Blooming the Standards

1. Blooming the Standards Part I: How the brain works and its impact on education and learning

2. Cognitive Wheel • Access prior knowledge: identify level of Bloom’s Taxonomy of given instructions in a hands-on sort activity. • Working in groups • Discussing, communicating • Making evaluations

3. GAME Plan • Goal - Participants will learn about how the brain functions and how that knowledge can be used to develop student HOTS. • Activities – Memory Song Baggage Claim Partner Share • Measure – Memory Map • Evaluation – Plus/deltas

4. The Brain Stem

5. The Limbic System Hippocampus Amygdala Cerebellum

6. Amygdala • Gatekeeper • Three levels of attention • The need to BELONG • The need to be SAFE

7. The Hippocampus • Transferring memories • Making new memories • Inhibition • Smell • Location

8. The Cerebellum • Movement • Balance

9. The Cerebellum “It's like a math co-processor. It's not essential for any activity ... but it makes any activity better. Anything we can think of as higher thought, mathematics, music, philosophy, decision-making, social skill, draws upon the cerebellum....” Dr. Jay Giedd, National Institute of Mental Health

10. The Cerebrum Parietal lobe Frontal lobe Occipital lobe Temporal lobe Cerebellum

11. The Frontal Lobe • How we interact with our surroundings. • Our judgments on daily routines. • Our expressive language. • Assigns meaning to words we choose. • Involves word association. • Memory for habits and motor activities

12. The Parietal Lobe • Location for visual attention. • Location for touch perception. • Goal directed voluntary movements. • Manipulation of objects. • Integration of different senses that allows for understanding a single concept.

13. The Occipital Lobe • Vision

14. The Temporal Lobe • Hearing • Memory • Visual perceptions. • Categorizing of objects. T

15. Memory SongSung to the tune of “10 Little Indians” Touch the appropriate area of your brain as you sing: • Sing: Temporal, Occipital, Parietal Temporal, Occipital, Parietal Temporal, Occipital, Parietal Frontal, Cerebellum

16. Check for Understanding: Which lobe(s) would students mainly use when: • Sorting colors into primary, secondary, tertiary • Playing spelling Twister • Typing vocabulary words • Copying notes from the board • Listening to teacher lecture • Role playing an event from history • Completing a word find • Discussing the pros and cons of a proposal

18. Higher Level Thinking Using the Gray Matter! • Can actually generate NEW neurons (neurogenesis) • Adds dendrites • Increases the thickness of the myelin sheath

19. Stimulating Environment Affects Learning A child's ability to learn can increase or decrease by 25 percent or more, depending on whether he or she grows up in a stimulating environment. www.brainconnection.com

20. Two times of ENORMOUS brain growth and pruning: • During the first month of life, the number of connections or synapses increases from 50 trillion to 1 quadrillion. • If an infant's body grew at a comparable rate, his weight would increase from 8.5 pounds at birth to 170 pounds at one month old. • Overproduction ends, pruning begins until about age 3

21. Second cycle of growth and pruning • Dendritic growth spurt at age 11 in girls, 12 in boys • Pruning phase during adolescence • Age 13 – 18 lose 1% of gray matter per year • If you don’t use it, you lose it!

22. The Teacher Effect • Quality of classroom instruction is most significant factor in students’ brain development. • Didactic instruction – teacher directed • Interactive instruction – student actively engaged Which type do you think grows dendrites?

23. Sad Fact: Use it or lose it: If dendrites are not being used, they will be pruned. Failing to engage students actively can actually make students dumber.

24. Automaticity: Key to Higher Levels • As pattern of neural stimulation develops by use, less electrochemical activity is needed in order to accomplish a task. • More electrochemical activity is devoted to frontal cortex in a more efficient way.

26. Newborns Distinguish Speech Children as young as four days old can distinguish the vowel sounds of the language in their natural environment from those of a foreign language. www.brainconnection.com

27. Pretty Weird Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn”t mttaer in what oredr the ltteers in a wrd are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is that the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can still raed it wouthit porbelm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

28. Baggage Claim • On an index card, write a word or phrase OR draw a picture that illustrates something you have learned this morning. • Try to use three cards, one idea per card. • You will go around the room and share ONE of your cards with a peer and she will share one card with you. • After you share the information on a card, you will give the card away to the person with whom you shared it. • Continue to another person when I say “Go!’

29. What the Brain Needs….. • Relationship – can’t separate subject from teacher, particularly middle school • Respect – remember that amygdala! • Rigor – challenge and engagement • Chunks – time to digest and process • Movement – increases blood flow to brain • Significance – related to the real world • High Expectations – when little is expected, little is achieved

30. Implications for my Classroom • Interactive instead of didactic!!! • Access prior knowledge • Add new knowledge using many modalities • Apply knowledge in a variety of ways • Assess and summarize

32. WAIT time • Average person needs 3-5 seconds to process a question and formulate a response • Students with disability need more • Students who are ELL need more • Students from lower SES need more • Students who are left handed tend to need more • Students who are boys tend to need more What does WAIT time mean? Why Am ITalking???

33. Get the Brain’s AttentionPut Amygdala intothe yellow zone • Ask suspenseful questions. • Provide personal, moving examples. • Have students give presentations. • Incorporate props, costumes, vocal change. • Use drama and role playing. • Read text dramatically with “sound effects” and stop at a “cliff hanger.”

34. Access Prior Knowledge • Before starting a lesson, have students participate in a fun, quick game of review over the material. • Teach students to produce a graphic organizer that displays all they already know about a topic. • Have students work together in groups to connect all the information they have learned in a colorful, pictorial way (mind maps). • Use a Chalk Talk to show what they know.

35. Add New Knowledge • Use activities from the Strategy Ring. • Link information to strong sensory stimulus. • Teach students to use SQ3R. • Have students stop then draw or discuss what they are learning. • Make student notes a work in progress, allowing them to add pictures or what other students have written. • Always go from concrete to abstract.

36. Apply Knowledge • Give students choice of various products or assignments to demonstrate learning using multiple learning styles or intelligences. • Relate knowledge to other disciplines and/or as many previous experiences as possible. • Play charades or word association games with material. • Use movement, dramatization and visualization frequently.

37. Assess and Summarize • Immediately after teaching new information, have students discuss, draw, or act out the material. • The following day, have students create a graphic organizer or mind map of the material. • Conduct weekly discussions about lesson content. • Allow student to summarize learned material in a variety of ways: pictures, songs, charts. • Have students work in groups to write one-word summary.

38. Role playing activities • Expert Interviews – one student is a reporter, the other an expert on the topic being studied. • Retro Party – visualization comparing time periods or describing events/places. • All the World’s a Stage – pause during the lesson and have students generate a 3-minute skit from lecture.

39. Partner Share: 35 Ways Handout • Read handout on 35 Ways to Increase Memory and Learning. • Choose at least 3 activities from the list that you could apply in your teaching position. • Find a partner and share your ideas.

40. Measurement and Evaluation • Mind Map • Walking Tour • Plus/Delta