Making Connections/ Neuroscience

I've been reading a lot lately about neuroscience and how the brain works. It's interesting how we store information. We talked at our iTunes conference about one of the Magnificent Seven strategies, "making connections", but I didn't expect to read about it in another journal article. While I was searching for a reading selection to use for our staff development, I found an article which discusses "making connections" in depth, and how you brain stores new information alongside of things you already knwo about. It creates neuropathways linking now info to old info. The brain is fascinating to me.

I am also a track coach, and I am always reading books about current training methods. I started reading a book called "Brain Training for Runners" by Matt Fitzgerald in August. It's pretty heavy reading so it has taken me awhile to get through, but I found a few bits of info we can take to the classroom:

First, I read about a study that was done which showed that people actually remember things better when they are moving, i.e. the concept of "muscle memory". The book mentioned how football players may be unable to remember simple facts in the classroom, but they are able to remember hundreds of complex plays because they are moving while learning them. The same is true for the dozens of form drills that track athletes do every day. You can apply this to the classroom by incorporating movement into your lessons.

The second thing I thought might be useful for students is a study that was done at Harvard. There were two groups performing a typing test 12 hours apart. The first group took the first test at 10am, practiced during the day, and then took the final test at 10pm. The second group took their first test at 10pm, slept 8 hours, and then took the final test at 10am with NO practice. Guess which group performeed better?

The first group improved 5%, while the second group improved 20%! The study talks more in depth about how your brain actually "practices" tasks while you sleep. So tell your students to quit pulling all-nighters and catch some Z's!

Modified Frayer Method!

Modified the Frayer method for the vocab on Solar System and it is really working well.
Students still put the word in the middle, the put the def. in the top left corner, the location in the solar system in the top right corner, they draw a picture in the bottom left, and then they write 3 characteristics in the bottom right! They are really enjoying the definition work on this fine Monday morning!

Update and Staff Development Day #2

I've been on overload lately, and cannot believe it's mid-October. I guess that's a good thing? Classes have been good this year. We've done several lessons involving the "Magnificent Seven" and "Power Tools":

Learning Inventory
Building Community
Coding the Text
Marginalia
Golden Lines
Making Connections
KWL charts
Reciprocal Teaching
Making Predictions

We've been using the "Reading Essentials" book, which is a companion to our text. We have also used several articles, one on the scientific method and one about a new planet that has been discovered in a far-off galaxy.

Jan came for an official SURN visitation, and she said we were doing a great job. She took pictures of my Community Learning Wall. I thought my students were pretty rowdy that day, but I guess they weren't that bad after all.

We have our second staff development on November 2nd. We are splitting the eight of us into two groups, and each are responsible for a 45 minute session. Staff will rotate to each of our sessions (there is another unrelated session as well). My group will be working on Explicit Teaching. We are planning to start with an Anticipation Guide, and then we will use "Determining Important Ideas" to mark the text and complete a Mind Map. We will be using a selection about adolescent literacy, similar to one that we used at the iTunes conference. Wish us luck!

Hey it happens!

So I was giving my marginalia lesson and being observed when one of my students made the choice to act up. It was a pure embarrasment. This lead to other students misbehaving. So my point is, even if your lesson is not going as planned, make sure you keep trying as literacy is important.

We got through the lesson, but it had it's hiccups.

Mark

That has a name?!?

I teach both upper and lower classmen in my high school (upper in my oceanography class and mostly lower in my Earth Science class). I used a vocab matching activity with my freshmen and turned it into a competition (1st group to correctly match the words to the definitions win a prize (mini snickers bars)) and they just loved it. With my oceanography class we were beginning the chapter on chemistry and I decided to have them practice marginalia with a passage I had about the origins of seawater chemistry. As we were going through the passage I had to stifle a laugh as one of my students shouts from the back of the class, "this as a name?!?! I've been doing this for years and you mean to tell me it actually as a name other then taking notes???"(add a lot of attitude and body gesturing when you read that comment). It's days like this that remind me why I love teaching- the kids have a great way of making you laugh in new ways.