Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Session 2 - Question 3

As educators, why is it important to study about how the brain functions and how one creates memory?

26 comments:

  1. As mentioned on page 104, the first paragraph not in the grey box, middle school students are exploring the world around them and in order for teachers to provide rich opportunities for learning and have the learning connect successfully to long term memory they must provide activities that include more than one sensory input. Without studying how the brain functions one would not know that information entering the working memory (short-term memory) stays there for less than minute and new information presented must connect with previously stored data in an effort to maintain the facts. I believe as educators we need to keep current with brain research as well as studies about giftedness so that we provide the best learning environment for our students.

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  2. After understanding how the brain works and creates memory I will like to include the following while designing a lesson.
    - Syn-naps(page 77-78): Restorative breaks for information to transfer from short term memory to long term memory.
    - Intrinsic rewards(page 73): Provide students with individualized challenges so that they get the sense of achivement.

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  3. By understanding how to brain works and creates memory we can better understand the "evolution" that captures the adolescent brain. In doing so we can help establish learning patterns, behaviors, and environments that support greater memory development and transfer.
    On page 77, the author states... superior learning takes place when stress and anxiety are reduced. Also, later on the same page...Teachers need to strive for instruction and activities with both positive emotional content and low scores... and added, that this does not mean low challenge. Bringing this information out will allow us to improve learning and memory for our students.

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  4. In response to Shivani Agrawal's post, using "syn-naps" to provide breaks where the neurons can process the learning is important and something I want to try to incorporate with more awareness. I found it interesting that this was also important when GT students get heavily involved in their work and find it hard to drag themselves away and can come physically drained.

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  5. Understanding how the brain functions helps as educators plan our lessons so that students retain more information.

    Page 118-120 Research-Based Strategies for Memory Retention
    Although we do many of these in class it's great to read through them again and be aware of them when planning our lessons

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  6. As educators it is important to understand how the brain functions and creates memory in order to provide students with meaningful activities to help students link new information and store it into their long term memory. When introducing new vocabulary, I incorporate multi sensory activities. For example, when learning a new list of words, I have students draw a picture representing the word, they have to provide a synonym for the word as well as create their own examples using the new word in context with previously learned material. These strategies help student process new material and help retain the information.

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  7. In response to Mr. C on February 21, 2011 I too agree that understanding how the brain functions helps educators plan lessons accordingly. It is important to review memory retention strategies to ensure we are providing students with a variety of opportunities to build strong experiential memories.

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  8. These chapters reminded me of the things I learned in the past, but needed reminding of. When teachers understand what it takes to increase memory staorage andn retrieval, it helps us use strategies to help our students. Information that is not manipulated may not be stored, so it may be forgotten. On page 103, the importance of multisensory input was stressed. This is also a very good strategy of students with ADHD.
    For students to put thing into meaningful and retrievable memory is an active, not a passive, process.

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  9. I was interested in Srta. Kirklin's post. She wrote about having the students draw pictures of new vocabulary words, I think this is a good. I have seen it used across the curriculum. When I was reading about semantic memory on pages 100-101, is said "words were much more likely to be remembered when subjects concentrated on semantics (meaning) rather than on their appearance." I guess by having students draw pictures to show inderstanding of the new vocabulary word, they are giving the words personal meaning. Am I understanding this correctly?

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  10. Since we are educating students to retain information for the long term we must provide experiences that are brain based.

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  11. I found these two chapters rather interesting, more interesting than the previous three chapters in fact.

    As an educator, knowing how the brain processes information gives me a better understanding into how to "upload" information.

    Without that understanding, I'd simply go home each day and feel frustrated and futile as a teacher.

    Effort is only part of the equation. Effort without efficiency is wasted effort.

    If the goal is to help them retain all the information we're teaching, then knowing how to reach them in ways that work is crucial.

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  12. Understanding brain-based research gives us more information and insight into how our students learn. The brain is affected by so much, including the amount of sleep a middle school gets each night, that understanding all of this could lead to better lessons and preparation for our students. In general it just helps me as the teacher understand how my students process information or as Mr. Maddocks says, "gives me a better understanding into how to upload information."
    I totally get the part in the book that talks about students needing their intake of information to be experential. "The experential education motto is that you learn 40% of what you hear, 60% of what you hear and see, and 80% of what you hear, see, and do. This is neuro-logical because the more senses that are involved in learning, the more significant and memorable the educational experience." (pg. 116) This thinking about multisensory input reminds me of the kinesthetic learner who must not only hear and see the lesson but must also touch it or experience. I can see how this would make learning so much more meaningful and make a deeper connection so that the learning actually sticks with the student. As the books says it really cements the information for the learner. (pg. 117). I try to find activities that might give the learner more "experential"learning, but I could find more things to make many of the things in math more concrete thus give a deeper understanding and not so much rote learning. May take me awhile as I am still learning and adjusting.

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  13. I love what Srta. Kirklin does when introducing vocabulary. I would like to try that with new math vocab. or terms. The multiple representations could help bring more meaning to the term besides just wrote memory. Great idea!

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  14. Obviously understanding how the brain functions and how one creates memory is important for educators to keep in mind when preparing lessons. The author gives some great examples of ways to help students move information into their long term memory which will make retrieval of this information easier. There is so much we still don't understand about how the brain operates so we must continually seek out the latest findings and apply them where and when approriate.

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  15. Mrs. Oxspring brings up some good points. I think many students do not get the adequate amount of sleep they need to function. On top of that we have a number of students who skip lunch each day, so one has to wonder what impact that is having on their brain.

    As Mrs. Oxspring points out from the book students must "hear, see, and do" to bring in as many different senses as possible when learning a new concept. This helps to make connections that have a higher chance of moving into long term memory.

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  16. As educators, it is important to study how the brain functions and how one creates memory because we can use this information to plan lessons and activities that will build long term memory retention. I liked how there is a succinct list of activites to do just that on page 119.

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  17. Valerie H... since we want students to remember the information we teach, it would be really useful to understand how students learn so we can design our activities to help them remember information longer. In the case of IB, students need to remember the first information we teach them in the 11th grade for two years, since their IB exams are not until the end of the 12th grade.

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  18. It is important to for us as educators to study how the brain functions and how memory is created because it helps inform us about best practices. Since the brain learns best when we see patterns, we need to provide our students with opportunities to find patterns within and between concepts and vocabulary. I would like to teach my students the MOVES acronym to help them understand what they can do to help them build memory around a concept. These memory strategies are good practices to be using with all of our students. We may also encourage our GT students to share some "tricks" they do to remember important concepts. I find that often they will tell about an acronym or an association that they made to help them remember for retrieval later.

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  19. I agree with Travel Bug on "MOVES" strategies. I will also like to incorporate them in my classes.

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  20. Knowing the physical nuts and bolts of the brain and its processes only helps to create more insightful, probing, and worthwhile lessons.

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  21. When I first began teaching, I had a science partner who would constantly remind me of how the Middle School students were unable to control impulses because their brain was not yet developed in certain areas. It didn’t matter that their intentions were good and they intended to change their ways…they could see they had made a poor choice and would say, “Sorry….” and then turn around…and do it again. It isn’t intention, it is developmental.

    Knowing how the memory works helps to develop lesson plans and how I present a lesson

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  22. Knowing how the brain functions and how longer term memory can be created is very helpful when teaching...students are more successful when a longer term memory can be made and they can recall information easily.

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  23. This the part that really inspires me to develop lessons that emphasizes the memory retention. Page 119 offers bullet points that help teachers implement activities that help with this brain function.

    Travel bug has the same idea with the MOVE strategy.

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  24. In response to Shivani, I too believe that intrinsic rewards can be great motivators for our students. The feeling that one gets when they are successful encourages students to continue their efforts.
    In response to Tigger, I also am impressed with the latest brain research and how it can help us in the classroom. Some of the brain research goes back to the theory of multiple intelligences, and providing students with the opportunities to learn concepts in a way that integrates these intelligences. This helps us reach all of our students.

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  25. I agree with Travel Bug about needing to learn about how the brain works in order to bring our best teaching practices to the classroom

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  26. In response to Ms. Oxspring, now that we can see how the brain functions and there are plenty of brain based research it's really great to know how we retain and process information and how best to keep it in long term memory.

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