Tag Archive for: Educator

Can Brain Research Help Educators?

Is there evidence that brain research can help educators?

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. Read more

Ouch! Does Pain Change The Brain?

Find Out Why This Matters WAY More Than You Think It Might

For some of us, it’s a deep secret.

We ache, we suffer and spend part of our lives full of misery. We know that all of us, our students and ourselves, experience pain. Whether it’s a headache, or more serious back, leg or shoulder pain, we feel miserable when we hurt. While temporary pain is one thing to our body and brain, chronic pain is a whole different entity. I’d guess you know that the pain we feel is a result of the signaling processing in our brains as much as or more than the signaling from site of the injury in our body. Why is this relevant? Why should you care about chronic pain as an educator?

Actually, you’d care a LOT if you knew what happens to your brain when you experience chronic pain. In fact, you’ll be so shocked at how your brain responds to it that you’ll say to yourself, “Oh, that’s why such-and-such happens!” It will also help you understand WHY some kids at school perform and behave they way they do. It’ll help you understand why some staff at your school (who complain of chronic pain) behave the way they do.

Well, what is it? What happens to your brain when you experience chronic pain?

Here, we’ll explore three questions: 1) is there real evidence that chronic pain changes our brain? 2) is the change positive or negative to learning and behavior? 3) what does this suggest we actually do about it? Read more

Are Intelligence and Achievement Contagious?

fairview blackboard

The Most Critical, Must-Have Attitude You Can Possibly Have Starting a New School Year Is…

Every year, hundreds (or is it 1,000s?) of new books flood the educational marketplace. There’s no way on earth that you or I can keep up with the flood. But if you were to narrow down the list of critical things that every educator should keep at or near the top of their list, what would you put on the list?

Here is a list of the usual: be rigorous (assign challenging content), assess often (formative assessment is big these days), use inclusion more (it’s more politically correct and it saves money), and be sure to differentiate (flash news bulletin: kids are unique), plus a dozen others.

Are ALL of those a good idea?

In some ways, yes. But if your list got narrowed further and further to just the top three or four items, what would you put on the list for the upcoming school year? I know what I would insist that everyone on your staff keep in the top 5. In fact, I would be relentless about it until it was heavily embedded in every class, every day.

What are these top 5 “must do” items?

We all accept the reality that colds and the flu are contagious. We think that since there are often airborne particles or hand and face transferred germs involved, we can “catch” something from others. But could your students “catch” achievement? It sounds far-fetched, but is it? Read more

Teachers: How Much Testing is Too Much?

You May Be Surprised at What the Research Says

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear an educator grumble about “the evils of testing.” You know what I mean: the evil empire of state and national tests that drive staff and kids into stressful zombies who learn only test-taking skills and to dislike school.

Along with, “How’s the weather?” the testing complaints have become the single common denominator in conversations about kids and learning. But what if everything you believed about testing was wrong? What if the actual science behind it was different than what you thought?

Is your school a Title 1 or Title II school? Are you struggling with raising achievement in kids who grow up in poverty?

One solution is the new ASCD book, Teaching with Poverty in Mind just released. But several, brand-new discoveries in neuroscience are now spring-boarding a revolution in how we can change the student and the school for low-income students. I’ve just had to completely reinvent my already cutting-edge workshop on poverty.

You can get it two ways: 1) Attend our 4-day event this summer for details) or, 2) bring me to your school. Yes, I am now offering this breakthrough event to individual schools (like yours). My available dates are scarce, but the kids at your school deserve to achieve. I’ll show your staff exactly how to do it. If you want to start seeing dramatic results at your school, contact my wife Diane at diane@jlcbrain.com

Here’s what the genuine “real deal” research says about our brain, testing and learning.

First of all, let’s be clear about it: there are many, many types of testing. We don’t need to list them all here, but there are as many types of testing as there are types of learning.

The list might include:

1) objective and subjective
2) abstract and concrete
3) deductive and inductive
4) classroom or “on-site” real world
5) recall or constructive knowledge
6) priming quality or in-depth knowledge and
7) etc.

In short, one must be very, very careful about generalizing the results of one type of testing to ALL types of testing.

So, given these variables, what does the research say? Read more