How Kinesthetic Learning Improves Student Understanding

1. How Kinesthetic Learning Improves Student Understanding Presented by Craig Higgins

2. Warm Up • Quick and easy way to get the blood flowing and the brain working! • Name of Activity: Space Jam • Grade Level: K-3 • Formation: Standing at desks • Equipment: none

3. SPARK Case StudyTHE REVOLUTIONARY NEW SCIENCE OF EXERCISE AND THE BRAINby John J. Ratey, MD • Naperville School District 203 • Zero Hour PE – requires 45 minutes of physical activity before school begins. • Competing against themselves • Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) • 38 countries – over 230,000 students • 99% of students took test • Scored 1st in Science • Scored 6th in Math

4. Exercise: • Improves Learning • Decreases: • Stress • Anxiety • Depression • Attention Deficit • Addiction • Hormonal Changes • Compensates the Aging Process

5. Brain Functions • Plasticity – The more you use your brain the stronger and more flexible it becomes. • Neuron – Transmit information throughout the body. • Synapse – The connection between neurons. • Caused by a chemical reaction • Neurotransmitters – Carries signals between neurons and other cells in your body. • Serotonin - Prozac • Norepinphrine • Dopamine - Ritalin

6. Making Connections

7. Priming the Brain • Three ways exercise optimizes the brain function. • Ready to learn – improves attention and motivation. • Creates a micro environment by releasing neurotransmitters. • Promotes new brain cells • Hippocampus – memory station • Neurogenesis – (Birth of neurons) is the process by which neurons are generated. • The brain is created for movement. • Inactivity kills the brain: “Don’t use it, you lose it.”

8. Looking at the NumbersAccording to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services

9. Three Dimensions of the Brain • Focus Dimension • Attention Intelligence • Cerebellum • Brain Stem • Centering Dimension • Emotional Intelligence • Thalamus • Hypothalamus • Pituitary Gland • Laterality Dimension • Informational Intelligence • Cerebral Cortex

10. Attention Intelligence • First to develop • Seeing, participating, anticipating, comprehending • Controls breathing and heart rate • Visual skills • Controls access to higher reasoning • Receives all information from senses

11. Centering Dimension • Second to develop • Feeling, stabilizing, organizing • Helps convert short term memory to long term • Generates pleasure and anxiety responses • Releases hormones • Fight or Flight • Sense of smell

12. Informational Intelligence • Third to develop, not fully developed until the age of 8 • Thinking, processing, communicating • Interprets all senses • Allows us to form complex memory, thought, and reason • Language • Expression • Logics

13. Cross-Lateral Movement • Crossing over – using both sides of your brain • Improving academics • Math – left side of the brain • Spelling/Reading – both sides of your brain • Up/Down – CENTERING • Emotions • Hormones • Side/Side – LATERALITY • Academics – crossing your mid-line • Front/Back – FOCUS • Memory • Concentration

14. Brain Gym Activity • Lazy 8

15. Let Us Put Our Brains Together • At your table discuss strategies and activities you use in your classroom to promote Kinesthetic learning. • Discuss how exercise has improved your overall wellbeing.

16. Questions • Remember I am not a Neuroscientist.

17. Homework • Identify three different resources that use brain based activities. • Using the same resources PRINT tenactivities or lessons you could use in your classroom.