You and Your BrainSeminar 6

Goals for This Seminar Series

What can learning about the brain teach us about how we learn?

How can examining our own dispositions help us achieve a better understanding of how we learn?

How can we develop strategies to help us with the process of learning?

THINK-PUZZLE-EXPLORE1. What do you think you know about

your learning and brain?

2. What questions or puzzles do you have?

3. What does the topic make you want to explore?

Metaphors

For each metaphor, ask yourself....

What are some things that you believe about the brain that the metaphor captures?

What are some implications about you as a learner that follow from this metaphor?

How is the brain like a computer?

How is the brain like metamorphosis?

Your Own Metaphor Can you come up with your own

metaphor for learning and the brain?

In what way does your metaphor capture your thinking about the brain?

Learning Engages the Entire Physiology

Food, water, nutrition, sleep and exercise are critical to learning.

We are “holistic” learners - the body and mind interact

Each Brain is Unique

• We are products of genetics and experience

• The brain works better when facts and skills are embedded in real experiences

Learning is Enhanced by Challenge and Inhibited by Threat

The brain’s priority is always survival - at the expense of higher order thinking

Stress should be kept to a manageable level

Provide opportunities to make changes to your life

Have high, but reasonable expectations

The Search for Meaning Is Innate

Each person seeks to make sense out of what he/she sees or hears

Capitalize on this quality!• Present ideas, experiences that may NOT

follow what one expects: Speculate • Question Experiment • Hypothesize

The Search for Meaning Comes Through Patterning

Tie learning to prior knowledge

Use thinking routines and reflect on your own thinking

Start from the “big” questions to be answered.

The Brain is Social

•The brain develops better in concert with others

•When learners have to talk to others about information, they retain the information longer and more efficiently!

•Make use of small groups, discussions, teams, pairings, and question and answer situations

Brain Organizes Memory In Different Ways

Retrieval often depends upon how the information was stored.

Relevancy is one key to both storage and retrieval

Connect to what you know, what you are interested in

Provide examples

Memory When objects and events are registered by

several senses, they can be stored in several interrelated memory networks.

This type of memory becomes more accessible and powerful.

Conversation helps us link ideas/thoughts to our own related memories. Students need time for this to happen!!• Storytelling - Conversations• Debates - Role playing• Simulations - Songs• Games - Films

Techniques to Help Memory Define the “gist” - OVERVIEW Sequence events Plot out pictorially the

information Tell the information to others in

own words - TALK• Peer teaching/tutoring

Amplify by giving examples Use multiple parts of the brain

(emotional, factual, physical)• Auditory, Visual, Kinesthetic• Combine

Use color effectively• Yellow and orange as attention-getters

Can we become more intelligent? Brain is malleable, our experiences help shape it.

It is like a muscle – the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes.

Every time you try hard and learn something new, your brains form new connections that ,over time, make you more clever.

Intellectual development is not the natural unfolding of intelligence, but rather the formation of new connections brought through EFFORT & LEARNING!

Headline

If you were to write a headline to capture the core of your learning over the past 6 seminars, what would that headline be?

Mind Map

Reflect upon your own thinking about Learning and the Brain. How Has Brain Research Influenced Your Approach to Learning?

Draw a Mind Map.

Goals for This Seminar Series

What can learning about the brain teach us about how we learn?

How can examining our own dispositions help us achieve a better understanding of how we learn?

How can we develop strategies to help us with the process of learning?

Other Sources Society for Neuroscience http://www.sfn.org/

Short guides and articles from the New Scientist site about the brain:http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/brain

Thinking Routines & Visible Thinkinghttp://pzweb.harvard.edu/vt/VisibleThinking_html_files/VisibleThinking1.html

Neuroscience for Kids http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/introb.html  The Brain from Top to Bottom

http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/index_d.html  The DANA Foundation http://www.dana.org 

The Triune Brain http://www.psycheducation.org/emotion/triune%20brain.htm

  Secret life of the brain: 3D tour http

://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/3d/index.html  How Memory Works http

://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0407/02.html

The End