Applied Practices for Cognitively Mired Adolescents in Economics:

Practical Brain Based Learning Techniques for Teaching Economics

Christopher Tyler1-26-2010

Azusa Pacific University --- High Desert Campus

Real Need

• Traditional direct instruction lecture proves ineffective.

Introduction

• 1st - Not all students learn the same due to their neurological networks.

• 2nd - The human brain does not identify the information as being a part of a recognizably important pattern and thus stores the information only in short-term and often times forgets it entirely in the long term.

• As a result students learn the information long enough to pass the class and graduate, but later on they become a citizen with little economic understanding.

Background• Principle One: The brain is a parallel processor

• Principle Two: Learning engages the entire physiology

• Principle Three: The search for meaning is innate

• Principle Four: The search for meaning occurs through "patterning"

• Principle Five: Emotions are critical to patterning

• Principle Six: Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes

Background• Principle Seven: Learning involves both focused attention and

peripheral perception

• Principle Eight: Learning always involves conscious and unconscious processes

• Principle Nine: We have at least two types of memory -- a spatial memory system and a set of systems for rote learning

• Principle Ten: The brain understand and remembers best when facts and skills are embedded in natural spatial memory

• Principle Eleven: Learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat

• Principle Twelve: Each brain is unique

Study Design: Participants• Facilitator – Credentialed Microeconomics AP Teacher• Four class of General Economics were used in the

study.• Participating students were selected randomly• Participating Students – 142 (56 Females) (86 males)• 30% of the participants are Hispanic• 50% are Caucasian• 15% are African America• 5% are Other. • There are four Special Needs students on an I.E.P.

(Individual Education Plan), one student on a 504 Plan, and one E.L.L. (English Language Learner) student.

Study Design: Setting • Title 1 school-wide program improvement site

• located in High Desert community of Southern California.

• There are currently 2,020 students (primarily middle class).

• .0555% ELL students

• API Score – 731 (2008)

• The average class size varies from 35 – 40 students per teacher.

Study Design: Planned ActivitiesWeek 1 – Environment changed, design their own currency

Week 2 – Read “The Gold Smiths Tale” and do a skit

Week 3 – Representative of the High Desert Federal Credit Union comes.

Week 4 – Introduction to banking websites, students walked through sites themselves

Week 5 – Video “The Ascent of Money: The Bond Market”, web quest

Week 6 – Investopedia.com

Findings and Analysis

Discussion of Results:• After triangulating all the data the noteworthy

growth was in student vocabulary quiz scores.

• According to teacher observations the students began utilizing economic terminology in everyday conversations coming to and from the classroom.

• Student engagement also increased over the course of this study.

• Stress levels, according to the summative survey, and teacher observations notes visibly decreased due to an increased expose to the course material.

• Furthermore, students began to compare and apply more of the course material to their personal lives.

• When the students involved in this study initialized extracurricular activities due to in-class material their comprehension and retention rates increased.

Discussion of Results:

Conclusion• Utilizing brain based learning methods in the

classroom is an effective way of increasing retention and comprehension of a topic.

• Due to the exercises and activities that became incorporated into the course students became more exposed to the material being taught.

• As a result of this student stress levels remained low. This was reflected in the students not developing high affective filters during course exams.

Conclusion

• As a further result of increased exposure to the course material students began utilizing vocabulary and the information learned during the course in their personal lives.

• Several students, after being instructed in banking and listening to a guest lecturer, went out and opened their own checking accounts or acquired savings bonds.

Conclusion

• As a result of the findings from this study this teacher-researcher intends on conducting another study that will be no less than twelve weeks in length.

New Insights into My Students

• Students respond well to a wide variety of brain based teaching strategies.

• Every student needs to probed for intelligence.

Better Structuring the Conditions of Learning for Students

• Classroom environment needs to be restructured to orient learning on the field of study.

• Students need to have interaction with material in real world application.

• Principles need to be addressed as much as possible

Reference Page• Caine. G. & Caine R. (1989) Learning and Accelerated Learning. Training and

Developmental Journal, 65-73.

• Caine. R. & Caine C. (1990). Understanding a Brain-Based Approach to Learning and Teaching [electronic version]. Journal of Educational Leadership, 66-70.

• Diamond M. (1985, March) Brain Growth in Response to Experience. Riverside: University of California Press.

• Hart L. (1999). Human Brain & Human Learning. New York: Brain Age Pub.

• Medina, John (2008). Brain Rules. Seattle: Pear Press.

• NEA 12 Principles for Brain-Based Learning Webpage. (2007, June) Retrieved October 24, 2009 from http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/CMathison/ArmaitiIsland/files/BBLrngPrin.pdf

• O’Keefe J. & Nadel L. (1978) The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map. Oxford: Claredon Press.