As teachers we are faced with many challenges in the classroom, especially with the continuous rising number of students being diagnosed with learning disabilities. The majority of todays students are right brained, visual, short attention spanned learners. Chapter 7 discusses the brain and how the brain retains information. What can we as teachers incorporate into our classrooms in order for our students' brains to learn best?
5 comments:
One of the workshops I attended at the BCTF convension was on how the brain works best. It was a high energy presentation that got my ever so important dendrites going! (this seemed to be of great importance to the presenter!!). As teachers we need to get our students brains moving - Gary Anaka taught us some great techniques to get our students brains active either first thing in the morning or any other time in the day when they seem to be drifting. Simple exercises like tapping your right elbow with your left hand then your left elbow with your right hand alternatly back and forth then repeating but tapping knees instead gets both sides of the brain moving and active - growing dendrites - and preparing students for the best learning they can do!
Also included in Gary Anaka's workshop which I found interesting was the importance of repetition in order to help the brain learn. He said that every day should include a review of the major topics from the day before. For even better results, use repetition along with the movement activites that Lindsay mentioned in order to do the review. Gary even had us doing this to review at the end of the workshop!
I think that one of the things that i will take into consideration from Chelsea's post is that students are right brained short attention span learners. This means that as teachers we need to be able to plan lessons and activities that are interactive and stimulating for these individuals. I think that through more experience in our practicums we will learn how to keep the short attention spanned learners engaged, while not over stimulating the students that learn different ways. A thing that i noticed in the elementary classrooms that i visited is the bounce to the bell, where students get up and move ( in this case they did yoga), this keeps students active and gives them opportunity to move around so they can be more productive learners!
I think that one of the best ways to learn is by doing. That being said I almost always grumble when Im in a class and the teacher says "ok, ive put you into groups and we are going to move to this area and do this activity." However I believe that mostly is attributed to the school system we have already gone through. We have spent at least 15 years (for myself its more like 17) being taught to sit down and watch the teaching going on. Now that is comfortable and familiar to me. When I am forced to get up and do I tend to remember a lot more, even with no notes written down. I believe the next generation should not be taught to sit and listen as I do not feel the brain works best with only a small portion of it actually doing the work. Just my little opinion...
Chelsea has brought up the thing that I am the most nervous about with teaching, keeping the students engaged. As we have learned from our books, classes and our peers, students have short attention spans and many have been diagnosed with conditions that make their already short attention spans even shorter. I have noticed in classroom that students with very short attention spans work much better in an environment that is not to strict, or else they tend to act out. If the student needs to stand up, stretch and just not be in their desk for a minute, so long as they are not being disruptive that should be okay. I also think that breaking up the school days with quick activities that get the students moving is great. We all know that students should get PE everyday, however, more often than not this is not the case. Getting the students up and moving around is a great way to break up the day and refocus their minds. I'm sure there are many other ways to help students who have short attention spans does anybody else have any great ideas for dealing with students with short attention spans?
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