The Beginning

This school year I joined a learning cohort.  Our focus is learning and the brain.  I am reviewing a few things I knew, and learning a number of fascinating facts, many of which have direct implications in my teaching.  I will be writing about this periodically.

Here is the low-down on a few basic ideas:

If we need to work towards academic achievement, a good night's sleep and a good breakfast are essential for good brain function.  Overall good, wholesome nutrition is something we need.  Our modern diet is negatively affecting brain function, especially in the younger population.


It is important to take advantage of windows of opportunity, those critical periods where it is most likely that whatever is learned, can be learned masterfully.  For language it is before age 12.

The brain is very interested in changes that are occurring in our environment, and is constantly scanning for new things (which has its pros and its cons.)  It always has been, but in the past couple of decades, our environment has become increasingly stimulating.  Children have become accustomed to these information-rich and rapidly changing messages.  Therefore, they need much more novelty in the classroom than in decades past.  A few class activities I incorporate that are a direct result of this observation:

• Using humor in the classroom
• When things look particularly sleepy, I use movement.  A 3 minute video-dance in Spanish perks everyone up.  (Students have to stand and dance along.)
• Remember to develop with multi-sensory instruction.

Children and adults think they are "paying attention" to several things at once, but we know that they are not.  One of the consequences of constant "activity switching" is the difficulty to go into any one thing in depth.  (As already commented in my other blog's entry, Wired To Distraction.

Because of technology, students miss too many outdoor opportunities.  This deprives them of gross motor skills development, socialization skills, and physical activity.  At the same time, it does not allow them to develop a vital sense of connectedness to the environment they depend on.

How are schools changing to adapt to these new realities?  How should they be changing?  Feel free to comment :)

(Most of the previous points come from How The Brain Learns, by David A. Sousa.)