This week
we talked about Brain Based Learning. It was a very interesting week. I found
myself during all of the readings, having to take brain breaks and walks to
clear my head and help my brain sink in the knowledge I was reading about. It
was a lot of information to take in! There was no way I could read the chapters
in one sitting and reflect with a clear mind.
During the
readings I reminisced the days that I taught in an ELS (Title I school). I
thought of the students I had with different scenarios from the text and how I
handled the situation and then thought how I probably should have handled the
situation after reading this book! One probably calling parents or the
principal to fix the problem, was not the best choice. Instead having a lesson
on how to “be a friend” treat others with the whole class or that particular
student would have been the better choice.
Students
brains react to the change in their environment. When a person is in a hostile
environment and has a lot of stress, their brain does not function correctly or
they might not think of the problem the same, if they were in a calm and safe
environment. As an educator it’s important to always have a safe learning
environment for your students. I remember when I had a student hit another
student across the back with a chair. The student that kept getting hurt,
didn’t feel safe and started to not come to school. It took a lot of
interventions, meetings, phone calls, home visits to make sure this child felt
safe again. Granted I was gone and had a sub when this whole thing went down,
so that made it even worse to fix the problem.
I don’t
thing every solution or problem can be fixed by teaching the students how to
solve it differently. Some students need a lot of extra support. CSF is a program within our school district
that teaches students how to make “safe and positive choices”. Understanding
how the brain is and what the environment is with these students, will help
know how to create a program for them.
It will
help teachers know what strategies to use when creating lessons and
differentiating throughout the lesson.
After reading my peers’ blogs this week, we all have a theme. Know your
students’ background, prior knowledge, have a safe learning environment for
them to learn in and relate what they’re learning to every day life to bring to
long term memory. Also, it’s important to give students time to reflect on what
they learned and provide feedback to the students. Tell them how they solved
the problem and guide them to the correct solution. Direct instruction needs to
be 5-8 minutes or we will lose our students.
I wrote
this on Tristan’s blog to help with reflection in the classroom. I tried this
out after the readings this week. Instead of having my students sit, turn and
talk to their partner to reflect on what they learned from a math lesson. I had
them find a partner and walk around the
room. While they were walking around the room I had them reflect on what they
learned. Then after a minute or so I had them stop and share (using a stick cup
to call on students) what they learned from the activity. I had more engaged
students and didn’t get the blank stare response.
This week I
also tried the brain break activity from Moore and Seller’s presentation. It
was the thumb up and pointed finger switch. My students and I were learning the
steps to writing a letter. I asked a question and had no response from my
students. I also saw the blank/glazed eyes. I quickly stopped the lesson, had
the students stand up and tried the new brain break. The students loved it.
After the break, we sat down and they were more engaged and ready to learn.
I always do
a brain break in the afternoon, but my goal for the future is to incorporate
more breaks throughout the day and when I see my students needing one. I will
also use the pair, share and walk reflection time from now on and keep finding
ways to change my students brain from short term memory to long term memory.
Resources
http://www.asdk12.org/forms/uploads/CSF_brochure.pdf
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