Judy+Willis


 * Brain Research to Help Students Develop Their Highest Cognitive Potential**


 * Syn-Naps**
 * brain breaks (three-minute pause)
 * summarize
 * add own thoughts
 * pose clarifying questions
 * predict meaning (what's coming next?)
 * emotional reaction
 * interpretation


 * Prefrontal Cortex Maturation**
 * This part of the brain controls executive function, long-term conceptual memory, and emotional management
 * last part of the brain to mature
 * most active maturation between 8-18
 * Teachers are the caretakers of the highest brain development
 * maturation means pruning and myelination--use it or lost it!
 * neuroplasticity--physical changes of building, revising, or extending networks with regards to their use
 * Each time a network is activated, it gets stronger


 * **Executive Functions (The CEO of the Brain)**
 * Analysis
 * Prioritizing
 * Decision making
 * Delay of immediate gratification
 * abstract thinking
 * Planning ahead
 * Risk assessment
 * judgment
 * tolerance
 * adaptability


 * You can strengthen your brains just like you can strengthen your body's muscles....**
 * = **Muscles** ||= **Neural Circuits** ||
 * = **physical exercise** ||= **activation neuro plasticity** ||
 * = **greater bulk** ||= **larger circuit** ||
 * = **motor strength** ||= **greater mental strength** ||
 * Myelin thickening increases with activation
 * Thicker myelin=faster processing
 * Faster prefrontal cortex correlates with intellectual performance
 * The brain is a relentless pruner--it will prune away those circuits that have few connections


 * Practice Executive Functions**
 * Find a website that you think gives you good information and then find one on the same topic that is not valid. Explain the difference
 * Watch commercials. Explain why one was fairly accurate and valid and the other was bogus.
 * Teach students how to analyze an argument (premises, conclusion)
 * Have students identify the types of thinking they are doing at the end of a given class period
 * Have students predict the next topic, next chapter, next event in a story


 * Conceptual Long-Term Memory**


 * Knowing vs. Understanding
 * Many students cannot transfer knowledge to more "real world" problems
 * Lecture and test prep are inadequate mental exercises for concept development


 * Essential Questions**
 * Where is memory first made?
 * What makes memories stick? (The brain seeks patterns and pleasures)


 * Before information gets to long-term memory, it must get through short-term...**
 * Short-term memory is a matter of pattern-matching
 * New information that you are trying to get into your brain must get linked to something in your brain with an existing pattern (this physically, actually happens--it is called encoding) it happens in the hippocampus
 * Patterning is the basis for literacy and numeracy
 * Frequently activated patterns promote automatic responses (milk, cow, white)
 * Optical Illusions--brain uses patterns (prior knowledge) so that sometimes it doesn't always report reality
 * Graphic organizers increase pattern matching


 * Activating prior knowledge is essential to the success of the short-term memory...ways to do this?**
 * personal/cultural connections
 * pre-unit assessments
 * videos or images that remind them of their prior knowledge
 * remind students of times that they previously learned about this
 * Predict/ KWL Chart--hand this out before starting a unit
 * What I know
 * What I want to know
 * What I learned
 * Write down everything you know about this topic in a shared space that jogs memories of others


 * Once we get the information from the short-term memory into the prefrontal cortex, a long term memory is constructed**


 * How does this happen?**
 * Humor and emotion act as strong links
 * Similarities and differences
 * categorize
 * analogies
 * graphic organizers
 * narrative
 * teaching someone


 * How do we build concept knowledge?**
 * Recognizing and Understanding key elements
 * Big picture, big ideas, essential questions and desired goals
 * Mental manipulation
 * meaning making
 * reconstructing knowledge
 * Transfer activities-extending the patterns
 * new applications of learning
 * students must apply the knowledge in a new way to access new networks