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#Post#: 78--------------------------------------------------
Brain Based Learning
DIR By: Susie
Date: July 2, 2011, 7:50 pm
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I've been reflecting and journaling about some ideas--imposed vs
induced visuals, the link between music training and spatial
temporal reasoning, elaborative rehearsal to clarify, organize,
and express wht students are learning. So much of this ties in
with techniques I learned for teaching foreign language--Total
Physical Response and TPR with storytelling. Add in the
component of metacognition and the teaching and modeling of
metacognative skills and one has much food for thought. I wish
I could preserve reflection time along about April of next year
for a reminder of the surge of ideas I feel now. The emphasis
of much that I am currently reading is on the importance of
modeling what one wishes the students to do. I tend to forget
that this is necessary for older students--there is a CD with
the Write Beside Them book which shows the author in her
classroom. Great ideas! She does mention the necessity for
organization. What I envy, though, is her 83 minute
instructional periods.
#Post#: 79--------------------------------------------------
Re: Brain Based Learning
DIR By: Jeana
Date: July 4, 2011, 11:14 pm
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I hope I am posting this right, I can't remember how to do it.
This week’s reading has been very interesting. I think that
music, rhymes and rhythms can play an important place in
learning. I know when I have subbed in the Anne’s class that
they have a song for the days of the week and also Alpha Friends
(ABC’s) and they know exactly the tunes and the words. One year
Mr. Olson had a little catchy song that went with the countries
that Nate’s class was learning. I can still hear the tune. I
found the mnemonic strategies interesting. I can still remember
a few that I learned from school. I didn’t realize that was
what it was called. I was talking to Jill about the journaling
and the part with the questions and starter questions. She
thought it might make her pay attention more if she had to write
about what she had learned for the day. She liked the question
“I am confused about”. Dallin did a great job at scanning the
pages.
#Post#: 81--------------------------------------------------
Re: Brain Based Learning
DIR By: Pam
Date: July 5, 2011, 5:40 pm
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When reading about the strategies that help the brain
learn, I kept asking myself why I am not using these ideas more.
I remember when Steven Winters did an excellent presentation on
the brain. He presented many of the same ideas talked about in
these chapters. I wish I was as clever as Anne in using music,
rhyme and rhythm in my class. Young children thrive on these
strategies and remember so well when they hear them and
especially if they help make them up. It is very challenging
and chaotic though to make up a mnemonic device or rhyme with a
group of first graders. Almost all of the students in the class
want to talk at once. Several of them want to do it totally on
their own while some of them just want to sit and do nothing. I
would love to go and watch some of you do this in your class so
I can steal your methods.
I can see how pictionary or charades would work for my
class for vocabulary review. It would require some ground rules
but young children love to act and draw. I feel the same as
Susie. I wish I could have these ideas and excitement about
using them in the second semester of our next school year.
#Post#: 82--------------------------------------------------
Re: Brain Based Learning
DIR By: Pam
Date: July 6, 2011, 5:51 am
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I went back over the reading for brain compatible
strategies and became intrigued with the difference between rote
hearsal and elaborate rehearsal. Because of Chapter 10 and the
explaination of the toolkit for brain compatible strategies, I
fear that I use rote rehearsal too much when trying to teach
language. I would like to try to allow more time for my students
to draw pictures at the first of the year and then add writing
to their illustrations as they grow in their abilities. That
strategy seems to fit better into what elaborate rehearsal is as
discribed in our reading. I feel that peers teaching each other
and role play also should be called elaborate rehearsal. These
ideas certainly tie into the strategies we have learned when we
are checking for understanding. I could use timed drawings when
asking for examples and nonexamples. Timed pair share, function
aerobics and fill in your thoughts not only help the students'
brains remember content and understand concepts but allow me to
check to see if they really know what I have taught.
#Post#: 83--------------------------------------------------
Re: Brain Based Learning
DIR By: Anne
Date: July 7, 2011, 11:43 am
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I enjoyed the examples they gave of mnemonic devices and
narrative chains.I remembered a narrative chain device that I
used in a previous life, before I taught kindergarten, when I
was giving piano lessons. The reading reminded me that many
music teachers that I have known use mnemonic devices. In
addition to the ones given in the chapter I had a favorite one
that I used to help the student discover the note names. I
think this is an example of a narrative chain or maybe a type
of loci mnemonic device from some teacher I came in contact
with that helped the students remember the names of the notes.
That in itself is not hard because it is of course simply the
alphabet up through g. ABCDEFG. But which letter goes with which
key when there are so many. I asked my husband who has never
had any keyboarding if the following example would be helpful
for him to learn the keyboard or if it is just distracting. He
said he thought it would help. Starting in the same direction
that we read and write from left to right on the left side of
the keyboard we can touch the white notes and say ABCDEFG until
we run out of keyboard. The hard part is being able to remember
which name goes where if a child is put in front of 88 keys.
Which one is which? So here is the story about the 2 houses.
There are 2 houses on the piano and if the keyboard didn’t have
to stop somewhere the 2 and 3 black key pattern would go on
forever. The 3 black keys all up and down the keyboard is the
pattern that stands for the big house. The 2 black keys is the
little house. The little house is the dog’s house. It has 2
black keys and the white key in the middle of the dog’s house is
the dog. Dog starts with D. Find all the dogs in all the dog
houses on the piano. Now, the cat is not allowed in the dog’s
house and the note C is on the left side of the 2 black keys. C
is for cat. The other side of the little dog’s house has a
surprise. Someone left an egg there. Egg. stands for E
(Sometimes I said an elephant would not fit in the little house
and so the elephant is outside of the litte house. (E is the
hardest one to come up with in the story. The other house on the
piano is the big house. The big house has people that live in
it. The front door is right next to the egg (or elephant) . It
is on the left side of the 3 black keys of the big house. Front
door stands for the key that is F. After you go in the big
house, you will meet Grandma. She lives inside. Grandma is
right next to the front door. Grandma stands for key that is G.
Auntie, lives inside the big house right next to grandma. She
stays next to the back door of the big house. Auntie stands for
A and backdoor stands for B. Who is next to the back door when
we go out of the big house? Why, it is the cat of course, next
to the dog house. We are back to where we started. Then I had
the student find all the different notes as they searched tne
two and three black key patterns and remembered the big house
and the small house and who lived in each house. I thought this
memory device might be one that is new.
I use a lot of rhymes and music in kindergarten to teach letter
recognition and one that I have used to help students remember
that in our language q is always followed by a u. "Q and U they
stick like glue. Q and U have been buddies for so long, Q needs
U as they walk along."
For learning the 5 senses- To the tune of She’ll be Coming
around the Mountain
We will sing about our senses in this song (There are 5)
We will sing about senses in this song (There are 5!)
See, and Hear and Smell and Touch
Taste the foods we love so much
We will sing about our senses in this song (There are 5)
(The 5 senses is in one of our standard tests)
I am always hunting for new mnemonic devices or narrative chains
that make sense to kids!
#Post#: 84--------------------------------------------------
Re: Brain Based Learning
DIR By: Carrie
Date: July 7, 2011, 1:03 pm
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What a fun way to enjoy this summer....learning and reading in
this blog!
I am so impressed with all of you and your abilities to make
learning wonderful! As a mom, I so appreciate all you do, have
done and contiually do!
I just love all the fun ideas. Especially the Popit game with
the bubble wrap. Can't you just imagine the student waiting to
pop those little bubbles, the excitement would be a thing to
watch and enjoy!
Anne, what a wonderful piano lesson...you should charge us all
for that one!
#Post#: 85--------------------------------------------------
Re: Brain Based Learning
DIR By: Adrian
Date: July 9, 2011, 1:09 pm
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This really was a fun reading chapter. It is interesting how my
mind works as I try to come-up with different ideas to use these
tools-knowing which ones work the best for me. I too, think I
can probably play the piano now-thanks Anne-or at least have
lots of fun with my pets and relatives all living so close. It
is also interesting to me how many other fields use mnemonics
besides general education. In the military, they are widely
used to help remember everthing from cooking to patrolling.
They are also used a lot in the medical field to remember almost
everything. It makes me wonder if there are simple tools like
this that haven't been thought of yet.
#Post#: 86--------------------------------------------------
Re: Brain Based Learning
DIR By: Rebecca
Date: July 11, 2011, 7:02 pm
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:P ::) ::)
It is interesting to note how many responders have experience
using mnemonics; I would be curious to know how many students
use a form of mnemonics. Do they know any? I don't know. Under
the section "Why Mnemonics Work" the text describes how the
brain looks for an association between what it is receiving and
what it has stored. Understanding that information, it is easier
to understand why associating visuals with vocabulary, as in
Keyword mnemonics, can be such an effective learning tool.
One of the strategies found under the writing section of this
material is called A draw/write diagram. The text is
demonstrating how this strategy can work for science, but I can
see a lot of applications for it, and I think students would
love it. I am going to try it out with my elementary summer
school students. :)
Another strategy that I liked was "Double Check" which is a form
of peer teaching. In this variation, partners each read a
paragraph (I am assuming a different paragraph) and then Partner
A closes his book and summarizes the paragraph while Partner B
checks for accuracy. Then the roles are reversed. I think for
difficult content-area reading, this is a great way to
summarize, check for understanding and review the paragraph
content.
#Post#: 88--------------------------------------------------
Re: Brain Based Learning
DIR By: Julie
Date: July 12, 2011, 9:30 am
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I liked the Double Check strategy as well. We could also apply
what Kevin Feldman taught us about having the struggling
learners be partner B, so that they hear the information again
before they have to respond. This would help scaffold the new
information so that they could also be successful. Carol, you
mentioned about the amount of new vocabulary in your science
text. This might be a way to help students process all the new
information. Rebecca, since you like this strategy I will be
sure to invite you in to help model it when we are ready! I
really enjoy reading all the posts. Everyone has such good
ideas!
#Post#: 91--------------------------------------------------
Re: Brain Based Learning
DIR By: Karen
Date: July 12, 2011, 10:59 pm
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I enjoyed reading these chapters, the ideas were very familiar
to me and I recognized most of the mnemonics mentioned. I am a
visual learner, and had to develop strategies while I was young
(mostly on my own) to help me understand and remember what I was
learning. My children have benefited from mnemonics taught by
some of the wonderful teachers we have in our school. Alysha
can still remember the names and locations of the countries of
the world thanks to Mrs. Fabricius and Mr. George teaching them
with mnemonics.
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