PET Scans

1
How Brains Learn
2
Teaching vs. Learning
3
Brain Anatomy
4
Brain Hemisphericity
Allyn Bacon, 1998
5
Flow of a Neuron Impulse
6
Information Processing Model
Rehearsal
Sight
RECEPTORS
Sound
Elaboration Organization
Long-Term Memory
Sensory Memory
Working Memory
Smell
Initial Processing
Taste
Retrieval
Touch
Not transferred to the next stage and therefore
forgotten
7
Working Memory Limits
Whats the meaning of Millers 7 /- 2?  
 
8
Attention

• Stimuli bombardment
• Mental filtering in sensory register and short
  term memory
• Attention is paid to things that are
• Novel
• Intense
• Move

9
Attention Limitations
What is the cocktail party effect?
What might you say to a teacher who
simultaneously talks and presents overheads to
their class?
What would you say to a child who wants to study
with music or a TV playing?
10
Emotion and Attention
Emotion drives attention, and attention drives
learning. Robert Sylwester (1995)
Whats the significance of this sentence?
Emotions create the relationship between the
importance of an event and how well we remember
that event. One shot learning
11
Emotion and Attention
Accident Scene Studies
12
Meaning and Attention
Does this stimulus match a previous one for you?
The notes were sour because the seams split.
13
Meaning and Association
What happened in your brain when you saw this
figure?
14
Brains Make Associations

• What color is this screen?

15
Explore Your Neural Network
16
Active Organizer of Information
Humans create organization Bousfield
(1953) What was the study?
Subjects told to memorize lists of 60 nouns in a
random order (names, animals, professions, and
vegetables)
When people wrote out their recollection of the
list, it came out organized. The stimulus was
the same, but peoples organization differed.
17
Ebbinghaus Curve of Forgetting
Whats the significance for teachers?
Patricia Wolfe. Brain Matters. 2001.
18
Ausubel
The best predictor of what and how much youll
learn is what you already know about a topic.
rote learning.
No association
First associations are the strongest.
Changing established associations can be
difficult.
19
Ausubel

• According to Ausubel, for instruction you must
• Activate prior learning

1. Make similarities and differences clear between
   new and existing information

• Analogies How is this the same? How is this
  different?

20
Lets Review So what?

• What might you say to a teacher who says theyre
  going to teach art to stimulate their students
  right hemispheres?

21
Lets Review So what?

• What might you say to a teacher who is having
  trouble gaining their students attention?

22
Lets Review So what?

• In what ways could teachers raise the level of
  emotion associated with a given assignment?

• How can teachers keep levels of emotion at a
  productive level?

23
Multiple Int. vs. Schema Theory

• No clear evidence to date of brain structures or
  functions that support multiple intelligences.
• New tools reveal how memories are stored.

24
PET Scans

• PET scan showing mental activity

25
Storing Info. Long Term
Schema An organized knowledge structure
reflecting an individuals knowledge, experience
and expectations about some aspect of the world.  
Simpler definition a complex neural network of
connected information.
26
Whale Schema
Allyn Bacon, 1998
27
Recalling Information

• Recall is the simultaneous activation of all the
  neurons associated with a memory within a schema.
• A given neuron may be part of multiple memories.
• Efficiency
• Letters / words.

28
Schema for Bison
Allyn Bacon, 1998
29
Schemas Affect Recall

• Story about a house from two perspectives
• Real estate agent

• Burglar

30
Schemas Affect Recall
Bartletts War of the Ghosts (1932).

• Recall errors revealed subjects interpreted the
  story through the lens of their own experience
• Canoe and paddle became boat and oar
• Plot become more conventional

31
Schema Memory Distortions
Allyn Bacon, 1998
32
Schema Advantages / Disadvantages
Advantages Disadvantages
Allows the brain to operate more efficiently can assimilate lots of information. Misinterprets things can distort reality when interpreting experience through a schema.
Allows better comprehension (bagpipe) Can constrain thought processes
Helps you to infer to fill in gaps. Difficult to overcome or change.
Allows better interpretation can sense if something doesnt seem right.
33
Supporting Robust Schema

• Form connections to prior learning
• Anticipatory Set
• Focuses attention on relevant existing schema
• Motivation
• Starting a lesson with what students know and
  having students build understanding
• Fossils

34
Supporting Robust Schema

• Strengthen the connections through repeated
  activation
• Daily Oral Language
• Spelling Quiz

35
Evaluation Making a judgment Example Critiquing a short story or poem.
Synthesis Creating something new by combining deferent ideas Example Rewriting Goldilocks and the Three Bears from the perspective of the bears.
Analysis Breaking down information into parts to see relationships and importance Example Analyzing a short story or poem to find the theme.
Application Using information in a new situation Example Using knowledge of letter sounds to read.
Comprehension Understanding facts or information Example Knowing the sounds the letter a represents
Knowledge Knowing facts or information Example Knowing that a is the letter a.
Form Deep Connections
Blooms Taxonomy
36
Form Multiple Connections

• Involve multiple senses.
• Each path / connection makes the schema more
  robust.
• Learning about the ocean
• Look (this is the usual focus)
• Taste
• Sound
• Smell
• Touch

37
Form Multiple Connections
Dual Coding - Paivio
38
Form Multiple Connections
39
Form Multiple Connections
40
Strengthen the Connections

• Create Associations hook the unfamiliar to the
  familiar
• Analogies
• Similes
• Identify Patterns

41
Strengthen the Connections

• Mnemonic Devices
• Treble clef Every Good Boy Does Fine
• Acronyms SCUBA
• Have students restate the learning in their own
  words

42
Strengthen the Connections

• Articulate relationships between concepts
• Examples / nonexamples
• Charts
• Matrices
• Models
• Outlines / flowcharts
• Graphs

43
Strengthen the Connections

• Repetition.
• Restate / model the learning during lesson
• Include guided and independent practice within
  lessons
• Provide distributed practice over time

44
Strengthen the Connections

1. Active student elaboration.

45
Lets Review So what?

• How might you respond to the criticism that the
  use of flashcards to learn the times tables is
  drill and kill?

46
Lets Review So what?

• Based on what youve learned so far, why might
  students learn more about turtles by having a
  real turtle in the classroom as opposed to
  reading about turtles?

47
Lets Review So what?

• Imagine youre a kindergarten teacher.
• Based on what youve learned today, why is
  describing a rectangle as just like a square
  thats been squeezed likely to support student
  learning?

48
Piaget Stages of Development

• Children arent miniature adults.
• Cognitive development occurs in stages.

49
Piaget Stages of Development
Allyn Bacon, 1998
50
Piaget Stages of Development

• Developmentally appropriate instruction
• Make instruction real / concrete
• Realia
• Manipulatives
• Scaffolds
• Videos images

51
Making Earthquakes Concrete

• Video
• Photographs
• Web site

52
Lets Review So what?

• What might you say to a teacher who dismisses the
  use of an anticipatory set as a waste of time?

53
Lets Review So what?

• What might you say to a teacher who is giving a
  long set of verbal directions to her
  kindergartners?

54
Lets Review So what?

• In a job interview, a principal says that
  students at the school have multiple learning
  challenges before asking how you might address
  that.

Based on what youve learned today, how might you
answer?