Consider what you have read about the brain's adaptability. How does its state of constant change fit (or not fit) with a traditional model of teaching that is focused on helping a student acquire (or add) new sets of facts and/or skills? What implications does this have for our instruction?
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Chapter 1 - Meet Your Amazing Brain
Consider what you have read about the brain's adaptability. How does its state of constant change fit (or not fit) with a traditional model of teaching that is focused on helping a student acquire (or add) new sets of facts and/or skills? What implications does this have for our instruction?
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Knowing that a young brain has the ability to adapt positively and negatively to life experience makes me wonder how frequently we have students with a mind that's changing (weekly, daily, hourly?). I also wonder if they are changing for the better or for the worse? The idea that stress can "reprogram" our genes makes me conscious of the stress that some of our students face daily when they aren't at school, we all know some of our kids worry about things at home they should never have to. As teachers is it possible to help positively "reprogram" their brains while simultaneously fighting off negative reprogramming?
ReplyDeleteThe traditional model for teaching uses an old-school strategy for presenting new information to a student, reading/saying/writing what we want them to know and expecting them to retain it. However with over 20 constantly changing brains in a classroom, traditional methods of delivering information can't possibly be very effective. I guess that means we all need to constantly be thinking of creative ways to deliver information to our students!
After reading this chapter, I had many of the same thoughts as Melissa. Though it is uplifting to think that we as educators can help positively "reprogram" our students' minds, it is quite scary to think about how many of our students' brains are being negatively affected because of what they deal with at home on a daily basis. My hope is that, because each student's brain is constantly changing, we can affect them positively and help outweigh the negative effects their brain may be experiencing because of their home lives.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter also made me think a lot about differentiation in the classroom. With so many students in each classroom and each of those students' brains constantly changing, how could we ever expect all children to learn using the same method? Improving the amount and quality of differentiation in my classroom is definitely going to be a focus in my classroom in this upcoming school year. If I expect to reach 27 young minds, I need to make sure I'm being creative and always keeping in mind that those 27 minds receive information in 27 different ways!
It's interesting to think that the brain is constantly changing. However, that promotes a challenge for teachers who are trying to meet the needs of 25+ students each and every day who have different needs. I think we can gather a lot of information about our students as we stand at the door or in the hallway to great them each morning. I could always tell who had a difficult night before and might struggle to focus that day or who was bounding in with exciting news that I knew they would need to share before any learning can take place. I usually planned activities for "most" but if it was a day that "few" were going to be able to handle it I would regroup and teach in a different way.
ReplyDeleteI, like Courtney, hope to improve with differentiation. It's just so hard to manage many different activities/groups at once, but I'm hoping our team can come up with a good system and work smarter not harder to improve in this area.
This chapter helped me see, as a collaborative teacher for this upcoming year, how important it is to have effective team teaching going on in my classroom. I love the idea of having another teacher in my classroom with a whole other way of looking at something, helping me reach the students who do not learn the same way I do. I am constantly amazed by different approaches other teachers or assistants have had while I am teaching and I just stand back and think, "Wow! I never thought of it like that!" It's easy to say we need to differentiate to help these ever-changing minds, but it's quite another thing to do it. It's hard for us to get out of our own brains and ways of thinking, and that's why we need each other. I know that Kim Burdine has said multiple times how her instruction was so much better when she was able to teach alongside Melody Ward last year because they could teach the same exact concept in completely different ways. With each way being taught, they got to see the light bulb turn on for different students.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the small section on the importance of music in this chapter. I think it would be amazing to play music in the hallways and throughout the day (especially during writing time)! I'm so glad we still have music programs at our school because I think it's so important!
While reading this chapter I found myself stopping to go get a highlighter! I, like Melissa, found that it very poignant that the mind can adapt itself to positive/ negative life experiences. In reflecting on this idea, I began to think about how our kids often adapt to their environments, specifically the school environment. I honestly thought more of their adaptations to be behavior based. Its interesting to acknowledge that its not only their behavior they adapt, but their thinking as well. Pretty powerful stuff!
ReplyDeleteI felt like the chapter helped reiterate the importance of making connections and providing meaningful experiences in order to help students retain information and learn what we are teaching them!
Learning about the adaptability of the brain actually gives me true hope that we (teachers) can be major players in helping to change the brains of our students for the better. No, we cannot remove all of the negative things that our students experience, but I believe that through our knowledge of the brain, we can begin to put practices into place that will positively impact our students. These practices cannot be the way we've always done things. It is time to integrate our current instructional practices with our newfound knowledge of the brain.
ReplyDeleteThis content in this chapter (changing the brain) is one of my favorite parts of the book. Like others have mentioned… gives me lots of hope for our sweet kids that go through so much before they ever reach our doors.
ReplyDeleteFrom the perspective of the world language teacher, my job is to reach students when they're young. I learned a lot about the brain in grad school, realizing that the synaptic density is highest before students reach puberty -- meaning that they will learn a language easiest when young. However, with the home issues that our students have, how can I expect them to focus their changing/growing brains on Spanish?! I look forward to learning practices that will benefit even the Spanish classroom.
ReplyDeleteSara, that is the first thing I thought about. After reading about the adaptability of the brain and how it adjusts to positive and negative influences in the child's life; I have to wonder about my kiddo's. No wonder they struggle with the traditional teaching model. They struggle to survive, let alone learn.
ReplyDeleteI loved thinking about the fixed vs. growth mentality. How the brain truly advocates the growth mentality and shuns the fixed mentality. I think training our brains, as teachers, will help us train our student's brains.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was incredibly interesting how adaptable our brains are. I enjoyed finding out that our brains have uncommitted "real estate" that is essentially up for grabs for the activities and actions that are most frequent. Like Heather mentioned, I am hopeful that all of the good habits and behaviors we are teaching our students will begin to take residence there!
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this chapter, I thought about the fact that academic readiness is, of course, heavily emphasized when planning instruction, but oftentimes students are lacking in emotional readiness due to traumatic life events and home situations. Kim, you mentioned the fact that you stand outside your door to greet your kids before the school day starts, in order to assess their mood and readiness to learn, because some students just need to “vent” or talk something out before they can begin the day on the right note. This is an awesome practice, because it not only helps to ensure that students are emotionally ready for learning, but it also lets them know that they have our love and support, which will resonate in their motivation and achievement.
ReplyDeleteLindsey, this quote made me think of your perspective on team teaching: “To paraphrase Einstein, today’s problems cannot be solved with yesterday’s thinking. Allowing learners to think outside the box is a good occasional strategy.” By working together as teachers, we are modeling healthy collaboration and open-mindedness to our students. If they see us sharing our new ideas with one another, they will be more likely to contribute to innovative approaches to learning.
After learning about the ever adapting human brain, it reiterates the fact that ALL students are capable of learning at a high level, no matter the challenges or obstacles! This year, I, like Theresa mentioned, hope to give my students some insight on the adaptability of their brains and to put them in the growth, rather than fixed mindset of learning! After all, we as teachers are lifelong learners, and it is our duty to instill this mentality in our students.
Our brains are amazing. This chapter makes me think about all of my kids who have had such negative home experiences and that we may be the only positive experiences in there lives. I also love the idea of uncommitted real estate in our brains as Tabor mentioned. This gives me hope that we can and will make a difference in our students learning.
ReplyDeleteI am impressed to learn that the brain is constantly changing and adapting. The brain uses positive actions to build new cells. This is amazing because this constant reorganization in the brain has a purpose. This research confirms that every student in my classroom has the capacity to change. We need to constantly reinforce our students in a positive manner.
ReplyDeleteAs everyone has mentioned, this chapter definitely made me more hopeful for "reaching" all of the students in my classroom, no matter the type of home situation/ environment that they have experienced before walking in the doors. It is encouraging that the brain is adaptable and constantly changing and learning. One of the most interesting sections of this chapter for me was when the author was talking about LTP and LTD, and how the brain has to decide what's important to learn and store, and what's not. The author says that this occurs "when you make mistakes and then learn from them." I know that I am so often guilty of wanting my students to "get it" right away, and I sometimes don't allow for them to go through this trial-and-error process that seems so essential to learning. As Lindsey said, I am thankful for other teachers that will be in my classroom, not only to provide a new perspective, but also to provide extra patience and differentiation in order to allow for this "trial-and-error" type learning that can be frustrating when you are one person trying to get a handle on 25 brains that are making mistakes and (hopefully!) learning from them.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the brain is constantly changing confirms my belief that every student is capable of learning. Each student's brain is able to change and grow. I also think that it is important for us as teachers to note that new information is stored in the short term memory for very little time unless it is deemed important. I think this means that we need to focus on making the information relevant to the students and help connect the content to them so that connections can be made then the information will be deemed as important and move through the processes. I also like that the book talked about children learning in different ways. It is easy to forget that we have a class full of diverse learners who have different needs, and whose brains may be structured differently depending on their life experiences. This means instruction needs to be diverse to meet the needs of all students.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kim that the brain's ability to restructure is amazing and can have great implications on how our students learn so we should constantly encourage them throughout this complicated process of learning!
Even though so many of our students come to us with negative experiences, it is encouraging to know that the brain is always changing, and we can make a positive impact on our students' brain development.
ReplyDeleteJessica, I also noticed the section that discussed short term memory. Since new data is only held in short term memory for 5 to 20 seconds and most is never stored, we need to find more ways to make the learning meaningful to our students so that they can process and store the information.
This chapter reminded me of the importance of providing various learning opportunities for students to learn information in unique and individualized ways to help them transfer new learning from 5-20 seconds of short term memory to more meaningful and long term memory. Just another plug for variety in presentation by adults and uniqueness in application by learners!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jenny and strive to do this in my classroom. Learning about the brain's functioning and make up explains to me why we have the struggles and success that we do in our classrooms. I hope to introduce new and various ways to help my students learn this coming school year.
ReplyDeleteI think it is very interesting that there is a possibility that the brain can change. It gives one hope when working with older students. We can make a difference.
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