Multiple Intelligences, Drawing and Kids Neuroscience..

Today I found several new items of interest one was a Kids site to explore Neuroscience! It would be great to use with your classes and teach study skills and ways to make their brain more effective! Another is a site on Multiple Intelligences. I have been facinated by the ways this can help teachers to reach their students on different levels, all teachers use some of these strategies but thinking about them as you plan lessons can really impact your teaching. And finally the third interesting thing I found today was to refute a poster on another website that thought coloring could be of no value to high school students. It is called Mindscaping A Learning and Thinking Skill for All Students!

Offline Processing...Wow I must be on overload!

I have been learning many things this summer in my Integrating Technology course, often I wonder will I remember them all. I have also noticed I am tired and sleeping more. Now I know why, I am processing all the incredible things I am learning.

Brain Collage

I found an interesting brain collage on Flickr that I wanted to post here. I emailed its creator Jason Ramsay and here is an exerpt from his letter to me.

Happy to let you use it for your blog. The photo is a
collage of images that I made using the program MRIcro. It
is a sequence of the same slice of white matter, taken from
a series of scans I made using diffusion tension imaging.

I think it is important for your blog, for these reasons:

1) People underestimate the importance of white matter in
learning. WM is the cable that connects all portions of the
brain.
2) If you lose cable, your brain starts to have to work
much harder to process information.
3) If you work past capacity, you start showing
neurocognitive deficits.
4) White matter can be eroded by chronic stress. Its
development can be hindered by chronic stress or neglect
(e.g., impoverished children).
5) I really think that intelligence is in large part
dictated by the robustness of the white matter.

All food for thought for your blog. If you want to learn
more about stress and the brain (or, for example, poverty
and its effects on the brain), check out the work of Robert
Sapolsky.

Learning An Active Approach!

Active Learning is a new buzzword so to speak in the educational community. However for many teachers active learning is nothing new. Active Learning is simply students doing something rather than being passive while learning. Great teachers know that students learn and remember more easily when they are active participants in their learning. The site above shows many different ways teachers can use active learning in their classrooms to assist their students and increase their potential! Active learning powers the brain to process information in a variety of multi-sensory ways. When a student watches a video and then responds to it they not only see and hear the video they are retelling, relating and responding to it.

How your brain works...

Knowing how your brain works can dramatically affect your daily life and learning. You can learn ways to quickly memorize information, get others to pay attention to you, and maximize your potential.


Here is a recent article from the NY Times that shows how you can boost your brain power!

Along the side you will see several helpful sites on the brain and You Tube video's of Dr. Medina and his brain research. I feel understanding our brain and how it works will help teachers to unlock the power within our students.