Brain Based Learning• AIM

• Teachers will learn at least 3 practical best practices that they can implement into their daily lesson planning.

Research is ongoing to try to understand how the brain works. As technology progresses we gain more and more

insight.

Help me get better results!!

• We want to take what we know about the brain from science and psychology and inform our instruction.

• Hence “brain compatible strategies”

• That’s nice but what does it mean to me as a teacher?

• How can I apply what they’ve learned to help my students learn?

It’s not just about high test scores.

• High test scores do not necessarily translate into personal success. Bill Gates was a college drop out. Thomas Edison only went to 8th grade.

• Spitting back information doesn’t make you smarter nor does it guarantee success in the game of LIFE!

The Brain is a Complex Organ. It contains about 100 billion cells.

• Your learners are all capable of achieving. Each has great potential – despite evidence you may amass to the contrary!

• You need to teach to many different learning styles so that the potential of every learner is tapped.

• Use alternative forms of assessment to provide avenues for those who learn differently.

Set a Positive Tone for Your Classroom.

• Provide a climate where every learner is respected and affirmed.

• What a learner believes about him/herself effects academic performance.

• Help your students to set goals and create the steps to reach them.

• Put up affirming posters.• Encourage cooperative learning with multi-

status grouping.

Keep Your Expectations

High!

Positively Influence Your Learners

• Create a warm physical climate in your room. How is it arranged?

• Is it interesting with posters, plants, pictures, objects?

• Are there interesting learning items around for use in sponge time?

Sight

Sound

Smell

Taste

Touch

Sensory Memory

RECEPTORS

Not Transferred and Forgotten

WorkingMemory

Rehearsal

Long-Term

Memory

Elaboration andOrganization

Retrieval

Information Processing Model

Initial

Processing

There is no such thing as not paying attention.

• The Brain is always paying attention to something.

• One filter the brain uses to decide whether to keep or dump incoming stimuli is whether the stimuli is novel.

What’s been novel in your recent lessons?

• What have you done that has your students excited to see what going to happen next time?

• Stay tuned boys and girls because tomorrow I’ll tell you how an event in 1835 made Chuck Norris millions!

The Brain decides whether to store information based on the intensity

of the information

• The louder a sound,

the brighter a light…

Change Your Intensity When You Speak

• Show excitement and enthusiasm for what you are teaching.

• Loud, very soft, change your intonation!

Yessssssss!!!WOWSER!Thank you,Thank you Thank you!!!

A third factor that influences our attention is movement.

Our attention is directed toward stimuli that move!

Move When you Speak!

• Don’t sit on a stool or chair!

• Don’t lean on a podium!

• Be animated – use your hands!

• Unglue yourself from the front board.

Meaning

• The brain checks out information coming in through sensory stimuli to see if it makes sense or has meaning.

• If the brain can’t make sense of new information, after a while it dumps it.

I can’t perceive any need or relevance for this information!

Sooooo-

See Ya!!!!!!

Build Background Knowledge and Relevance so the information is kept.

• “This is important to you for reasons way beyond the test.”

• “This is the coolest stuff since ice cream!”

• “Who has seen…?”• “How might this be

like …?”

The Brain is Biologically Programmed to Attend First to Information that has Strong Emotional Content.

• Our brains not only pay attention to physical dangers but to other components of body language that contain emotional information necessary to survive in our culture.

Optimize Non-conscious Learning

• How you treat your students

• What you say• How you say it• What you don’t say• Your attitude about your

own work• How well you listen• Your smile or lack of it

communicates more to students than words.

Establish Rituals in Your Class to Build Positive Emotional Support

Positive GreetingsHigh FivesRound of ApplauseClass ApplauseTeam Names in friendly

competitionSpecial AwardsExtra PrivilegesCreate opportunities for

students to leadCelebrate Successes!!!

A student’s opinion of their teacher is critical in the learning process!

• “The more positive authority and credibility a teacher has with the students, the stronger the learning.”

• Your clothing conveys powerful messages about your attitude, your values, and your personality.

Create Emotion through

• Scenarios

• Empathy to real situations

• Skits

Partner Quiz

• What are the five things that we just reviewed that help get student’s brains to pay attention to information???

• Hint MINE’M• Movement, Intensity,

Novel, Emotion, Meaning

The Answers are:

• Movement,

• Intensity,

• Novel,

• Emotion,

• Meaning

Let’s Play Jeopardy -The Answer: 15-20 Seconds

• The Question:

• What is the amount of time that information remains in working memory without rehearsal or constant attention?

BIG QUESTION -

• What Do You Think That Means to You as a Teacher?

Answer

• Give time to students to write or otherwise process the information you are giving them, before you move on to the next step or piece of information.

Say No to Lecture, Lecture, Lecture!

• Consider the typical lecture where students are trying to take notes. If the student begins to think about what the teacher just said, the next input may be missed. Often students write the words on the page but have little conceptual understanding.

• None of the lecture is processed!

Say Yes to

SAY-SEE-DO Cycles!• Tell your students• Show your students• Give them time and

opportunity to process the information.

• Then – move on to another Say-See-Do cycle.

Give Students the Time to Make the Learning Their Own.

• Brief discussions with partners or in three’s can be very powerful to help students understand and reinforce the material.

Share with the person next to you

• Some of the ways you have students process information along the way in your class. What do you do for “Do” cycles?

Take 14 Seconds to Memorize the following sequence of letters:

IB MJ FKTW AUS ACD

Stand Up If You Can Tell Us the Letters!

Here Are the Same Letters With Different Spacing

IBM JFK TWA USA CD

Work to “Chunk” information for your students so it is in classes or

categories.

What could you, or do you, chunk in your classes?

• 30 seconds think time then share with a partner.

• “Chunky Cheese?”

Chunking

• Help your students realize the connections.

Teaching Isn’t Telling

• Teaching is guiding and facilitating the formation of neural pathways in your student’s brains.

• We need to provide the experience and guidance for our students.

• Mark Twain said “If teaching were the same as telling, we’d all be so smart we could hardly stand it.”

Practice (or rehearsal) increases the duration of retention!

• You didn’t learn to swim or play piano by just reading about it in a book.

• Some of what we teach ie. Reading – requires elaborative rehearsal (hours and hours) using a variety of strategies.

Elaborative Strategies• Make the learning

more relevant and meaningful to the learner.

• Compare the new concept to a known concept. Hook the unfamiliar with something familiar. Use analogies, similes and metaphors.

Making Meaning Using Associations

• Parallel lines are like railroad tracks or the sides of the paper.

• Fish gills are like lungs in a human.

• To compute percentages use the wins and losses of the school soccer teams.

Emotion Strongly Influences Whether the Brain Pays Attention

• The brain stamps emotional events with extra vividness.

• Try simulations and role plays to enhance the emotional content of lessons.

• Apply learning to real life problems to increase emotion and motivation.

Where were you on 911?

Make Your Curriculum Meaningful

• Use Real Life problems

• Use Projects• Use Simulations• Learning is a process

of building neural networks.

Making Connections

• Using your current curriculum topic come up with a way of presenting the material that will help students activate prior knowledge and make connections.

• Than we will share:

Use Problem Solving to Increase Meaning and Relevance– Examples:

• Challenge students to find ways to save energy in the school.

• Contact local businesses or politicians and ask what problems they are trying to solve, then help find solutions.

• The brain thrives on multi-path, multi-modal experiences.

• Any teacher who thinks they can inspire great learning by teaching with a singular approach is going to be sadly disappointed.

• We understand complex topics better when we experience them with rich sensory input, rather than just reading or hearing about them.

Your Schooling

• What can you remember?• Why do you remember that?• How was that material presented?

Use Whole Brain Thinking-Present the Big Picture First

• Discuss a new topic with your students before diving into the details. Help them create associations to what they already know or things in their life.

• Then start showing and working with your students on the subtopics.

• Alternate back to the big picture and then continue with the details.

List your AIM and ReviewReview it with students

• Research say that students will achieve 27% BETTER when they have a clear goal.

• Give them that goal and drive them to it!

Provide Accurate Feedback -Often

• Students will learn more and more accurately.

• Use you, peer reviews, rubrics, journals, reference materials, volunteers, aides, answer sheets.

• This will also help with their motivation.

Emphasize Some Movement In Your Class to Keep your Students Energized.

• Set up stations for students to move to.

• Take a short stretch break or have students get up and move as part of your lesson plan.

• Remind students of the importance of eating right and getting enough rest

Ask More Questions – Give fewer Answers

• Allow your students to come up with the answers.

• Offer hints and clues when needed to help them think.

• Have students restate the correct responses, so they reinforce it in their brains.

• Have students summarize.

Participation and Motivation are boosted by:

• Inclusion• Ownership• Choice

It can’t be all your decisions all the time.

Use Projects to Increase Meaning and Motivation

• Make certain you establish your objectives first – then decide on projects to meet them.

• Ideas – Simulate an archaeological site, interview senior citizens on a topic, create a brochure to provide information.

Offer Choices in how to complete Assignments and Assessments

• Apathetic learners will become more enthusiastic when the learning or assessment is offered in their preferred style.

• “Life is like a box of chocolates.” We like to be able to chose.

Situations and Role Plays

• Compare and Contrast a simulation with a real event to help students obtain meaning (debrief).

• Ideas –Walk the Punctuation, Student Letter Spelling, Human Graphing in Math, Robin Hood, Element Composition - on the Football Field

Use Visuals to Enhance Learning

• Visuals increase understanding.

• Have students draw pictures of vocabulary words or draw pictures with notes.

• Let students “present” vocabulary words

Include Creative Entertaining Activities As Part of The Learning Process.

• Humorous treatment of events

• Commercials• Songs• Skits• Mock Debates• Help students enjoy

the learning process as they construct meaning.

Planning

Once you establish your objectives –

Plan for how your students will best learn them.

Use Color and Vary Your VisualsThe More the Better!

• Power Points• Videos• Posters• Bulletin Boards• Photographs• Graphics• Murals• Artwork• Movie

Use Graphics to Help students organize their thinking

• Mind maps, webs, clusters, graphic organizers, network trees – all help students to see connections between information.

Graphic Organizer

Try Different Organizers for different concepts.

Subplot A Subplot B Subplot C Subplot D

Theme

Use Music Rhyme and Rhythm

• Embedding information in music or rhythm enhances it’s storage and recall.

• M-I-C, K-E-Y, …• 5, 10, 15, 20…..• Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall …. • Row, Row, Row …• Piggyback song- new words are set to a familiar

melody.• Can you or your students transform your

classroom information into a music or rhythm format that makes it easier to remember?

Enhance Understanding Through Writing Activities

• “Writing is nature’s way of letting us see how sloppy our thinking is.”

• Writing activities fit the category of elaborative rehearsal because they challenge students to organize their thinking.

In Math – Let Students Write Their Own Word Problems for Others to Solve.

• I had 37 ants. I put 12 in my sister’s bed and 8 in the cookie dough. How many do I have left?

• My math teacher talks at 60 miles per hour. Our class is 40 minutes long. How many miles does she talk in 2 days?

Periodically Ask Student to Complete Sentences Such As:

• Factoring is easy if…• The Four Steps in

Problem Solving are…

• I am still confused about…

Closure Questions

• The most important thing I learned today was…..• Today I was surprised by…..• What we learned today was similar to ……..• I am still a bit confused about….

Use Writing to Enhance Understanding and Motivation

• HAVE STUDENTS:• Write a news account of a

historic event as a reporter on scene

• Write a letter as a character or person in history

• Respond to questions in their journals

• Write letters to real people

TRY A QUICK WRITE/DRAW DIAGRAM

WRITE• The Earth spins on

it’s Axis• The Sun is stationary• The Sun appears to

rise in the east and set in the west.

DRAW

SUN

Earth

Mnemonics – Greek word mnema meaning memory

• The Brain is a pattern seeking device always looking for associations between what it’s receiving and what is stored.

How About These?

• My very eager mother just served us nine pizzas.

Planets order from the sun

• Mercury, • Venus, • Earth,• Mars, • Jupiter, • Saturn, • Neptune, • Pluto

How About These?

• Kids prefer cheese over fried green spinach.

• Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species

ACRONYMS – use single words rather than sentences

• Do you know these?• HOMES• Huron, Ontario, Michigan,

Erie, Superior,

• McHALE• Hint - Forms of energy

• Mechanical, Chemical, Heat, Atomic, Light, Electrical

Use Acronyms and AcrosticsKids Do All the Time – Do You Know:

• B4N• Bye for Now

• LOL• Laugh Out Loud

• 4YEO• For Your Eyes Only

• 2G4Y• Too Good For You

• KOTL• Kiss on the Lips

• YAFIYGI• You Ask For It You Got It

Try Peer Teaching – A Great Rehearsal Strategy

• “The best way to learn something is to teach it.”

• A teaches B then B teaches A. Each carefully monitors the others explanations.

Active Review

• Students take responsibility for presenting a previous unit so all don’t forget it.

• Allow them to use their choice of presentation strategies from puppet shows, to cartoons, mini-dramas, models, music, a movie…

How About A Pictionary Game Competition to Review Vocabulary!

Effervescent Dogma

Let’s Try These!

Offer Multi-Sensory Options

What Hands-On Activities Can You Come Up With?

How Can You Apply What You’ve Seen and Heard to Your Teaching

in Your Classes?

Your Charge

• Get with another teacher (not a team member) and help each other design two lessons each for your classes which will apply what we have reviewed today. When we return you will present what you feel is the best one to the rest of the group.