Eric Jensen writes, in chapter 3 of his book, that brains can and do change. Brains are designed to change. Some changes are positive, such as those delivered through quality nutrition, exercise, and learning; other changes are negative, such as those resulting from long term neglect, chronic drug abuse, and boredom!
Dr. Jensen informs us that during each school day, your students’ brains will change. When their brains change, so does their level of attention, learning, and cognition. Whether they are changing for better or for worse depends a lot on the quality of the experiences they receive at school.
In chapter 3, Dr. Jensen describes many factors that impact how the brain can change. For example, experience-based brain changes, gene expression, IQ and environmental changes, and fluid intelligence.
Think about your future as a teacher. Read the chapter, and then reflect and write about the following: in your own words explain at least 3 strategies teachers can use to help students change their brains for the better. Incorporate some of the factors listed above, and make certain you make connections to health!
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*I could not let strategy #7 not be up for my first discussion, and that is the role of arts in schools. In fourth grade I had two of my drawings displayed at the Coastal Carolina Fair in Charleston, S.C., and won 3rd place. Dr. Jensen suggest that students participate in art 3-5 days a week for 30-60 minutes. Studies show that arts in school will help improve their social skills, patience, timing, empathy, verbal memory and other life skills. A teacher should enforce music, theatre, painting, drawing and chorus in schools. This will give some students who are not A-students in math, science or writing a chance to succeed in other areas like art. Arts in schools are an escape route for kids to go wild with their imagination, let their brain run wild, express their feelings, and show-off their talents. As a teacher I would incorporate songs, hands-on activities, skits and plays in my subject areas to give a diverse setting. Arts can affect a child’s health by lifting their self-esteem, relieve stress, enhance eye-hand coordination, and memory.
*A second strategy is #1 Physical education, recess and movement. Psychomotor skills are key to a healthy brain. Exercising and keeping that blood flowing nicely, and heart pumping healthy helps a child function in class properly. Those neurons associate with memory, mood and learning. After lunch, teachers can take their class for a power walk, or light jog around the field at recess. According to a new research on early childhood development, “movement wires up the brain to make more efficient connections.” Teachers should have their class participate in physical activity and warm up during class for 30-60 minutes per day. By getting them out their seats during a lesson will help awaken the tired and the unmotivated.
*Another strategy that teacher teachers can use to help students change their brains for the better is by helping them achieve higher IQ’s. This can be done by encouraging and stimulating environments for students. Preparing a fun, safe, and clean learning area for them to do work in will motivate them to do their work. Putting cool colors, and avoiding reds in the classroom to generate a comfortable, laid back, and calm setting to ease their minds. A classroom full of education books, discs, cds, and games will stimulate kids to want to do their work because it looks fun! Making the environment fun and less stressful has a positive impact on children when it comes to taking standardized test. Feeling safe and comfortable in a classroom will help a child focus and pay attention more.
The three ways that I can see myself using to help better the brains of the children in my class are to teach to every type of learning style, expose the students to different types of activities that will boost their thinking, and develop lessons that will help them enrich their learning so that what is being taught sticks with them and can be reused over and over again. Teaching to every learning style helps the kids to remember what is being taught, and not just teaching the kids who learn by seeing or hearing the material. This helps develop the students processing skills in the ways they learn best. This also helps the kids with their short-term and working memory and transferring information between the two, which helps them to learn more information. Getting kids to do some physical activity in the mornings before starting work for the day will wake them up so they are able to concentrate better and are not as sleepy feeling. Exposing the students to different types of art (visual art, performing art, etc.) helps them comprehend what is being taught. If you are teaching a lesson on anti-bullying and you took the class to see a play about not bullying others, it is more likely that the kids will understand the lesson better because they went and saw what to and not to do. When developing lessons it is always important to tie everything being taught in that unit together. Have the kids do a project incorporating everything in that unit, or assign groups different things in the unit to come in and teach to the class. This will not only help them as a group understand that section they were working on, but it will also pay off in the long run because I really think students understand the information a little bit better if their peers explain it, meaning I think a child can grasp the topic better when their peers explain it to them. I know that helped me in school, when I did not understand something the teacher was saying and then a student in the class explained it, and I understood it completely. I think it just has something to do with the language that the kids use. We as teachers can teach the information, but the kids can explain it in more layman’s terms. These are just a few ways I think I can incorporate these three things in my future classroom; there are many other ways to do it and I may have to explore those if by chance these do not work out.
Question of the Week
Three strategies that teachers, and future teachers like me, could use is to change themselves so that what they are teaching is not the same, keep a good environment, and don’t overwhelm the students with work overload. As I was reading I saw that Jenson says students stay the same because teachers have been the same. He also ties the environment that students learn in has a big effect. As teacher you have to change how you teach so that your student will not get bored with what they are learning. Boredom is one of the negative ways that the brain can change, and I don’t think teachers would want that for their students. Also I think that keeping a positive environment will help the student feel better about learning. When students are learning it is a positive way the brain is changing. Then the other strategy to not overwhelming the students with work overload can really help their brain change for the better. In the book I read that some teachers try to overload their student’s brains with a lot of information and it backfires. The reason being is that it is too much and makes them feel overmatched or bored. It’s not a good thing for students of poverty because they may not have the brain capacity. If it is caught early teachers have the ability to change the student’s brain for the better. On top of the three strategies I said that help change the brain for the better, I read that good nutrition, exercise, and arts are some other thing that could positively change the brain. These things help mind and body which is probably one of the best things that they could do for themselves, so that they will be very successful in their adult life.
When I become a teacher, I’m going to try to use the multivariate analysis. What multivariate analysis is basically the breakdown in a child’s brain saying that sometimes a child may struggle with one subject due to the fact that they are struggling in another subject. As I teach my lessons, I’m going to try to incorporate auditory, visual, and tactile skills to reach out to every learner in my classroom because it will help them try to understand the material that I’m going over. I can have my students go outside and explore what type of animals they see if I were doing an animal classification lesson. This would be getting my students outside and soaking up vitamin D which is good for their health and it is also taking the children outside of a normal classroom setting and letting them learn on their own. Another strategy that I will try to infuse in my classroom is working on short-term and working memory capacity, which is trying to make my material more useful so that the material they are learning will actually be enforced and my students will be able to recite or describe in their own words what the day’s lesson is covering. If I were doing a lesson about addition or subtraction I could give each of my students a different pattern in which they would have to learn and describe to the rest of the class what type of pattern they found and how they found it and do this over a few days and then have the class recite what one student found, thus leading to an improved memory. Lastly, another strategy that I will use in my classroom is trying to include physical activity. When student are active they are expressing emotions and also learning how to do something because they are physically moving their body to perform a task. I could have a lesson on how physical activities, such as jumping rope or performing jumping jacks speeds up the rate at which your heart beats. This will have my students performing the task and also have a science or math lesson correlated with the jumping jack or jumping rope. My student’s mood will hopefully become better, their memory and attention skills will be more focused because they are actually seeing the changes in how their body reacts.
One strategy that teachers can use to help students change their brains for the better is learning how to learn on their own. It is okay for teachers to guide students and support them when incorporating new material but after a while the help has to come to an end and let the student perform on their own. I know that teachers love to baby their students a little too much and allow them to depend on them for help. When students learn how to learn individually, it increases their cognitive skills. When students think independently, it boosts their mental and physical capabilities of learning new material.
The second strategy that teachers can use to help students change their brains for the better is communication skills with other peers. Communication skills can be proven within the brain with others peers because as students communicate with other students, whether its school related, and family related or just socializing about random topics improves the brain. Teachers can place students in groups or pairs to get the students involved with one another. The more the brain functions the better the improvement.
The third strategy that teachers can use to help students change their brains for the better is using leisure in their free time. Using leisure in their free time are things such as reading for fun, solving puzzles, and doing arithmetic problems to keep your mind going. Most teachers who give their students free time only allow the students to play games in classroom and outdoors. When children play they are only interacting with other students and getting a few excising in. But if more teachers would use leisure more students will be capable of being smarter than they already are.
The brains operating system is a nonstop process that keeps working 24 hours, 7 days a week. The factors that Dr. Jensen describes in her book all relates to some of the ways that teachers can help change students brains for the better. The brain is a powerful tool that should never go to waste.
315 Burnett
Neuroplasticity is the quality that allows region-specific changes to occur in the brain as a result of experience.
According to Stewart, “Learning to play music may cause changes in several sensory, motor, and higher-order association areas of the brain that results in improved attention, sequencing, and processing” (page 47). In a classroom setting, songs can be used to help students remember certain concepts. I remember being in elementary school and my teacher used songs to help us remember math. Learning how to play an instrument will also help students develop cognitively. The students have to think about what they are doing, and figure out how to play each note correctly.
Dye, Green, and Bavelier say, “Video games may enhance players’ attention skills” (page 47). Using computer games to help students with their English, math, and science will help them remember the terms, concepts, spellings, and numbers, as well as, help the students lengthen their attention span.
Driemeyer says, “Learning new skills may result in increases in brain processing speed and structural size” (page 47). To me, this says challenge students. Force them to think in ways that they normally wouldn’t. Giving students activities and other things to do that they have never done before will allow them to think faster and harder.
The brain can change for the better, when properly cared for, and in a negative way when neglected or exposed to drugs and other toxins. We have to understand that brains are designed to change and that it is up to us as teachers to make sure are student’s brains change for the better. The first step in changing a child’s brain is changing the teacher and their way of thinking as well as the brains operating system, educational invention and long-term enrichment. Certain factors that impact how the brain can change are experience-based brain changes, gene expression, IQ and environmental changes, and fluid intelligence. Fluid intelligence involves rapidly adjusting the student’s strategies and thought process from one context to another. It encompasses problem solving, pattern recognition, abstracting thinking and reasoning, and the ability to understand the relationship of concepts outside the formal. This is something that can be taught through the usage of brainstorming, rewriting, and science projects that’s that allow students to apply the stair-step planning, as well as a graphic organizer. Gene expression refers to the translation of information encoded in a gene into protein or RNA and can be either active or silent. With gene expression students can make transformation in behavior and cognition regardless of the genetic makeup of their parents.
There are some strategies that teachers can use to help change theirs students brain for the better. Five strategies they can use are; changing the mind-set of staff members, invest in staff, support ongoing collaboration, encourage staff dialogue, and gather quality data. Changing the mind-set of the staff if a very critical part in helping he students, teachers have to show their students that they genuinely believe in them and that they are capable of achieving greatness. If the students feel that someone cares, they are more likely to try harder and put their best foot forward. Investing in the staff means making them feel needed as well. The staff need to feel that they matter as well, because the better your staff, the better the academic achievement will be at our school. Supporting the ongoing collaboration involves getting all the staff familiar with one another and discussing ways in which the brain changes and how they can better improve their student’s brain. Encouraging the staff dialogue includes structuring the staff’s conversations around the subject of the students and their brains. Gather quality data involves testing students for processing and sequencing deficits as memory and attention skills. Pinpointing assessments help better determine areas of strengths and weaknesses.
I think that if schools have a supportive staff that it will reflect in the students and their academics. If the staff is happy then the students will be happy, because I believe that students are a reflection of their teachers. I feel that schools should provide positive enriching experiences to help change the student’s brains into something positive. I also think that if there is some type of positive intervention in a child’s life who comes from a disadvantage background they have a greater chance of reversing some of the negative effects that have been placed on the brain. Although enrichment may be expensive it has long-lasting benefit and gives the student a greater chance in having academic success as well as success in life.
According to Jensen's book "brains can & do change." As I've read, Jensen states, 'some changes are gradual, like those resulting from aha moments.....some changes are positive, such as those wrought by quality nutrition, exercise, and learning...." So what can I as a future educator do to make sure that good changes are being done for the students brains?
According to what I've read in Jensen's book students raised in poverty need "more than content they need capacity as well." Students need to be able to process & sort data. Students brains are like am operating system & it needs to function properly in order for them to function on a daily basis. As an future educator, I can use strategies such as doing activities that will strengthen students auditory, visual, and tactile processing skills. They will be able to see which learning style suit them best. Secondly, I can create activities in classroom that allow them to engage in some physical activity. For instance, we could have a tine out of the school day to do jumping jacks or something. This will be a stress reliever & give the students the opportunity to maintain a healthy body. Which is according to Jensen, is 'highly correlated with the learning, mood, and memory." Thirdly, maybe playing music in the classroom while the students learn could be beneficial in making the students brains better. It will improve their operating systems. "Music training enhances self discipline, wide brain function, and verbal memory." All three of these methods will be good for the brain. They will change the brain in a positive way. Students will be able to think while learning in a positive environment despite what else is going on in their lives.
The first strategy that I as a teacher can implement in my classroom is motivation. I want my students to know that they are capable of doing anything that they put their minds to. To do this, I will help each student to create their own individual and unique goal for each subject. If the student reaches that goal they will receive a prize, but more than anything I want each student to be able to feel a sense of self- pride. I want my students to know that everyone has the same opportunity. A child that is motivated and has self-confidence is a mentally healthy child.
I would also teach attention skills to my students. If a student is always distracted, then they are only catching bits and pieces of the lesson. For each student to reach their highest potential, they will need to be able to pay attention to what is being taught. I would teach them stretching techniques and want my students to tell me when they are having trouble focusing. As a person who has struggled with being able to focus in class all my life, I know that it can be difficult and embarrassing, so by teaching skills to help, students can take it upon themselves to keep themselves alert during lessons.
Last, I would like for all of my students to have the self-confidence of a winner. If you believe in yourself, then there is nothing that is impossible. I would make to constantly praise my students and not tear them down. If a student is constantly being tore down and made to feel like a failure then they will begin to feel like a failure which may eventually cause the student to become depressed and embarrassed. Being depressed and embarrassed all the time is not healthy at all and will eventually cause the student to lose faith and hope it there self. So, I will try to make sure that I always help to boost each students self confidence.
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