Every child learns differently and as a mother of four very unique individuals I can attest to this personally. Starting with the child who is brilliant at maths, could read at an adult level in grade 5 and yet who still struggles to write a legible document and has trouble socially in grade 12, through to the child who is still struggling to read whole sentences in grade five, was kept down in prep, yet can run like the wind and has a multitude of friends. Then onto the artistic child who is never without a pen and paper and can sing and play multiple instruments and yet struggles with english and spelling, and don't even get me started on the baby of the family and speech therapy. Each of these children are real and I have seen their brains struggle with such different learning areas that I sometimes fail to see how a teacher can take a class full of different children and get any of them to learn!
Subesquently, I can definitely see how teachers need to lead a child into a new subject using their strengths and interests in order to engage them. And then once the teacher has their attention and the student is starting to understand the content, the teacher can then move on to trying a different style of teaching to get the student to use and develop a different part of their brain and enhance the learning experience.
This week we looked at the different parts of the brain and engaging the brain. The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the stress filter in the brain and we need to minimise stress in students as the RAS only remembers priority information. Students focus on threats or stressful things first and once they ascertain there is no danger or stress they focus on the new and interesting things around them, hopefully in our case, the lesson. As such, in order to get students to learn we need to reduce the stress and take the child out of survival mode. Ways we can do this could be through songs and other activities to break the ice and introduce the lesson in fun way. ICTs are definitely something we could incorporate for this, these will help to stimulate curiosity and relax the student. Most children today love to play digital games, both free online games and bought games are available for education puposes. Other things such as the use of colour, costumes, music, movement, surprise, prior knowledge and advertising can gain interest and derail stress. Advertise a subject to be studied in the future with funny images, posters and hints of what is coming. Use unique images in your teaching to get them to visualise the subject. Admittedly I’m not so sure on how costumes could be used within a Maths class, possibly dress up as a Genie or Fairy when discussing Imaginary numbers.
Videos, short educational games, images, music and other online applications would be effective in reinforcing the lesson while giving the student’s brain a break from the study/learning process. Collect interesting images with thoughts as to how you can use them in your lessons.
Subesquently, I can definitely see how teachers need to lead a child into a new subject using their strengths and interests in order to engage them. And then once the teacher has their attention and the student is starting to understand the content, the teacher can then move on to trying a different style of teaching to get the student to use and develop a different part of their brain and enhance the learning experience.
This week we looked at the different parts of the brain and engaging the brain. The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the stress filter in the brain and we need to minimise stress in students as the RAS only remembers priority information. Students focus on threats or stressful things first and once they ascertain there is no danger or stress they focus on the new and interesting things around them, hopefully in our case, the lesson. As such, in order to get students to learn we need to reduce the stress and take the child out of survival mode. Ways we can do this could be through songs and other activities to break the ice and introduce the lesson in fun way. ICTs are definitely something we could incorporate for this, these will help to stimulate curiosity and relax the student. Most children today love to play digital games, both free online games and bought games are available for education puposes. Other things such as the use of colour, costumes, music, movement, surprise, prior knowledge and advertising can gain interest and derail stress. Advertise a subject to be studied in the future with funny images, posters and hints of what is coming. Use unique images in your teaching to get them to visualise the subject. Admittedly I’m not so sure on how costumes could be used within a Maths class, possibly dress up as a Genie or Fairy when discussing Imaginary numbers.
Videos, short educational games, images, music and other online applications would be effective in reinforcing the lesson while giving the student’s brain a break from the study/learning process. Collect interesting images with thoughts as to how you can use them in your lessons.
Source: http://www.athropolis.com/news/berg-pic.htm
An image like the one Judy Willis used in the video could be an example of videography in ICT used to describe how a two minute final video takes hours of video and audio recording and editing time to make the final short video successfully. It encourages them to think outside the box. As in the image below where an ice-burg is used to show micro-blogging and how media is changing and evolving.
Source: http://visual.ly/chinas-microblogging-iceberg
The Amygdala filter was the next portion of the brain discussed, it is the next stop in the brain after the RAS. It focuses on here, me and now. When stressed it has three behaviors; fight, flight and freeze. It can even be seen in something as simple as how the difference between a frowning face and smiling face can result in a student taking in information or going into the fight, flight and freeze mode and subsequently not learning. There are any number of stresses that can make this occur. Fear of being wrong, being embarrassed by reading ability, tests/exams, physical barrier, language barrier, bullying, boredom and frustration.
Ways around this are personalising the lesson so that the brain will focus on here, me and now. On idea wwas to give feedback regularly during the lesson. Every 10 minutes or so stop the lesson to ask questions. Give extra questions to kids that are bored. Let struggling kids know that there will be more time... So that they can just let it flow come to them eventually.
An interesting idea was “Kid Watching”. I like this one. Kids like to be special and they also like to find out about those around them in order to put them in context as another person with a life outside of the classroomand in doing this you can give each student a bit of nice notoriety in the class situation.
The shortcomings of the traditional classroom techniques of a teacher standing up the front and lecturing the class on the subject and expecting it to get into the brain leave a child stressed when they don’t understand the lesson, thus turning off and going into flight, fight, freeze mode. Other downsides are the large group lessons don’t give a teacher the opportunity to connect with each child and workout how to help the individual to learn at their own pace. Breaking the class into smaller groups to discuss the lesson and work together on an activity is another strategy to relieve the stress in a class situation. An example in a mathematics class could be instead of just going through a textbook with the information the teacher could use an online video that uses animation to teach a concept such as the one below.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxF5VQSA4Hw
Or a maths app on the student’s ipad/tablet that gets them to work through and engage with the subject in a more fun mode of engagement like the Mathematics App for Android.
An image like the one Judy Willis used in the video could be an example of videography in ICT used to describe how a two minute final video takes hours of video and audio recording and editing time to make the final short video successfully. It encourages them to think outside the box. As in the image below where an ice-burg is used to show micro-blogging and how media is changing and evolving.
Source: http://visual.ly/chinas-microblogging-iceberg
The Amygdala filter was the next portion of the brain discussed, it is the next stop in the brain after the RAS. It focuses on here, me and now. When stressed it has three behaviors; fight, flight and freeze. It can even be seen in something as simple as how the difference between a frowning face and smiling face can result in a student taking in information or going into the fight, flight and freeze mode and subsequently not learning. There are any number of stresses that can make this occur. Fear of being wrong, being embarrassed by reading ability, tests/exams, physical barrier, language barrier, bullying, boredom and frustration.
Ways around this are personalising the lesson so that the brain will focus on here, me and now. On idea wwas to give feedback regularly during the lesson. Every 10 minutes or so stop the lesson to ask questions. Give extra questions to kids that are bored. Let struggling kids know that there will be more time... So that they can just let it flow come to them eventually.
An interesting idea was “Kid Watching”. I like this one. Kids like to be special and they also like to find out about those around them in order to put them in context as another person with a life outside of the classroomand in doing this you can give each student a bit of nice notoriety in the class situation.
The shortcomings of the traditional classroom techniques of a teacher standing up the front and lecturing the class on the subject and expecting it to get into the brain leave a child stressed when they don’t understand the lesson, thus turning off and going into flight, fight, freeze mode. Other downsides are the large group lessons don’t give a teacher the opportunity to connect with each child and workout how to help the individual to learn at their own pace. Breaking the class into smaller groups to discuss the lesson and work together on an activity is another strategy to relieve the stress in a class situation. An example in a mathematics class could be instead of just going through a textbook with the information the teacher could use an online video that uses animation to teach a concept such as the one below.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxF5VQSA4Hw
Or a maths app on the student’s ipad/tablet that gets them to work through and engage with the subject in a more fun mode of engagement like the Mathematics App for Android.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.daboapps.mathematics
Syn-NAPS is another mechanism. Every 10 - 15 minuets the brain needs a nap. Simple ideas like a Ball Toss Review. Have a ball in class and as each person gets it they say a word or phrase about what they have been learning. Students learn by connecting new related information to their stored patterns of knowledge.
Traditional classrooms with their focus on the teacher centered education where the teacher knows everything and teaches it without props and activities would lose students who struggle to remember verbal teaching and as such send them into stress mode. I know I have felt my brain ‘turn off’ when I felt I wasn’t getting the subject matter in a lecture. As an adult I know to go back and try again, however as a child you begin to believe you can’t do it and turn off more. Children need the teacher to give them the information in ways that will engage their brain, get their attention and then reinforce the information with some repetition, games, props and other brain activating ideas.
Syn-NAPS is another mechanism. Every 10 - 15 minuets the brain needs a nap. Simple ideas like a Ball Toss Review. Have a ball in class and as each person gets it they say a word or phrase about what they have been learning. Students learn by connecting new related information to their stored patterns of knowledge.
Traditional classrooms with their focus on the teacher centered education where the teacher knows everything and teaches it without props and activities would lose students who struggle to remember verbal teaching and as such send them into stress mode. I know I have felt my brain ‘turn off’ when I felt I wasn’t getting the subject matter in a lecture. As an adult I know to go back and try again, however as a child you begin to believe you can’t do it and turn off more. Children need the teacher to give them the information in ways that will engage their brain, get their attention and then reinforce the information with some repetition, games, props and other brain activating ideas.
Source - Bubbl.us.
Behaviourism
Image source: http://pixgood.com/associative-learning-example.html
Behaviourism is repetition, practice and positive re-enforcement. This would seem to be the most common learning theory used in a traditional learning environment. Think repetitive writing out of spellling and times tables. Digital games and Apps can be used in behaviourism in order to create a more fun and exciting version of repetition with the positive re-enforcement of winning brought into play.
Cognitivism
Image source: http://learningkaleidoscope.pbworks.com/w/page/361073/Cognitivism-group2
Cognitivism is where the brain loses what it has learned if it doesn’t regard the information as important. It places the information in the temporary memory of our brains and this then needs to be used, applied and analysed in order to remember it. Actively engaging the students in the class with activities and ICTs to reinforce the information would be beneficial.
Image source: https://jotilden.wordpress.com/author/jotilden/
Social Constructivism requires other people to help in the learning process, both the teacher and other students help to reinforce the information being learned. Discussion on a subject with other students who may understand the subject helps to guide each individual and will help the learning process. ICTs can be useful tools in social constructivism to get classes and teachers working together to understand the subject. Again smart device apps and games, online wikis, blogs and online chats where a number of people can work through a subject will help. Some positives are that people can bounce ideas around and more information will be put out there for everyone to disseminate. Negatives are that other people aren’t always sympathetic to your comments, also it must be remembered that anything you place on these online forums become part of your online profile and you need to motitor what is written.
Image source: Katrina Johnston
Cognitivism is where the brain loses what it has learned if it doesn’t regard the information as important. It places the information in the temporary memory of our brains and this then needs to be used, applied and analysed in order to remember it. Actively engaging the students in the class with activities and ICTs to reinforce the information would be beneficial.
Social Constructivism
Image source: https://jotilden.wordpress.com/author/jotilden/Social Constructivism requires other people to help in the learning process, both the teacher and other students help to reinforce the information being learned. Discussion on a subject with other students who may understand the subject helps to guide each individual and will help the learning process. ICTs can be useful tools in social constructivism to get classes and teachers working together to understand the subject. Again smart device apps and games, online wikis, blogs and online chats where a number of people can work through a subject will help. Some positives are that people can bounce ideas around and more information will be put out there for everyone to disseminate. Negatives are that other people aren’t always sympathetic to your comments, also it must be remembered that anything you place on these online forums become part of your online profile and you need to motitor what is written.
Connectivism
Image source: Katrina JohnstonConnectivism uses more common online tools such as Facebook, news sites, email, blogs, and other information vendors to gather information on a subject in order to understand it more. It seems to be a more individual process where someone gathers the subject information and puts it together over time. They can then take this information and use it in a class situation to more actively participate and understand what is being taught.
All of the learning theories can be used as successful learning approaches and will generally be combined to get the best effect. As my subjects are Maths and ICT, I will be using different styles of learning in each. ICT does lend itself to being majoritively a cognitive learning theory, as students will be hands on with a computer applying the lesson constantly, along with some connectivism and social constructivism with very little behaviourism, whereas in a secondary maths class the cognitism theory is probably going to be used half the time with cognitivism being the other major learning theory. I say this as maths does tend to be a subject wher you need to sit down and work at it alone most of the time. There will be aspects of social conectivism as sometimes students need to discuss problems to nut them out and group work will be a part of that but only a small part.
I have to admit I am still strggling with the concept of taking a class of individuals and effectively teaching them all knowing that all their brains work completely differently. However using the different techniques learned from the cognitive learning video, along with putting together a mixture of different learning theories, I believe that we can take all those individual little brains and help them to learn anything!
Regards Katrina
Reference List
Berubej1 (2008). Learning Kaleidoscope [Cartoon] . retrieved from http://learningkaleidoscope.pbworks.com/w/page/361073/Cognitivism-group2
Clevenger, R. (Digital Artist). (n.d.). Is this Real? [Digital Image]. Retrieved from http://www.athropolis.com/news/berg-pic.htm
Google Play (2014). Mathematics Andriod App [Screen shots]. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.daboapps.mathematics
Jotilden (2013). Technologies in Classrooms [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://jotilden.wordpress.com/author/jotilden/
Pix Good Gallery (n.d.). Associative Learning [Sketch]. Retrieved from http://pixgood.com/associative-learning-example.html
Visual.ly (n.d.). China's Microbloging Iceburg. [Digital Image]. Retrieved from http://visual.ly/chinas-microblogging-iceberg
Visual.ly (n.d.). China's Microbloging Iceburg. [Digital Image]. Retrieved from http://visual.ly/chinas-microblogging-iceberg
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