Download Helping our Students REALLY Get it by Understanding

Janet Fulks, Bakersfield College
ASCCC North Area Representative

The Art of Changing the Brain by Zull

How People Learn by the National Research

Scientific Teaching by Jo Handelsman et al.

Back page of Chapter 5
Council

Learning and memory require physical
changes in the neurons of the brain

Requires organizing and linking knowledge
for later retrieval

I will read some numbers, you remember
them
Word Position by % Recall
120%
100%
80%
60%
Word Position by % Recall
40%
20%
0%
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20




Patterning and organization
Concrete words and abstract words versus
nonsense words
Infection
Syphilis

Treponema pallidum

Visualization – metrics and real life

How do you create patterning in your teaching?
When we are
 Motivated
 Immersed
 Emotional



Types of Memory
Explicit or specific – facts or events (words
and events)
Implicit or perceptual – Skills, Sensory,
Emotive and Physical responses







cAMP (cyclic AMP) & responsive binding protein
(CREB)
Calcium
Corticosteroids
People learn better when there is something to
heighten the emotions – mild stress
People learn least well when the emotion is fear
When multiple neural pathways are created
What do you do to create an environment that
stimulates all areas of response?


True
False
False – memorization can
compartmentalize thinking


True
False
False – acclimatization,
inoculation, rote memory
 Misconceptions
 Preconceptions
 Metacognition
 Learning
Styles


True
False
False – page 42 of Chapter 5 –
A Private Universe



Share your discipline
Share a misconception students have in your
discipline
Share a method to change this
Primitive Brain controlling vital functions- think
vegetable
 Breathing
 Consciousness
 Heart Rate and Blood Pressure
 Relaying information
 Digestion
 Alertness
Center for movement control – think
repetitive skills
 Voluntary muscle movements
 Fine motor skills
 Maintaining balance, posture, and
equilibrium
Frontal
Lobe
The front of the brain –largest surface area
 Touch
 Vision
 Hearing
 Judgment
 Reasoning
 Problem solving
 Emotions
 Learning



Right side controls the left side of the body,
creativity and artistic abilities
Left cerebral hemisphere controls the right
side of the body, logic and rational thinking.
Lobes have different functions
◦ Frontal lobes are involved with personality, speech,
and motor development
◦ Temporal lobes are responsible for memory,
language and speech functions
◦ Parietal lobes are involved with sensation
◦ Occipital lobes are the primary vision centers
Frontal Lobe
Association,
personality
Broca’s speech
center
Temporal Lobe
Smelling and Hearing
Parietal Lobe
Speech and
Reading
Occipital Lobe
Visual

Assessments are actually a learning tool, but
provide a way to visualize that learning.

Students must be conscious and attentive to their
own learning strategies.


Addressing self-regulated learning is the primary
responsibility of the Academic Development and
Counseling departments.
Learning strategies that include working in
competitive learning teams, is more effective
than working in non-competitive teams.
Please link to the image of Kolb’s
learning cycle overlaid on the
anatomy of the brain called
“Learning through a virtuous
Learning Cycle” from Dr. James Zull,
Professor of Biology and
Biochemistry at Case Western
University, Director of UCITE (The
University Center for Innovation in
Teaching and Education), and
Professor of a Human Learning and
The Brain class.
Learning is physical. Learning means the
modification, growth, and pruning of our
neurons, connections–called synapses– and
neuronal networks, through experience.
Four stages of the Learning Cycle.
1) We have a Concrete experience,
2) We develop Reflective Observation and
Connections,
3) We generate Abstract hypothesis,
4) We then do Active testing of those
hypotheses, and therefore have a new
http://sharpbrains.wordpress.com/2006/10/12/an-ape-can-do-this-can-we-not/
Key conditions for learning and self perpetuating
the learning cycle:
self-regulated learning (SRL)
ownership/metacognition
deep learning – implicit
scaffolding
Key conditions for teaching:
realize the brain is a parallel processor – create an
environment – How do you do this in your class?
learning engages physiology – How do you create the
conditions for chemicals and multiple processing?
learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by fear
How do you do this in your class?
Create outcomes
Develop content
Embed metacognition activities
Create learning activities
Manage the environment
teamwork
Assessment – See article chapter 5 Appendix