Almost every teacher I meet has a theory about kids. Well, actually, he or she has many theories.
But if I ask the million dollar question, “What is it that contributes most to student learning?” the teacher usually gets quiet. I like that response. It’s good to be thoughtful about questions like that. The great news is that recent neuroscientific studies are opening up the brain of the student and telling us what matters most in learning. You might be surprised at what they’re finding.
While a HUGE numbers of variables may influence the brain on the macro level (physical environment, food, safety in the classroom, interest in the content, etc.) it turns out that very few factors influence student learning inside our head at the micro level. In fact, the number of factors is so few, I highlighted them in the new ASCD book, Teaching with Poverty in Mind. But let’s say you want just a few goodies from the book. I trust you; I know you’ll want to buy it soon!
Let me share just four with you. Let’s start with how we learn.
While we naturally and accidentally “pick up” millions of bits of information daily, our focused attention is what tells our brain to “log this in and save it.” Part of the brain tells you to “save” the learning, the nucleus basalis. This skill, locked in attention, can be taught. Second, our brain has to be able to process what is occurring, making the processing and reasoning pathways highly valuable. This skill can be, and must be, taught. But much of these tasks ask you to juggle more than one item in your working memory.
The strength of the working memory is another critical variable in learning. This must also be taught. Each of these neural events has to occur in a sequence, so it turns out that the temporal ordering of every step is critical.
Now, I’m the first to admit that other variables come into play. We know that students need to feel safe to take risks and a host of other variables. But the so-called environmental factors each influence these neural events. For example, unless I feel safe in the classroom, I might not be able to pay attention. So, for the moment, trust me. Those four neural events would be near the top of any neuroscientist’s list for learning. How do I know that? What makes me so sold on those four? Well, you know I love the research, so here it is.
First, the science is solid when you consider each system separately. But they work synergistically. When one of them is off, others falter. That’s why kids with serious AD/HD (low executive function) struggle in all areas academically.
Now, the information I’m going to share with you is exceptionally powerful. However, only 1 in 100 educators who reads email this will actually implement these findings. Why? In spite of the solid science behind what I am sharing with you and, in spite of the “miracles” that these applications can produce in your kids, many of the policy-makers have gotten so lost in filling out forms, inept mandates, feel-good “professional” communities, that they forgot the real goal of education: prepare kids for the real world with social skills and thinking skills.
OK, enough of that. What can you do to boost these four brain functions? (more…)
Valentines, Feelings and Affect: The Use of Social and Emotional Activities
Here’s how they work together: The emotions research always starts with the classics. An older, brilliant study done was done by emotions pioneer Paul Ekman. You may know the Fox TV series “Lie to Me” is based on his skill set and life’s work. Ekman found that when we artificially generated certain facial expressions, it induced the corresponding ‘genuine’ feelings (Levenson, et al. 1990). Act a certain way, and the emotions will follow.
But this door goes both ways. This means, getting kids emotionally aroused can enhance their physical effort (Schmidt, et al, 2009). And when we enhance both, like combine the emotions of social contact with shaking hands, we remember the event better (Nielson and Jensen, 1994). Emotions and physiology are fully linked.
Translated, when we arouse emotions in our kids, they are more likely to get off their ‘you know what’ and start engaging more. Even when seated, emotional responses enhance our memory of the details of the event. But wait; it gets better. If you can focus on engaging the class leaders (the ones that others follow), you have a good chance of bringing on board the rest of the students. Why? Have you ever noticed that when one person yawns, others around often yawn? Actually, some research suggests that emotions are contagious (Wild, et al.2001).
Now, when you put all this together (mind, body, emotions, class leaders and peer pressure), you can get classroom miracles. How?
There’s a whole new field developing. It’s called cultural neuroscience. It’s the field of how cultures change our brain. Your school creates a culture. A classroom will have a culture whether you orchestrate it or not. Many teachers actively shape their culture, while those that struggle complain about their class culture.
Successful schools consciously shape their cultures while the schools that struggle complain about “how the kids are these days.” A great primer on this field was Wexler’s book Brain and Culture (2006).
Recent studies show that when you use rituals well, you can shape behaviors. In fact, rituals can activate students to do things that require personal sacrifice (wow) because of the peer-power and social effects. This allows teachers to erase problems with task activation, socializing and discipline. The bottom line is that anthropology is now being influenced by neuroscience. Well, you know I love the research, so here it is on our emotional, social and physical states, and the brain’s activation for functionality and organizing dynamics.
REFERENCES Brown RA, Seligman R. Anthropology and cultural neuroscience: creating productive intersections in parallel fields. Prog Brain Res. 2009;178:31-42. Cahill L, Haier RJ, Fallon J, Alkire MT, Tang C, Keator D, Wu J, McGaugh JL. (1996) Amygdala activity at encoding correlated with long-term, free recall of emotional information. Proc Natl Acad Science U S A. Jul 23;93(15):8016-2. Levenson, RW, Ekman P, Friesen WV. (1990) Voluntary facial action generates emotion-specific autonomic nervous system activity. Psychophysiology. Jul;27(4):363-84. Nielson KA, Jensen RA. (1994) Beta-adrenergic receptor antagonist antihypertensive medications impair arousal-induced modulation of working memory in elderly humans. Behav Neural Biol. 1994 Nov;62(3):190-200. Phan, KL, Wagner T., Taylor, SF, Liberzon, I (2002) Functional neuroanatomy of emotion: A meta-analysis of emotion activation studies in PET and fMRI. Neuroimage 16: 331-348. Schmidt L, Cléry-Melin ML, Lafargue G, Valabrègue R, Fossati P, Dubois B, Pessiglione M. (2009) Get aroused and be stronger: emotional facilitation of physical effort in the human brain. J Neurosci. Jul 29;29(30):9450-7. Wild B, Erb M, Bartels M. (2001) Are emotions contagious? Evoked emotions while viewing emotionally expressive faces: quality, quantity, time course and gender differences. Psychiatry Res. Jun 1;102(2):109-24. Wiltermuth SS, Heath C. (2009)Synchrony and cooperation. Psychol Sci. Jan;20(1):1-5.
photo credit: krystal.pritchett
ASCD’s Whole Child Podcast: Changing the Conversation About Education:
Each student brings a unique set of interests, needs, strengths, and circumstances to school… and teachers often struggle to connect with students, especially those facing the greatest challenges. Yet research and common sense tell us that educators positively impact student learning and achievement when they connect their students’ lives outside of school to their learning and the larger school community.
On this podcast, from ASCD – The Whole Child you’ll hear strategies for meeting students where they are now, while preparing them for the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead.
Click Here to listen to the podcast:
Founded in 1943, ASCD is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that represents more than 175,000 educators from 119 countries and nearly 60 affiliates who advocate sound policies and share best practices to achieve the success of each learner.
ASCD has launched a public engagement and advocacy campaign to encourage schools and communities to work together to ensure that each student has access to a challenging curriculum in a healthy and supportive climate.
ASCD’s Whole Child Initiative:
Click to download a copy of the Whole Child Compact poster. You’ll also find a lot of good US teacher resources here.
In today’s world, budgets are tighter than ever. Principals are now tasked with a great amount of staff training.
When preparing a presentation for your teaching staff, the most difficult element is getting that &*%$ PowerPoint finalized.
We’ve all been there.
After receiving numerous requests for copies of Eric Jensen’s presentations that he’s held in our workshops, we’ve decided that we’d organize all of the top topics, and offer them to you.
Some of the topics covered are:
…and many more.
Eric Jensen has prepared these PowerPoint presentations to help deliver a powerful, concise presentation…
Those who have asked us for PowerPoint presentations are most often:
1. Trainers who work with groups of 20 or more
2. Staff developers who really want to make a difference in the lives of others
3. Teachers who want a more energizing classroom and
4. Anyone who currently or will in the future, spend a lot time in front of groups.
The staff development presentations will have title slides and closing slides. Average presentation will be 75-125 slides, depending on the topic.
You may customize (in fact, you are encouraged to do so), your slides by adding your own titles, key themes, strategies, persons of interest, school pictures and activities.
So save yourself time, and headache, and check out the PowerPoint presentations available here.
You might have experienced some very cold temps in the last few weeks. Cognitively, brains work best in cooler (but not cold) temperatures. But the rest of our body sure likes it a bit warmer.
If you were thinking of “warming up” to some “very hot” learning, I’ve got something pretty amazing for you, and it’s in a warm place!
In fact, you can get a huge savings on your hotel where the winter rates are slashed-but not for long.
I do this amazing course only twice a year. It’s the world’s “gold standard” for brain-based learning. Fortunately, you can add exciting, fresh new content (AND MAXIMUM STRATEGIES) into your skill set.
This workshop is an enriching, high energy, research-based, team-working experience. The heart and soul of this program is joyful immersion. Learn with like-minded people, in an optimal environment, with state-of-the-art resources and a first-class facilitator.
You can expect inspiration, camaraderie and potent, roll-up your sleeves ideas that will last for years.
Oh wait… Did I mention you’ll get to ask questions of a world-renowned neuroscientist in person? You will. But it gets even better… but first:
What is Brain-Based Learning? You may be shocked to find out! Not 1 in 1000 Educators REALLY Knows!
Unfortunately, most educators think brain-based learning is simply knowing about axons, dendrites and synapses. That’s “old school” and it’s ridiculous! Brain-based learning is the process of thoughtfully implementing purposeful strategies based on research derived from a synergy of sizzling cutting-edge disciplines. They include, but are not limited to: cognitive neuroscience, chemistry, nutrition, social neurosciences, biology, pharmacology, computational sciences, quantum systems thinking, and artificial intelligence modeling.
More has been discovered about the brain and mind in the last 20 years than in all of recorded history. Yet, most teachers have no clear understanding of how the brain learns, remembers and behaves except on a superficial basis. Sadly, this lack of knowledge leaves the average educator with an education formulated in, and designed for, the last century. But there’s hope.
When you attend a Jensen Learning program, you’ll discover the genuine “Brain-based Learning” in a completely new way.
Your presenter, Eric Jensen is a twenty-year veteran of the brain-based field. He’s trained more people, written more books and innovated more than anyone in the field. Every principle, every idea and strategy is role-modeled so you can see it, hear it and feel HOW it works.
“(This workshop is) way better, more useful than most graduate courses.” -R.Z. Vernon, NJ
This program is literally, teaching with the brain in mind. It is purposeful, dynamic and easy to implement. The scientific, research-based teaching that BBL advocates involves the use of ten fundamental brain-mind principles. Each of these has been well supported by rigorous, quality scientific studies. These principles are revealed to you through activities, case study, lectures, video and discussion. Each of these principles is so powerful, that implementing even half of them will make a mind-blowing difference in your work.
But don’t take my word for it. Listen to what one of our participants has said…
“I took your workshop a couple of years ago and have been training other teachers. I had just turned around another group of skeptical teachers. As we were packing up, my new training partner said, “OK, it works. I was skeptical and didn’t agree with all the things you were doing, but I’m convinced that it makes a huge difference.” She never questioned what I was doing after that. She just began questioning why so she could understand it better too.” B. Felip, Trenton, NJ
This program is a dynamic overview of Eric Jensen’s revised book Teaching with the Brain in Mind. This course provides specific, practical brain-compatible strategies for all educators. All teachers influence their students. Now you can discover what it takes for students to acquire complex learning and achieve their best. You’ll want to learn these essential rules for how our brain works.
>>>> CLICK HERE TO REGISTER<<<<
So many teachers want the quick strategies they can use the very next day. Unfortunately, many of those are just more of the same. Sometimes what makes a strategy work (or not work) is HOW the teacher “sets up” the activity. Other times it works because of the timing or the environmental factors.
In short, it not about just the strategy. But for a moment, let’s say, you’ve already taken one of my amazing multi-day brain-based courses. The following might be good for a quick reminder:
1. The saying “too much, too fast,” means we won’t integrate and recall the information if you teach is quickly. Instead, chunk down the learning into small chunks; allow processing and settling time with partners or as reflective journal time.
2. Because every brain is different—genes + experience, plus the interplay between the two, recall the importance of honoring uniqueness, respecting differences. That means use huge variety to maximize learning. Use visual, with illustrations, and podcasts and DVDs. Then use movement with drama, hands on and energizers. Also use plenty of call-response with partner dialogs.
3. Most subjects can be learned under moderate stress; think of it as “healthy concern.” To ramp that up, use constant accountability. After every learning chunk, have kids create a quiz question, stand up, quiz their neighbor or create a short quiz of 10 questions. Use teams, peer pressure and deadlines to add concern. Remember the material better with an emotion embedded with it. After the quiz, celebrate the progress.
4. Thinking about thinking builds learning skills as active processing time. Add the process of journaling, discussion and learning logs valuable for better learning. Give students starter sentences such as “What I was curious (or stressed over) about today was”… Or, “What I learned today was… and, the way I learned it best was when I.” Until patterns emerge, learning is often random and messy, following no clear path over time, the patterns become more obvious. Pattern making is more complex in second languages like math and music.
5. Remember the value in non-learning or “settling” time, to consolidate the content. Take breaks, recess, lunch, relax time, walks, for passive processing. Even a quick energizer that’s fun and playful can be a good break.
6. Our brain can memorize, but our best learning is the trial & error learning; it’s a key to complex learning–there’s value in games done well, so use games, computers, competition, building, initiatives, etc. Games like hopscotch, relays, or just let kids quiz each other. Brains rarely get it right the first time—learning complexity is built over time Using checklists, peer teaching, computers, asking Qs, are all examples of using trial and error.
In-Service Learning Should Be about Reforms and Improvements to Teaching.
Making an educational staff development plan is not always easy. There is a lot of competition for teachers’ time and, from a classroom standpoint, every day is precious.
The chief purpose of making an educational staff development plan is to promote reform in the classroom and in education in general. Any reform requires teachers to center on changes to their own practice of teaching for better results. Any reform that increases student engagement, enhances retaining or critical information, and allows for higher academic achievement should go at the top of the list for material to use in staff development plans.
We can safely say that teachers are far more likely to modify their everyday instructional practices (which is a huge key) when their professional development is linked directly to their daily experiences and aligned with standards and assessments.
In other words, tie in what you are offering with what your staff already does every day. This way there is an immediate tie-in and teachers can see the connection. Additionally, the staff developer should role-model every strategy and give teachers a moment to practice it in small groups.
Staff Development is a Requirement
Making an educational staff development plan is required for teacher recertification and licensing in all states. That requires teachers to spend a considerable amount of time in on-going development, in-service training, or post-graduate credits. There is so much to learn, but because the need to attend in-service development sometimes outweighs the effort to gain meaningful knowledge to use in the classroom, many teachers spend many hours learning how to use a digital camera, a GPS device, or other pedestrian subjects rather than filling the hours with solid, meaningful reforms to apply in the classroom.
Jensen Learning Can Help
This question above is highly relevant to all educators. Brain-based teaching is the active engagement of practical strategies based on principles derived from brain related sciences.
All teachers use strategies; the difference here is that you’re using strategies based on real science, not rumor or mythology. But the strategies ought to be generated by verifiable, established principles.
An example of a principle would be…”Brains change based on experience.” The science tells us HOW they change in response to experience. For example, we know that behaviorally relevant repetition is a smart strategy for skill learning. We know that intensity and duration matter over time. Did anyone know the optimal protocol for skill-building to maximize brain change twenty years ago? Yes, some knew them, through trial and error. But at issue is not whether any educator has learned a revolutionary new strategy or not from the brain research. Teachers are highly resourceful and creative; literally thousands of strategies have been tried in the classrooms around the world.
The issue is, “Can we make better informed decisions about teaching, based on what we have learned about the brain?”
Brain-based education suggests we not wait twenty years until each of these correlations are proven beyond any possible doubt. Many theories might never be proven beyond reasonable doubt. It’s possible that the sheer quantity of school, home and genetic factors will render any generalizable principle impossible to prove as 100% accurate.
As educators, we must live in the world of “likely” and “unlikely” versus the world of “certainty.”
Yet, in the example from above, the data from neuroscience is highly suggestive that gross motor voluntary exercise enhances neurogenesis and that neurogenesis supports cognition, memory and mood regulation. The neuroscience merely supports other disciplines, but it’s a discipline you can’t see with your naked eyes, so it’s worth reporting.
Brain-based advocates should be pointing out how neuroscience parallels, supports or leads the related sciences. But neuroscience is not a replacement science. Schools are too complex for that.
I look forward to your replies.
Eric Jensen
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
