Sometimes I just get overwhelmed. I have been feeling this way for a while. Looming, serious budget cuts at schools and across the state, too many committees to belong to, too many teachers not willing to step out of their comfort zone, a very busy family. I just feel tired. How to get out of the funk? Take stock of the good things going on. I just began teaching a new grad class – seems like a great group a…
Rule # 12: We are powerful and natural explorers. I set out to post my notes on Brain Rules and I finally made it to chapter 12. This chapter deals with our curiosity and wonder. As a parent I have observed my children wonder, explore and learn, we are designed for this. We need to capitalize on this as educators. “For little ones, discovery brings joy, Like an addictive drug, exploration creates the need for more discovery so that more…
Rule #11 Male and female brains are different. This must have been delicate chapter for John Medina to right. Some time political correctness can run amok. Men and women are physically different, would it not make sense that are brains and therefore brain function might also be different. Add to this the idea of nature verses nurture and the subject of gender and learning can get pretty complex. What is known is the men and women’s brains have different structures,…
Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses. On of the principles I base my work on is Universal Design in Learning. We pay greater attention to things that move. We pay attention to and remember images. Animation combines these and there for is a powerful tool for a teacher. This is one of the foundations of universal design in learning. The more ways to access information the more likely there will be success in learning. Text, sound, images, animation should…
Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses. We are sensory driven creatures. We gather all information through a variety of senses. The more senses we involve the mores information we gather, the better our integration and understanding of this information. When information is presented multisensory (seeing and hearing) it is retained better then when presented using a single sense. In some experiments the improvement to recall was 50-75 %. IF you involve more then 2 senses learning improves even more….
Rule #8: Stressed brains don’t learn the same way. I read this chapter twice it is an important topic to me. I also read it with two minds the biologist in me and as a person continually struggling with stress. Our body was designed to handle stress in short bursts. The fight or flight response, evolutionary speaking, is necessary for our survival. But now we experience long term stress lasting days, if not months. We produce stress hormones they increase…
Rule #7 Sleep well, think well. When I read this chapter I kept going to my husband to say see I told you so. This chapter was vindication for how I work. Back in our grad school days, my husband and I took the same classes. We wrote the same papers but we did it in different ways. I slept, while he struggled over note cards. This does not mean that I did not take notes, nor have a ton…