Brain Compatible Learning

1
Brain Compatible Learning

• If the brain is the organ for learning, then why
  arent teachers brain experts?
• Learning is constructed in the mind based on a
  students experiences
• The brains of students today are completely
  different than the brains of our students even
  10, 20 or 100 years ago

2
Emotion and Learning

• Appeal to a students emotion through
• Storytelling- Story Chunking
• Piquing curiosity
• Questioning
• Novelty
• Prior knowledge
• Movement
• Too many public schools focus on the measurable
  to the exclusion of the possible. We are
  preparing for tests, but are we preparing for
  skillful learners in the world beyond school?

3
Brain Development and Adolescence

• What we have to remember when teaching subject
  matter and content standards
• Prefrontal lobe- looks like Swiss cheese- seat of
  logical reasoning, problem solving, decision
  making
• Amygdala- clusters of neurons that are intimately
  tied to our emotional responses and memory
  functions

4
Adolescent Development and Learning

• Hormones surging
• Peers
• Sexual exploration
• Identity and Role Confusion
• Development of abstract thinking and
  metacognition
• Reactionary or thalamic responses come from the
  amygdala which is usually stimulated and over
  functioning

5
Stress and its effects on Learning and Memory

• High stress levels- affect immune system, clarity
  of thought, and memory function
• Causes of Stress
• Over packed curriculum
• Fear of being wrong
• Test-taking
• Frustration with difficult material
• Boredom from lack of stimulation!
• Embarrassment ( to read aloud)

6
What is the worst thing a parent or teacher could
do in the eyes of an adolescent?

• A. Pile on added chores or assignments
• B. Scream and yell engaging in power struggles
  over every issue that is irritating
• C. Embarrass the adolescent

7
Stress- The Diagnosis of the 21st century

• Anytime there is perceived fear, there is stress
  and a decrease in flow of information to the PFC.
  
• Boredom makes you do crazy things- it may create
  its own fun or novelty
• Most often, it is not the childs choice-
  misbehavior is when the lower brain is in control
• Flight-withdrawal, look like ADD or ADHD
• Fight- ODD
• Freeze-Social Anxiety and Seizures or OCD
• Dr. Judy Willis

8
Why do students drop out of school?

• 75- material wasnt interesting
• 39 material wasnt relevant
• 37no interactions with teachers
• Boredom is stressful!
• So what do we do?
• Create a community and classroom culture that
  feels safe and accepting.
• Teach students ways to control their own
  responses MODEL!!!
• Visualizations and activities that are physical
  and tactile- movement engages 100 of the brain
  which no cognitive skill or strategy can do this!
  

9
How May I Serve You?

• We ask the questions what do you need?
• How can I help? What can I do?
• Brain processes questions long after they have
  been asked
• Self-reflection time
• Story-telling in content areas
• Choices

10
Strategies

• Allow students to design quizzes and test
  questions
• There is a 95 or higher retention rate over a 24
  hour period when students are allowed to teach
  what they need to learn
• Hand Exercise- when we are holding onto power or
  control , there is no room for growth, novelty or
  leadership from students

11
Strategies continued

• Writing with non-dominant hand
• Why do you need to know this? What professions or
  jobs would ask for these skills?
• Self-reflection
• Feedback- informative, frequent and displayed
  with variety

12
Environment is Key

• Genius is much more than genes! When you enrich
  the environment and exercise the muscles of the
  brain and power of the mind, you are literally
  creating neurons, neural connections and
  stimulating IQ and brain development
• Frequent informal assessment strengthens learning
  
• Self-assessment

13
Strategies that enhance Learning

• Prediction
• Multi-sensory
• Memory- manipulation of information and focused
  attention
• Hooks at the beginning and end!

14
Memory Facts

• If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days
  you would have producedenough sound energy to
  heat one cup of coffee.
• (Hardly seems worth it.)
• If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9
  months, enough gas isproduced to create the
  energy of an atomic bomb.
• (Now thats more like it!)
• The human heart creates enough pressure when it
  pumps out to the body tosquirt blood 30 feet.
• (O.M.G.!)
• A pigs orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
• (In my next life, I want to be a pig.)
• A cockroach will live nine days without its head
  before it starves todeath. (Creepy.)
• (Im still not over the pig.)
• Banging your head against a wall uses 150
  calories an hour.
• (Do not try this at home. Maybe at work.)
• The male pray mantis cannot copulate while its
  head is attached to itsbody. The female
  initiates sex by ripping the males head off.
• (Honey, Im home. What the.?!)