigger, faster left brain means words are distinct, not like a
running stream of watery noise. That's what dyslexics hear.
New software programs that stretch out the words until the brain can
learn to sort them out are highly successful in retraining the brain,
says Tallal.
------------------Enrichment through motor
stimulation---------------------------
---------Enrichment
through thinking and problem solving--------
Both brain sides are ready for abstraction by 11 to 13. The
corpus callosum is fully formed by then.
You can solve a problem on paper, with a model, with an analogy or
metaphor, by discussion, with statistics, through artwork, or during a
demonstration.
Surprisingly, it doesn't matter to the brain whether it ever comes
up with an answer. The neural growth happens because of the
process, not the solution. A student could go to school for 12
years, rarely get right answers, and still have a well-developed
brain. Some learners simply choose harder and harder problems to
solve.
------------------Enrichment through the
Arts------------------
The evidence is persuasive that (1) our brain may be designed for
music and arts and (2) a music and arts education has positive,
measurable, and lasting academic and social benefits.
Think of music as a tool for usage in a least three possible
categories: for arousal, as a carrier of words, and as a primer for the
brain.
Neurons are constantly firing. What distinguishes the
"neural chatter" from clear thinking is the speed, sequence,
and strength of the connections. Have you ever put on a piece of
music to help you get a task done like cleaning the house?
Lamb and Gregory found a high correlation between pitch
discrimination and reading skills.
Listening to Mozart before testing is valuable; listening during a
test would cause neural competition.
Arts education facilitates language development, enhances,
creativity, boosts reading readiness, helps social development, assists
general intellectual achievement, and fosters positive attitudes about
school.
The old paradigm was that left-brain thinking was the home of the
necessary "higher-order" thinking skills, and right-brain
activities were frills. That id wrong. Much learning is
both brained. Musicians usually process melodies in their left
hemispheres.
------Enrichment through the
surroundings-----------------
In hospitals, a controlled study found that patients with a
"view room" recovered faster than those who stared at a brick
wall.
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS
Gone are the days in which
any teacher could justify a barren classroom. Boredom is more
than annoying for teens - it may be thinning out their brains.
Fortunately, studies show the shrinkage can be reversed in as little as
four days.
CHAPTER 5 ----- GETTING
THE BRAIN'S ATTENTION
-------------The
Attentive Brain---------------
Teachers quickly classify students into tow categories: those who
pay attention and those who don't . Translated, that means the
"good kids" and the "problem kids."
Consequently, an enormous amount of energy is invested in getting kids
"to be good." The stakes are high, and the tools
include promises, rewards, noisemakers, threats, raised voices, and
gimmicks.
Who now know the purpose of attention seems to be (1) to promote
survival and (2) to extend pleasurable states.
For example:
Attention systems are located throughout the brain.
The contrasts of all movement, sound and emotions (like threat)
consume most of our attention.
When we are awake we have an important decision to make every
single moment: where to turn our attention. We do this about
100,000 times a day.
Two primary determinates of our attention are the sensory input
(such as a threat or an appealing opportunity) and the brain's chemical
"flavor of the moment."
-------------------- The pathways of
Attention--------------------------------
"Whoops, something's happening," then, "Where?"
and finally "What is it?" The answer to the final
question wil usually tell us how long we ought to attend to it.
inputs that our "attention headquarters" gets as feedback
from the cortex is nearly six times as high as the original input from
the terina.
Proper attentional functioning means not just stimulating
many new neurons, but also suppressing unimportant information.
The brain's susceptibility to paying attention is very much
influenced by priming. The lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)
suppresses input when we look for a book that isn't book like.
We get used to a new smell within second, so it takes a new one to
again get our attention.
---------The chemistry of
attention------------------------
Cosrtisol, saopressin are particularly critical to our stress and
threat responses.
-----------------roller-coaster
attention cycles----------
Natural attentional highs and lows throughout the day. These
are ultradian rhythms, one of our brain's key cycles lasting about
90-110 minutes. We have 16 cycles in a 24 hour period.
Movements such as stretching or marching can help focus attention.
There's literally change in blood flow and breathing on these
cycles that effect learning.
Eight subjects were tested for 3-minute periods every 15 minutes
over an eight-hour day. The upswing on verbal tasks went from an
average score of 165 to 215 correct answers and a simultaneous
downswing fro 125 to 108 on spatial.
We will get lower scores if we test students at the wrong time. It
makes a case for choice in the assessment process.
Portfolios are more inclusive.
---------------------The
role of processing time------------------
"What smart adaptive benefits might there be to having a
shorter attention span?
It allows you to update your priorities by rechoosing the object of
your attention.
-There are three reasons why demanding constant attention is
counterproductive:
first, much of what we learn cannot be
processed consciously, it happens too fast.
Second, in order to create new meaning we
need internal time. Meaning is always generated from within, not
externally.
Third, we need time to imprint.
Tens of millions of bits come down our optic nerve every
second. That is far too much to process consciously. So the
brain continues to process information before and long after we are
aware that we are doing it. As a result, many of our best ideas
seem to pop out of the blue.
External input conflicts with the possibility that learners can
turn what they have just learned into something meaningful.
Teachers might allow students to have a small group discussion after
new material is introduced.
Rest time allows the brain to recycle CREB, an acronym for a
protein switch crucial to long-term memory formation.
Writing in journals is good. Cramming more content per
minute, or moving from one piece of learning to the next, virtually
guarantees that little will be learned. Many teachers who
complain of having to do so much "reteaching" are the
same ones trying to cram too much.
Teachers need more personal and better quality down time during the
day. To stay alert, teachers often become caffeine junkies.
MAKE A CHART OF PAGE 48 Not done in e-mail to facilitate
format conversion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
--------------------------How attention affects
discipline---------------------
As a guideline 8-12 minutes of direct instruction for grades
3-7 and 12-15 minutes for grades 8-12 are reasonable.
There's a genetic link between quick-tempered, novelty seeking, and
inattentive behaviors and a specific receptor gene for dopamine.
--------------------attention deficit---------------
In the US , ADD accounts for almost half of all chial psychiatric
referrals.
About 3% of all children under 19 are on ADD medication like
Ritalin or Cylert.
Children diagnosed with ADD found evidence of smaller attentional
structures in the outermost right frontal lobe areas and basal ganglia.
Children with ADD can't pay attention; they are paying attention to
everything.
Ritalin is a central nervous stimulation that inhibits the reuptake
of dopamine and norepinephrine. They are amphetamines which boost
the "signal" of the more important information.
First many students are misdiagnosed as ADD when their problem may
be crowded classrooms, discipline difficulties, a teacher who demands
too much attention or a lack of self-discipline skills. Diet too.
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS
Everything that is novel will garner attention.
For example, teachers can move to the back or side of the room
during instruction.
Use a surprising piece of music one day., ask students to bring in
something that makes music the next. Have students present their
learning to one another , then in small groups. Guest
speakers. Use fun, energizing rituals for openings, closings and
most repetitive procedures. A
A double clap and foot stomp may introduce an important daily
summary. A change in voice tonality, tempo, volume, or accent
gets attention. Props, noisemakers, bells, whistles, costumes,
music, or singing can get attention.
You can also include attention-getting rituals like raising a hand
or a daily group clap.
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CHAPTER 6 - HOW THREATS AND
STRESS AFFECT LEARNING
-----------------Why Common
threats fail------------------
Many students don't have a better use of their time than staying
after class. And if staying after is a miserable experience, the bad
feelings "contaminate" the student's overall opinions about the
teacher, classroom and school.
--------------- Stress and Learning ---------
When we feel stressed, our adrenal glands release a peptide called
cortisol.
Chronically high cortisol levels lead to the death of brain cells.
Sapolsky found that atrophy levels in the hippocampus of Vietnam
veterans with PTSD ranged from 8 to 24 percent above the control group.
Chronic stress creates a depressed immune system.
More test stress means more sickness, which means poor health and missed
classes, which contributes to lower test scores.
Social position changes both attitude and behaviors. This
evidence suggests the value of varying the leadership in class
groups.
Under stress, the eyes become more attentive to peripheral areas as a
natural way to spot predators first.
The students in the full-spectrum classes missed 65 percent fewer
school days from illness. Why? The regular fluorescent
lighting has a flickering and hum.
With full spectrum children report better moods.
Provide predictability through school and classroom rituals.
Peer cheer for celebration.
Young rats exposed to stressful shock experiences performed better
than adults than nonstressed controls. The military is well known
for creating stress. But neither of these cases involved
creativity.
---------------Learned
Helplessness------------------------
In order to "qualify" as learned helplessness, the
following conditions have usually occurred.
1)Trauma. Bullying in the hall or home or class.
2)Lack of control; can be due to positive or negative lack of
control.
3) Decision: "I can't do anything right"
At-risk learners are more susceptible to learned helplessness.
--------------------The biology of Learned
Helplessness-------------
After 30 to 50 draggings, the dogs started to go over to the
non-shock side.
Unknowingly, , teachers often give up on these students after 5 to 10
positive attempts.
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS
Help students learn about what induces stress and what to do about
it. Teach them stress management techniques like time management,
breathing, the role of down time, relationship skills, and getting peer
support. In the classroom, stress might be released through drama,
peer support, games, exercise , discussions and celebrations.
The transition time might include something physical; stretching,
dance, manipulatives, a game, or walk. It could be interpersonal ,
such as a discussion. It might be personal, including journal
writing reflection and creative writing.
Reduce threats from other students in class by setting up clear
expectations about classroom behavior.
If an impending test is becoming paralyzing, turn it into a
"teachable" moment. Explain how our bodies often react to
stress.
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CHAPTER
7 - MOTIVATIONS AND REWARDS
---------------Students and
motivation------------------------------
There's an enormous difference in how the human brain responds to
rewards for simple and complex problem-solving tasks.
More complex behaviors are usually impaired, not helped by rewards.
In fact, rats - as well as humans - will consistently seek new
experiences and behaviors with no perceivable reward or impetus.
Experimental rats responded positively to simple novelty. It could
presumably, lead to new sources of food or shelter.
Choice and control over their environment produced more social and less
aggressive behaviors.
Los Angeles County 8th graders scored 13% higher when offered 1$ for
every correct answer on a national math exam. Students may actually
know the material but be unmotivated to demonstrate it.
-----------------------Temporary
Demotivation---------------------------
Students who make it to school each day have demonstrated a certain
amount of motivation.
They are at times, however, temporarily unmotivated. Why? There
are three primary reasons.
1)Associations with the past. A teacher's voice, tone or gestures
may remind a student's amygdala of a previously disliked teacher.
Students can feel unmotivated in the face of unsuitable learning
styles, a lack of resources, language barriers, a lack of choice, cultural
taboos, fear of embarrassment.
A third factor is their own relationship with the future. This
includes the presence of clear well -defined goals and belief in
themselves.
Positive thinking engages the left frontal lobe and usually triggers
the release of pleasure chemicals like dopamine as well as natural opiates,
or endorphins. This self-reward reinforces the desired behavior.
----------------Rewards and the Brain---------------------
We've assumed that children should get an immediate reward when they do
something right.
The brain is perfectly satisfied to pursue novelty and curiosity,
embrace relevance, and bathe in the feedback from
successes. Projects and problems solving where the process
is more important than the answer creates intrinsic reward.
NMDA is and exitatory receptor site. GABA is an inhibitory
receptor site.
Rewards have already been studied and , to a large degree, rejected as
a motivating strategy (Kohn 1993).
-------------Promoting
Intrinsic Motivation------------------------
Motivation is made of compelling goals, positive beliefs, and
productive emotions. Any discussion about intrinsic motivation must
also include the learner's natural search and subsequent construction for
meaning.
One technique:
First, Student are to meet in small groups to brainstorm a list of the
things that inhibit their learning. The groups could then discuss how
some of the problems could be alleviated.
SECOND, goal setting.
Third: Affirmations, acknowledging student successes, positive
nonverbals and positive posters.
FINALLY, feedback via projects, group work, checklists, peer editing
and rubrics.
-------------------The supercamp
model-----------------------
Some of the likely sources of threat are threatening comments,
"score keeping" discipline strategies, sarcasm, unannounced
"pop" quizzes, a lack of resources, unforgiving deadlines, and
cultural or language barriers.
Students need transition time from their personal lives to their
academic lives and from one teacher to the next. You never know what
happens out in the hallways. At the start of class, students could
still be reeling from an insult, a break-up with a close friend, a
fight.....
Reviewing the previous day'[s learning and stretching during physical
activity are excellent.
Closure rituals help students put learning from the day in its own
cognitive-emotional place.
You might consider arrival and beginning rituals that include music
fanfare, positive greetings, special handshakes, hugs, or sharing
time. Certain songs can be used to bring students back from break and
let them know it's time to start up. (Music beats the bell).
Groups and organizational rituals also help, such as team names, cheers,
gestures, and games. Successful situational rituals include applause
when learners contribute, a song to close or end something, affirmations,
discussion, journal writing, cheers, self-assessment, and gestures.
In supercamp, students usually get this feedback 10 to 20 times a day
through the purposeful use of sharing time, goal setting, group work ,
question-and-answer time, observation of others and journals.
Forced positive choice allows control. Do I climb another step up
this 50-foot ladder? DO I jump off this trapeze bar?
|
CHAPTER
8 - Emotions and LEARNING
-------Western
Culture and Emotions--------------------------
What if it was more rational to include emotions in our thinking and
decision making?
----------Emotions
make the mainstream------------------
Emotions drive attention, create meaning, and have their own memory
pathway
-----------------The
Measurement of Emotion-----------------------
Neuroscientists usually separate emotions and feelings.
-Emotions are generated from biologically automated pathways. They are
the joy (pleasure) , fear, surprise, disgust, anger, and sadness.
Cross-cultural studies indicate that these six expressions are universal.
-Feelings are different; they're our culturally and environmentally
developed responses to circumstances. Examples include: worry,
anticipation, frustration, cynicism and optimism.
-----------------The
pathways of emotions-------------------------
While feelings travel a circuitous , slower route through the body, the
emotions always take the brain's "Superhighways"
While our emotional system is acting independently, it's also acting
cooperatively with our cortex. For example, a student who's getting
threatening looks from another student may strike back at the perceived
threat before even thinking about it. The teacher's "behavior
improvement lecture" after the event usually does little to change the
next "automatic" occurrence of hitting.
The amygdala is most involved with emotion. There's no evidence
that other areas of the so-called "limbic system" are heavily
involved in direct emotions. So LeDoux doesn't like it? Yes he does.
When researchers remove areas of the frontal lobe intelligence usually
drops very little.
Removing the amygdala, however, is devastating. That destroys the
capacities for creative play, imagination, key decision making and the
nuances of emotion.
-----------------The chemistry of emotion----------------------
When you experience a gut feeling, it's because the same peptides that
are released in your brain are also lining your gastrointestinal tract.
That's why once an emotion occurs , it is hard for the cortex to simply
shut it off.
The old paradigm was our brain was managed by the physical connections
made at the site of the synapse. But the newer, emerging understanding
is that the messenger molecules know as peptides are not only distributed
throughout the brain and body, but exert huge influence.
98% of all communication within the body may be through these peptide
messengers.
----------------------Emotions and Mind-Body states---------------
Thought is not caged in the brain but is scattered all over the
body. There is little doubt that the brain operates more like a gland
than a computer. It produces hormones, is bathed in them, and is run by
them" Restak 1993.
We simply cannot run a school without acknowledging emotions. Pep
rallies, guest speakers, poetry readings, community service efforts,
storytelling, debates, clubs, sports and dramatic arts address emotions.
-----------------------------Emotions, learning and
memory-------------
Write down three good reasons why reaching you goals is important to
you. Then share them. The reasons are the emotions being the
goals and the source of energy to complete them.
We have been biologically shaped to be fearful, worried, surprised,
suspicious, joyful, and we must cease the long-standing habit of thinking of
emotions as always irrational . Emotions are a critical source of
information for learning.
Students who feel tentative or afraid to speaking front of their peers
are that way for a "logical" reason: to fail may cost them
significant social status.
Appropriate emotions sped up decision making enormously. Quick
gut-feelings: yes or no.
All values are simply emotional states. If my value is
honesty, then I feel badly when I'm dishonest. Conversely, I feel good
when I do honest things.
In addition, we remember that which is most emotion laden.
Some say emotions are so important they have their own memory pathway.
Its common for students to remember the death of a friend, a field trip,
or a hands-on science experiment far longer than most lectures.
PRACTICAL STRATEGIES
The old adage was, "First, get control of the
students, then do the teaching."" Today, neuroscientists
might tell you to engage emotions appropriately.
Role Model:
Model the love of learning.
Celebrations:
Use acknowledgments, parties, high-fives, food, music, and fun.
After mind mapping, ask them to find at least two things they like about
it.
A controversy:
Setting up a controversy could involve a debate.
Purposeful Use of Physical Rituals:
Those rituals could include clapping patterns, cheers, chants, movements,
or a song. Use these to announce arrival, departure, a celebration and
getting started on a project.
Each time teams complete their tasks they could give a team cheer.
Introspections:
The use of journals, discussion, sharing, stories, and reflection about
things, people, and issues engages students personally Have them read
letters to the editor and discuss or critique them.
|
CHAPTER NINE - MOVEMENT AND LEARNING
----------------Mind
and Body-------------------------
What would happen if the cerebellum, an area most commonly linked to
movement, turned out to be a virtual switchboard of cognitive activity?
First the cerebellum takes up just one-tenth of the brain by volume, but it
contains over half of all its neurons.
The last place information is processed is in the cerebellum, before it is
sent to the cortex, is the dentate nucleus. Thought the dentate nucleus
is missing in most mammals, it is largest in primates with the highest learning
capabilities.
Autistic children have smaller cerebellums and fewer cerebellar
neurons. He also has linked cerebellar deficits with impaired ability to
shift attention quickly from one task to another. He says the cerebellum
filters and integrates floods of incoming data.
------------------------ Motor development and
learning-----------------
While simple movements like gum chewing are controlled by basic brain
circuits nearest the spinal cord, complex movements shift focus in the brain
because it has no memories to rely on for execution. Suddenly we engage
the prefrontal cortex.
---------------Physical education and
learning------------------------
We know exercise fuels the brain with oxygen.
Those who exercised 75 minutes a week demonstrated quicker reactions, thought
better, and remembered more. Chronic stress releases the chemicals that
kill neurons. Exercise reduces that too.
----------------------The
movement arts-----------------------------
Teaching students art also has been linked to better visual thinking,
problem solving, language and creativity.
Students who tip back on two legs of their chairs in class often are
stimulating their own brains.
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS
Goal setting on the move:
Everyone pairs up.
Students can charade or mime their goals to a partner or go for a short
walk while setting goals.
ASK THESE:
Why is it important for me to reach my goals?
What are my goals for today and this year?
What do I need to do today and this week in this class to reach my goals?
Drama, Theater, and Role Plays:
DO one-minute commercials adapted from television to advertise upoming
content or review past content. Coming attractions.
Energizers:
Rewrite lyrics to familiar songs in pairs or in a team. Then perform
the song with coreography.
Each person forms an opinion about the topic THe goal is for each
student to convince a partner in 30 seconds why his or her topic is more
important.
Cross-Laterals:
These are exercises that force brain hemisphers to talk to eachother.
Pat your head and rub your belly.
Stretching:
PE is being cut. Allow learners to be mobile if they don't disturb
anyone.
CHAPTER 10 –
The Brain as a Meaning – Maker
------------The Search for Meaning-------------
This virtual avalanche of
data can cause us to simply “shut off”.
One of the solutions is to
ensure the quality of information, not the quantity.
In this chapter we’ll avoid
the dictionary type of “pointer” meaning and deal with the “sense” type of
meaning.
---------------The Biology of Meaning ------------------
When something is meaningful
during reading, there’s usually more activity in the left frontal, temporal, or
parietal lobe.
If there’s a more spiritual
meaning, it’s probably a parietal lobe activity.
If it is an emotionally felt
meaning, it may show activity in the frontal , occipital and mid-brain areas.
In short, meaning is
complex.
---------------The importance of
Relevance--------------------
Buckminister Fuller’s
conversations were rich because he could make so many associations that nearly
everything reminded him of nearly everything else. A conversation about birds might go to …..
For many students the
problem is the opposite. Classroom
information lacks the personal relevance necessary for any meaning.
-------------Practical Suggestions for Making
Meaning--------------
Give students time to link
prior learning with discussion, mapping, and journaling. Use the power of current events, family
history , stories, myth, legends, and metaphors to help make the learning
relevant.
Let learners explain what is
taught in their own words.
Teachers who continue to
emphasize one-sided lecture methods are violating an important principle of our
brain: Essentially we are social
beings.
Ask: “Could you compare this
with a personal experience?”
--------------The Importance of
Emotions-----------------
Intense emotions triggers
the release of chemicals that say “This
is important – keep this!”
A master chess player uses
less glucose while engaging larger patterns from the right side of the
brain. And clearly, a historian would
more likely see a centuries-old pattern in human behavior than a 4th grader. As a result, teachers can see the themes,
connections and relevancies that a student cannot.
Practical Suggestions
Ask students how they know
what they know through the use of “how” questions. How does democracy work?
How might they have….?
His students use graphic
organizers with color coding to intensify important material.
Before beginning a topic,
give global overviews using overheads, videotapes and posters.
Help students use motor
skills to walk them through a learning process in advance of needing to know
it.
Days or weeks before actually
starting a topic, prepare learners with oral previews, applicable games in
texts or handouts, metaphorical descriptions, and mind maps of the topic posted
on the wall.
When you finish with a
topic, make sure that you allow learners to evaluate the pros and cons, discuss
the relevance, and demonstrate their patterning with models, plays and
teachings.
CHAPTER
11 – MEMORY AND RECALL
----------------Key memory discoveries-----------------
Doubts but quotes of Wilder
--------------------Fluidity--------------
Memories of sound are stored
in the auditory cortex. And researchers
have found an area of the inner brain , the hippocampus, that becomes quite
active for the formation of spatial and other explicit memories, such as memory
for speaking, reading, and even recall about an emotional event. Memories of names, nouns and pronouns are
traced to the temporal lobe. The
amygdala is quite active for implicit, usually negative emotional events. Learned skils involve the basal ganglia
structures. The cerebellum also is
critical for associative memory formation,
particularly when precise timing is involved.
This “spread the risk”
strategy may create redundancy in the system.
------------Formation------------------
Long term potentiation is
the process by which memories are formed.
CREB serves as a logic switch, signaling nerve
cells to store the memory as short-term or permanently engrave it.
CREB activation gives fruit
flies photographic memory.
-----------Chemical----------------------------
Researchers suspect that
calcium deficiencies are linked to the memory loss of the elderly. Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter that is
linked to memories associated stress.
Phenylanine , found in dairy products, helps manufacture
norephinephrine. It is also involved in
alertness and attention.
Adrenaline acts as a memory
fixative, locking up memories of exciting or traumatic events.
Acetylcholine is used in
long-term memory formation.
Lechtin, found in eggs,
salmon, and lean beef is a dietary source that raises the choline level and
boosts memory.
Learning acquired under a
particular state (happy sad stressed, or relaxed) is most easily recalled when
the person is in the same state.
---------Reconstruction--------------------
Most memories are
reconstructed on the spot. There are
two theories on how this miraculous process happens.
One is that we have
“indexes”
It is like just on time
manufacturing.
This is ingenious as “parts”
are reusable.
A word like classroom is
very likely linked to several related indexes.
This theory explains why a
similar word – close, but still wrong – will come out of our mouths when we are
trying to say something.
The other theory is that
memories are frozen patterns. They are
like ripples on a bumpy road that make no sound until a car drives over them.
This is advocated by
“William Calvin”
-----------------Variety----------------
Its common for us to be good
at one type of recall, like faces and places, but not others.
--------------------Retrieval--------------------
We have to start thinking
less of “our memory” and more of “which kind of memory and how it can be retrieved.
EXPLICIT MEMORY
----------------Semantic
Pathways----------------------
In fact, only explicit
memory (aka semantic) pathways have a short-term or working memory.
Short – term refers to the
length of time we can “hold it” in our head, which is usually 5-20
seconds. Working memory refers t o the
number of units of information we are holding.
For the average adult, this is usually seven.
The brain may simply not be
well-equipped to routinely retrieve this type of semantic information.
This may be a relatively new
need; humans have had little use for semantic recall until recent history when
books, schools, literacy, and social mobility became common.
The largest portion of our
learning is only temporarily extinct.
It can be recalled under the correct conditions. IT can be recalled as long as attention was
paid initially. Forgetting may be
only a temporary performance deficit.
We recall details and text
learned in the morning and relationships in the afternoon.
We also seem to remember
things that are new, first on a list , different from others, or just
unique. If the novelty is strong
enough, the likely recall of the material goes up dramatically.
Our working memory is
limited by chunks and is usually good for less than 20 seconds unless rehearsed,
reviewed, or reactivated.
Unfortunately this type of
memory requires strong intrinsic motivation.
This is often described as textbook, handout, or “book learning”.
Teachers who require
moderate to large amounts of recall from texts are, at best, developing
self-discipline in the learners.
-----------------Episodic
Pathways-------------------
“What did you have for
dinner last night?” and most people immediately ask themselves first, “Where
was I?” The location triggers the content.
Our visual system has both
“what”(content) and “where”(location) pathways.
The smell receptors bypass
the sensory integration center, the thalamus.
In that way, smell goes directly to the brain’s frontal lobes and , more
important, limbic system.
IMPLICIT MEMORY
The memory is in our brains
still, we just have a retrieval deficit.
We know it, but we don’t know it.
-----------------------Procedural---------------
Riding a bike
Procedural memory appears to
have unlimited storage, requires minimal review, and needs little intrinsic
motivation.
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS
To
create strong retrieval for explicit
memory we can use strong activation with rhymes, visualization , mnemonics, peg
words, music, and discussion.
Otherwise
reading a chapter becomes an all-too-forgettable event. Remind students to stop often every quarter
to half page and take notes, discuss what is read, and reflect.
Conduct
oral or written review, both daily and weekly.
Students
can pair up or rotate in teams to present daily reviews. Your might repeat them in 10 minutes of
original learning, then 48 hours later and in all in 7 days later.
Take
pauses during reading.
Use
acrostics (My very educated mother just sells nuts until Passover).
Create
action pictures that tie the words together.
Create
a flip chart.
Teach
the most important material first and last.
Open and close the class with the three most important words or
concepts.
Wholes
should be taught first details later.
We remember cliffhangers.
Ask a question to be answered tomorrow.
-------------------episodic strategies-------------------------------
Folks do better on tests when they are not neutral, but
emotional.
Teach from different parts of the room. Create theme days.
On “skeptical day” students are asked to challenge their
assumptions about everything.
-------------------------Procedural
strategies-----------------------------------
Use movement. If you
have three points to make, ask students to rise and take three steps in any
direction. For each point they move a
step.
We need strong emotions at the middle of class (the
beginning and end are given precedent by default).
Debate, or songs redone, rap, oldies. Build a model, Use dramatic concert reading. Make a story using the key items; it will supply a meaningful context and the plot creates provides an associative thread of ideas so that one
triggers the next.
--------------------------Reflexive
strategies----------------------------
Fill-in-the-blank tests a good for retrieval. The more practice the more “automated” the
learning. Flash cards, games. Rap helps many who could not otherwise
learn.
How much should schooling require the need for
memorization? Memorization is a
critical skill.