How the Brain Learns: My Reflection

Hi, My name is Kathy Jo Wetter, and this is

my final project.

Let's get started with a Chapter one.

So Chapter one jumps right in with some basic brain

anatomy talks about some basic interior and exterior parts of

the brain.

For example, uh, an exterior part would be the frontal

lobes, which help with planning and thinking parts of our

brain, and an interior part would be the Magdala, which

plays an important role in our emotions.

This chapter also talks about how the brain cells use

oxygen and glucose, which is a form of sugar as

a sort of fuel, and how our brains use more

of this fuel.

The more challenging task is, um, and how water is

also a really important part about how neuron signals move

throughout the brain.

And the takeaway from this is that schools should probably

have some sort of breakfast program available for students, as

well as encourage both students and teachers to drink lots

of water throughout the day.

This chapter also talks about windows of opportunity, which are

important periods of time in which the young brain is

more likely to learn specific information.

However, the brain is very, um um flexible.

And they call this plasticity.

And this plasticity of the brain allows learning to happen

even after these periods of time.

But generally learning earlier is better.

This chapter also discusses novelty, and the brain is naturally

seeks, um, seeking novelty, seeking out new and exciting stimuli.

And it's important for our classrooms to reflect this in

order to keep students interested and engaged.

And in Chapter two, we talk about the information processing

model. This visual example here is great, and it's in

the book, um, talks about how the sensory information like

sight hearing, touch, smell and taste that information is being

gathered all the time.

Mostly, it's ignored by the brain so that it can

gather more important information.

Talks about how this short term memory, um, is the

immediate memory and the working memory.

The immediate memory is visualized here as a clipboard, Um,

and that is where we kind of determine whether the

information coming in is important or not.

And then if we determine that that information is important,

it's moved over to this work table.

We're working memory where we can build with that information.

Take it apart.

Rework with it, Um, and part of that can come

from the that immediate memory, or it can also come

from our long term memory.

And then if we determine that there is sense in

meaning to that information, it has moved over to long

term storage.

That long term storage here is represented by file cabinets.

Um, as that information is typically stored in some sort

of order, like we would with files and all of

that long term storage kind of becomes our cognitive belief

system, which is just a total of everything held in

our long term storage.

All the things that we believe to be true and

our worldview and within that cognitive belief system is our

self concept here, which we see with the smiley face.

And that is how we view ourselves and it can

be either positive or negative.

And a major component of our mindset is, um of

I'm sorry of our cognitive belief system, and our self

concept is our mindset, which can either be a growth

mindset or a fixed mindset growth mindset.

Individuals tend to believe that mistakes lead to new learning

and that challenges can be accomplished by trying hard and

being persistent, whereas a person with a more fixed mindset

tends to believe that if something is difficult that they're

just not going to succeed at it, and they tend

to give up easier, easier century.

Um, also in Chapter two, they talk about learning profiles

or styles.

Um, I know a lot of educators have heard about

these before, whether a person can be a visual learner

and auditory learner or kinesthetic tactile, basically a more hands

on learner.

And then in Chapter three, we dive deeper into memory

retention and learning.

It discusses the those stages of memory that were discussed

in Chapter two.

That sensory memory, short and long term memory also talks

about the different types of memory, including declarative, which is

the remembering of names and facts, etcetera, um, what we

had for breakfast and facts, such as knowing that the

Eiffel Tower is in Paris.

It also talks about non declarative memories, which can also

be called implicit memories.

And these are memories that cannot be explained in a

straightforward manner, Um, for example, knowing how to drive a

car or how to ride a bike.

This chapter also discusses learning and retention and retention is

that process where learning can be located, identified and retrieved

for future use.

I thought that the Primacy recency effect discussed in Chapter

three was very interesting.

Um, and this is where we tend to remember information

best at the beginning and at the end of lessons.

And it's important for teachers to understand this so that

they present new information at the very beginning of a

lesson and then make sure to review it at the

end. And this also taught us that shorter lessons are

better because the amount of downtime is shorter than Chapter

three. Also discussed the importance of sleep and how adequate

sleep is very important for memory storage as that process

of memory being transferred over into long term memory typically

occurs during deep sleep.

Yeah, Chapter four talked about the power of transfer and

transfer is really the principle of learning, So transfer usually,

um, happens during learning.

And it's the effect that past learning has an effect

on new learning, and transfer of learning is how a

person applies new learning to future situations.

Transfers can be either positive or negative.

Uh, positive transfers, help with new learning and negative transfers

interfere with new learning.

Several factors can affect whether it transfer can affect transfer,

one of which is similarity.

Um, we talked about how learning skills that are very

similar can be quite difficult.

Um, and skills learned in one environment tend to transfer

to other environments.

For example, when UM, you get a new car, you

tend to have to do a little bit of quick

learning, even though you know how to drive a car.

It's a little bit different with a new vehicle.

Chapter five talks about, um, brain lateralization, and that is

the the left and right.

Hemispheres of the brain are specialized, and they process information

differently when one activity is mainly limited to one side

of the brain that is known as brain lateralization.

On this next frame, I have a image of the

brain from our textbook that just kind of goes over

some of the different things that the left side of

the brain specializes in as well as different things.

At the right side of the brain specializes in, for

example, the left side of the brain recognizes words, letters

and numbers, whereas the right side tends to recognize faces,

places and objects.

This chapter also talked about, um, spoken language and how

many animals communicate in some way.

However, spoken language is unique to humans, and it gives

us the ability to form our memories and thoughts into

words and spoken.

Language consists of minimal units of sounds called phonemes, which

are combined to form syllables, which then combined to form

words and sentences.

Etcetera and Children first developed spoken language, and then they

develop the ability to read.

And being able to read is probably one of the

most difficult task that we ask of young Children and

of the young brain, because we're asking them to take

these sounds and words that they've been using for a

relatively short amount of time and then transfer that into

symbols. Letters, um, that represent sound but are quite inconsistent

and often don't follow many rules.

Teachers need to make sure that they're being very flexible,

and they're teaching approach when it comes to reading.

And keep in mind that in order to teach reading,

they need to keep the learning very engaging and very

meaningful. Chapter five also discussed learning mathematics in how learning

mathematics tends to be a bit more natural.

It talked about how our ancestors had to develop number

sense and how it related to their survival.

Um, for example, in the book, it talked about how,

when they approached a group of animals, they had to

decide whether that group of animals represented a threat because

of a large number, or whether it represented a opportunity

for food in a smaller number of animals.

Chapter six doubt dove into the brain and the arts.

Um, every culture has some form of art, and art

helps us develop cognitive growth through creativity, nonverbal communication.

It helps form the perspective that problems can have multiple

solutions, helps us develop perseverance, gives us a use of

imagination. Collaborative skills, plus many more also talked about music

and how there are therapeutic and educational benefits to listening

to music and in creating music.

There are benefits for spatial reasoning as well as coordinating

motor skills as well as memory benefits.

Chapter six also talked about the visual arts and how

they helped us to develop a craft develop perseverance, gives

us the ability to envision and imagine observe, reflect um

as well as many more skills and I found this

one quite interesting when it was discussing movement, as in

Dance, theatre and sometimes sports How the cerebellum is responsible

for the coordination of motor skills such as walking, but

it also plays an important role in attention and long

term memory.

Spatial perception, cognitive functions.

Basically, movement is inescapably linked to learning and memory.

And as teachers, we need to take away from that.

That physical exercise and physical movement improves spraying performance and

is a very important aspect of Children's education.

And in Chapter seven, we learned about thinking and learning

our sorry thinking skills and learning.

Um, and in this chapter, we learned about, um, mostly

the difference between difficulty and complexity.

So difficulty is the amount of effort required to do

a task within a level of Bloom's taxonomy.

Um, or just any thinking level and complexity refers to

the level of thought required to complete a task.

And then this next slide, we can see the levels

of blooms taxonomy here with the more basic with remembering

all the way up to understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and

creating. We can see that as we move up, we

see more complexity, and that As we move across those

same levels, we can see an increase in difficulty.

We also learned that students tend to be more engaged

and have better understanding the higher up all the levels

of Bloom's taxonomy that they go.

And in Chapter eight, we're putting it all together.

Uh, we learned that students should know how their brains

work. Students even very young ones are interested in how

their brains work.

We should be able to explain basic brain function, the

importance of sleep drinking water, eating a good breakfast, the

reasoning behind brain breaks and the importance of physical movement

to students.

Even preschoolers can be taught these skills.

Um, Souza recommends Madeleine hunters lesson planned formats, um, and

do the fact that they are based on brain friendly

learning, and it's flexible enough to use with many different

teaching models.

And that is basically it.

Um, I liked this quote from the book.

The quality of learning rarely exceeds the quality of teaching.

Um, thank you very much for listening.

Um, thank you for your time.

Good luck.

How the Brain Learns: My Reflection

Chapters

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