English Village Presentation

Professor Terry Doyle

Ferris State University
Slides available for download at:

www.learnercenteredteaching.com

English Village Presentation

 Basic Principle of all Teaching

It is the one who does

the work who does the
learning
 Learning is when Neurons Wire

• Learning is a change
in the neuron-
patterns of the
brain.
(Ratey, 2002)

www.virtualgalen.com/.../ neurons-small.jpg
 Dendrite Growth
• With in 20 minutes
brain cells begin to
grow new cellular
material when new
material is being
introduced
(Dr. Janet Zardina, 2010)
 Use it or Lose it
• When new material is
not practiced the new
dendrite tissue is
reabsorbed to conserve
resources.

• (Dr. Janet Zardina, 2010)

 Learning Activates the Brain’s
Reward Pathways
• Real life, meaningful,
and authentic learning
activates the reward
pathways in the brain

• It is these pathways that

keeps us alive

(Dr. Janet Zardina, 2010)

 Part One

The Human Brain

 The Human Brain
• The human brain weighs three (3) pounds but
uses 20-25% of the bodies energy
 The Human Brain
• The human brain has 100 billion neurons
(It does grow thousands of new cells daily)

www.enchantedlearning.com/.../gifs/Neuron.GIF
 The Human Brain

These 100 billion neurons

are capable of making
40,000,000,000,000,000
(Forty quadrillion connections )

(James Ratey, Users Guide to the

Brain)

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 The Brain and Learning
• The human brain was
designed to solve
problems of survival in
outdoor, unstable
environments while in
almost constant
motion.
( Dr. John Medina, Developmental Molecular
Biologist, University of Washington and Author
of Brain Rules)
 The Brain and Learning
• “If educators had set
out to design a learning
environment that was in
complete opposition to
what the human brain is
good at they would
have designed the
schools of yesterday
and today.”
(John Medina, Brain Rules, 2008)
Twelve Things We Know for sure about the
Human Brain
1. Exercise
significantly
enhances brain
function
 Exercise and Learning
• Exercise is the single
most important thing a
person can do to
improve their learning.

(John Ratey, 2008, Spark, The

Revolutionary New Science of
Exercise and the Brain)
 Exercise and Learning

• Exercise influences
learning directly, at
the cellular level,
improving the brain’s
potential to log in
and process new
information.
• Ratey, p35
 Newest Findings

• Exercise increases
production of
neurotransmitters that help:
1.Focus and attention
2.Motivation
3. Patience
4. Mood (more optimistic)

(Ratey, 2008)
 Exercise and BDNF
(Brain-derived neurotrophic factor )

Exercise produces BDNF

( Miracle Grow for the Brain)

(Ratey, 2008)
 BDNF
• Improves brain health

• Enhances the wiring of

neurons

• Is a stress inoculator

• Makes the brain cells

more resilient
 BDNF and Synapses
BDNF gives synapses
the tools they need to:
• Take in
• Process
Information
• Associate
• Remember
• Put in context
 BDNF and Exercise
• “In particular BDNF seems to be important for
long term memories” (John Ratey, 2008)
 Exercise Reduces Bad Behavior
• Exercise produces the neuro-
chemicals that aid the brain
in self control

• Studies show dramatic

declines (66%) in
suspensions and discipline
referrals in U.S. public
schools involved in test
studies
(Ratey,p.14)
 Exercise and Brain Pathologies
Exercise reduces
significantly the
potential for the brain
to succumb to certain
pathologies

• 1. Alzheimers 50%
• 2. Dementia 60%
• 3. Depression 70%
(Dr. John Medina, Brain Rules, 2008)
 The Brain is Social
2. Survival is accomplished
by working with other
brains

Groups of brains almost

always outperform a
single brain
 Brains are Wired Differently
3. All brains are
wired differently

Our experiences
make us different
 Attention and Learning
4. The brain can
only pay
attention to one
thing at a time
 Multitasking Slows Learning
• It is not possible to
multitask when it
comes to activities
that require the
brain’s attention
 Multitasking
•Our brain works hard to fool
us into thinking it can do more
than one thing at a time. It
can’t.

• When trying to do two things

at once, the brain temporarily
shuts down one task while
trying to do the other.
(3 Dux, P. E., Ivanoff, J., Asplund, C. LO., and Marois, R. 2007. )
 Memory
5 +6.
Memory

Repetition over time

and elaboration are
necessary for
memory formation
and recall
 Listen to the Music
• Do you know the lyrics to
songs that you did not try to
learn and do not want to
know the lyrics to?

YES
 Practice over Time
• Practice, Use ,
Repetition, Review,
Reflection or any other
way we engage with
new learning over time
is a major key to its
recall
 Sleep and Memory
• . "Periods of slow-wave sleep are very long
and produce a recall and probably
amplification of memory traces. Ensuing
episodes of REM sleep, which are very short,
trigger the expression of genes to store what
was processed during slow-wave sleep."
• Sidarta Ribeiro, Duke University, 2004
 Sleep and Memory
• The MRI scans are showing us that brain regions shift
dramatically during sleep,“

• "When you're asleep, it seems as though you are

shifting memory to more efficient storage regions
within the brain. Consequently, when you awaken,
memory tasks can be performed both more quickly and
accurately and with less stress and anxiety."

• Matthew Walker, PhD, director of BIDMC's Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory and Assistant
Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School,
 Memories are Reconstructed
• The more senses used
in learning and in
practicing what has
been learned
( seeing, hearing, touch,
taste and smell) the
more pathways are
available for
reconstruction
(recall)
 Elaborations are the Key

• ” For better or worse, our recollections are largely at the

mercy of our elaborations” (Daniel Schacter author of the Seven Sins
of Memory)
 Keeping Memories
• The best way to minimize memory decay is to use
elaborative rehearsal strategies—

• Visualizing
• Singing
• Writing
• Semantic Mapping
• Drawing Pictures
• Symbolizing
• Mnemonics.
 Emotions and Memory
• Research shows
learners recall
information that is
emotional more easily
than information that is
factual or neutral in
nature. (Zull, 2002)
 Emotion and Memory

• Emotional arousal organizes and coordinates

brain activity (Bloom, Beal & Kupfer 2003)

• When the amygdala detects emotions, it

essentially boosts activity in the areas of the
brain that form memories (S. Hamann & Emony, UN.)
 Stress

8. Stress

Stress
diminishes/
harms brain
function
 Competition and Learning
• When students compete for rewards
(or to avoid punishment)
on tasks that require real cognitive
functioning- (not rote recall or mechanical skill
use) competition greatly reduces success.

(Daniel Pink, TED, 2006

 Multiple Senses
9. The brain works
best when
multiple senses
are involved
 We Use all our Senses

• The traditional belief among neuroscientists has been that the

five senses operate largely as independent systems.

• However, mounting data suggest interactions between vision,

hearing, smell, touch and taste are the rule, rather than the
exception, when it comes to how the human brain processes
sensory information and thus perceives things.
Aaron Seitz – Journal Current Biology, 2006
 Vision Trumps All
10. Vision trumps all other senses
 Vision Trumps All
• The more visual the
input becomes the
more likely it is to be
recognized and recalled

• This is called the

Pictorial Superiority
Effect
 Vision Trumps All
• Text and oral
presentations are not
just less efficient than
pictures for retaining
information they are
way less efficient
(Brain Rules p.234)
 Vision Trumps All
• Humans pay a lot of attention to the size
of things and to things in motion.
Men’s and Women’s Brains are Different
11. There are
differences in the brains
of men and women
 The Brain was Designed to Learn
12. The brain was meant to explore and learn
 The Brain’s Needs
The brain needs to
function effectively:
• 1. Exercise
• 2. Sleep
• 3. Oxygen
• 4. Hydration
• 5. Food (glucose)
Patterns and Learning
• Which of the following
slides is easier to
remember and WHY?
 SLIDE ONE

 4915802979
 Slide Two

(491) 580-2979
 Slide One

NRAFBINBCUSAMTV
 Slide Two

NRA NBC FBI USA MTV

 Patterns and Learning
• The brain is a pattern seeking device that
relates whole concepts to one another and
looks for similarities, differences, or
relationships between them.” (Ratey, 2002, pg.5)

Sociology Psychology
 Patterns that Aid Learning--
Mapping

www.noticebored.com/assets/images/NB_inductio...
www.eyezberg.com/.../bline_charts.png
 Similarity and Difference

The most common pattern used in schools is

similarity and difference.
 Information Learned in a Complete Pattern

• When information is learned as part of a whole (a complete

pattern) it becomes easier to recall.

Zull’s Natural
Learning Cycle
Example-- Baseball

• Who are the two

players that play in front
of the Right Fielder?
Patterns and Learning
 Teaching English
• Focus on the goal of teaching that each letter
represents a phoneme

• Each letter or group of letters corresponds to a

phoneme—this must be explicitly taught. The
child's brain does not automatically extract
these correspondence by just seeing words
 Logical Order
• Children must be taught that each letter can
be pronounced in one of several ways.

• Because English ( especially spelling ) is

complex there must be a logical order to the
introduction of letters and letter combinations
 Start Simple
• Start with “t” “K” and “a”

• Less frequent ones like “b” “m” and “f”

• Irregular ones like “I” and “o”

• Complex ones like “un” “ch” “ough”

 Reading English
• Students need to know that letter unfold in
fixed order—left to right with no gaps and that
they will need to attend to the
subcomponents

• This must be explicitly taught

 Teaching English
• A few cautions
• 1. Bringing attention to global contours of
words is useless
• 2. Bringing attention to the ascending or
descending letter pattern is not very helpful
• Books with too many illustrations can be
distracting from the task of learning the
sounds of the letters
 Cautions
• Posters in classrooms where the words appear
in the same places allow some children to
memorize the fixed position of the words
without learning the sounds—it gives the
illusion that they have learned how to read.
 References
Bjork, R. A. (1994) Memory and Metamemory consideration in the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe & A.
Shimamura

(Eds) Metacognition: Knowing about Knowing pp. 185-205. Cambridge, MA MIT Press.
Bloom, Benjamin S. (Ed). (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The
classification of Educational Goals. Handbook I. Cognitive Domain (pp. 201-207). New York: McKay.

Caine, Renate; Caine, Geoffrey. Education on The Edge of Possibility. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development, 1997.

Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York, NY, Grosset/Putnam

Diamond, Marion. (1988). Enriching Heredity: The Impact of the Environment on the Brain. New York, NY: Free
Press.

Damasio AR: Fundamental Feelings. Nature 413:781, 2001.

.D. O. Hebb,1949 monograph, The Organization of Behavior

Dweck, Carol. Mindset The New Psychology of Success, 2006 random House, NY
 References
Medina, John, Brain Rules, Pear Press, 2008

Sylwester, R. A Celebration of Neurons An Educator’s Guide to the Human Brain, ASCD:1995

Sprenger, M. Learning and Memory The Brain in Action by, ASCD, 1999

.How People Learn by National Research Council editor John Bransford, National Research Council, 2000

Goldberg, E. The Executive Brain Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind ,Oxford University Press: 2001

Ratey, J. MD. Spark: The New Science of Exercise and the Brain, 2008, Little Brown

Ratey, J. MD :A User’s Guide to the Brain, Pantheon Books: New York, 2001

Zull, James. The Art of Changing the Brain.2002, Stylus: Virginia

Weimer, Maryellen. Learner-Centered Teaching. Jossey-Bass, 2002

Sousa, David. How the Brain Learns(Corwin Press, Inc., 1998),

Long-Lasting Novelty-Induced Neuronal Reverberation during Slow-Wave Sleep in Multiple Forebrain Areas Sidarta Ribeiro,Damien Gervasoni,
Ernesto S. Soares, Yi Zhou, Shih-Chieh Lin, Janaina Pantoja, Michael Lavine, Miguel A. L. Nicolelis , 2004

(Foerde, K., Knowlton, Barbara J., and Poldrack, Russell A. 2006. Modulation of competing memory systems by distraction. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 103:
11778-11783.)
3 Dux, P. E., Ivanoff, J., Asplund, C. LO., and Marois, R. 2007. Isolation of a Central Bottleneck of Information Processing with Time-Resolved fMRI.
Neuron. 52 (6): 1109-1120
The End