How to Use Brain-Based Strategies

Why are we dismayed when students rebel when forced to be cookie-cutter kids? Why do we continue to support an industrialist approach of teaching that focuses on all students shooting out the end of the machine in programmed fashion, ready and willing to be workers in the factories our society uses to perpetuate a consumer lifestyle? Why do we not focus on identifying the strengths in each child and then guiding them toward initiatives that will allow them to become the people they were meant to be instead of who we think they should be? Why do we continue to use approaches that extinguish their natural love of learning?

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. We pay a high price when our school system punishes students because they learn differently. from the method a teacher has chosen to employ. We label those who do not conform to our idea of how students should learn instead of allowing them to use their strengths in the learning process.
   
   “You could do better if you tried.”
   “You just don’t care.”
   “You’re just lazy.”
2. Each child’s mind is wired differently and brain-antagonistic approaches are not paying attention to these unique abilities. Children who ask questions are punished and labeled as defiant. Children who need physical movement to process ideas are labeled as hyperactive and given medication to keep them still so they won’t disrupt the lesson. Children who have reading problems or who process language differently fall through the cracks because legislature requires schools to focus on completing an established curriculum instead of focusing on the needs of each student. Children are labeled as behavior problems and expelled from school because they are not allowed to be responsible for their own learning; to learn how to learn, to learn at their own pace, and to learn things that are of interest to them.
3. Our society no longer needs children to be molded into factory workers. We need children who understand themselves, who understand how they learn, who know how to learn and how to think. We need to coach our students to come up with new ideas that will keep them afloat when faced with the barrage of constant changes in their fast-paced world.
4. Our goal as teachers in a brain-based learning approach is one of coaches, committed to make the following adjustments from brain-antagonistic teaching:
   From:
   teacher led to student exploration
   separate subjects to interdisciplinary projects
   rote memorization to application of knowledge
5. external motivation (grades) to intrinsic motivation
   grouped by age to grouped by readiness
   whole-class learning to independent study opportunities and peer-work
   individual competition to cooperation
   dependent learners to interdependent learners
   autocratic rules to rules set by all the participants
   drudgery to love of learning
   mere academic enrichment to educating the whole person
6. There are 12 basic principles involved in teaching with the brain in mind.
   1. Uniqueness is the rule:
   Students share 99.5% of the same DNA, but each brain in unique because of unique life experiences.
   2. Reward Dependency:
   Our brain is designed to be highly responsive to biochemical rewards and drugs are only one example.
   3. Susceptibility & opportunity:
   Our brain has sensitive periods with enhanced chances for risk and gain. They are 0-5 and 12-17.
   4. Attentional & Input Limitations:
   Our brain is designed to limit the quantity of new input per minute, tour, and day.
   5. Adaptive & Changing:
   Our brains are not static or fixed. They are constantly changing in over a dozen ways.
   6. Rouge Drafts:
   Our brain rarely gets it right the 1st time. Instead, we make sketchy rough drafts of new learning.
   7. Memory-maker:
   Every perception, sensation and conclusion is usually associated with another related experience. This may create meaning. When that doesn’t happen, we often seek it (psychics, books, confession, talk shows, etc.)
   8. Environments Matter:
   Strong scientific evidence suggests that environments not only directly influence our brain, but also can trigger gene expression.
   9. Prediction is key:
   Prediction ot only fosters survival of our species, but it serves as a strategy for affiliation, resource acquisition and stress management.
   10. Malleable memories:
   This principle reminds us that our memories are a process, not a fixed thing. Memories can and are often altered or lost.

Tips & Warnings

• No student needs to fail. All students can learn. As teachers, we have an obligation to our students to identify their learning process and help them learn by using the strategies that work for them. We can no longer afford to have our students conform to the way WE learn; we must set them free to be who THEY are.