Welcome to Brain Compatible Strategies Day 2 Facilitated by Stacy Brady and Judy Cichoracki

What’s in it for me? Understand how the brain stores and retrieves information to help guide you to make more informed instructional decisions Prepare your students better for tests Learn how to help students remember things taught from one day to the next Discover the importance of meaning and sense making to the learning process

Objectives Day 2: Describe how the brain stores and retrieves information Explain how emotional state can effect learning Relate why helping students to create meaning and sense out of new information is important to their learning Modify or create lessons using brain compatible strategies Collaborate with other teachers regarding brain compatible strategies

Review Using your “First Word” from yesterday, try to remember the phrases, sentences or ideas associated with the words: B R A I N C E L L

Memory and Recall It is better to think of memory as a process rather than a fixed thing or location Multiple memory locations and systems are responsible for our best learning and recall Advantageous due to the “spread the risk” factor

Memory... Is the way we store and recall things we sense through our senses We store data from our senses for a fraction of a second in the cortex. Data that catches our attention or data that we need again soon goes into short term memory.

Short Term  Long Term Memory Short term memory is small, holding only about 7 chunks of info for adults. It is very short, storing info for less than one minute. Information that can help us in the future goes into long term memory where it can last forever.

Getting information into Long term Memory Step 1 Encoding The brain breaks a piece of information to be stored in its memory into its component parts to establish meaning. The brain also stores the context around which the information was learned. Example, the brain might encode the phrase "delicious apple" with key descriptive ideas — red color, sweet taste, round shape, the crisp sound of a bite — and then such contextual items as '"I'm feeling good because it's a happy fall day and I'm picking apples."

Getting information into Long term Memory Step 2: Storage As the brain stores the memory, it attaches it to other related memories, like "similar to Granny Smith apples but sweeter," and thus, merges the new concept with older memories. In addition, when the brain stores a memory such as “delicious apple”, temporary links or pathways are created, for example, "red" gets stored in the visual area and the sound of a bitten apple gets stored in the auditory area.

Getting information into Long term Memory Step 3: Retrieval When the brain goes to retrieve the new memory, all the links or pathways are gathered together at the hippocampus in the brain. This is rehearsed by the brain several times to strengthen and stabilize the links or pathways. Once the memory is strengthened enough, the hippocampus of the brain is no longer needed to gather all the associated pathways or links. This is when the information becomes part of the long term memory.

Processing time With a partner/group create a picture of how the brain takes information and stores it into long term memory (The brain remembers images better than words so use images as much as possible)

Emotions and Learning-positive When academic content is related to a pleasant experience we make a pleasant association. When we are in a similar position, the brain remembers the pleasant feeling and opens the mental gate to learn more.

Emotions and Learning-Negative The brain will close down the gate to learning more about a subject if it is associated with fear or anger.

Matching Emotions Remembering is easier when the emotional state at retrieval matches the emotional state at encoding Therefore, your chances of remembering an event or fact are greater if you evoke the emotional state you were in at the time of experiencing the event or learning the fact.

Emotions and Learning Implications for teachers: If re-teaching, using smaller chunks, etc… isn’t working with a particular student, focus on that student’s emotional feelings about the content. It is difficult for concepts to override an emotion. Review for exams in a variety of ways, including methods that might increase a student’s stress level so that their emotional state during the review matches their emotional state during the exam

Personal reflection Think back to something you struggled to learn. What was your emotional state when you were trying to learn it? How do you think that effected your success?

Storage Brain stores info by identifying patterns in it. The brain searches for background against which it can comprehend the new knowledge. Anything familiar will serve as a connection from smells, to relationships, to patterns If the brain finds nothing to connect it with, it abandons the new info

Moderate To High Very Low Very High Moderate To High MEANING PRESENT?MEANING PRESENT? Sense Present ? Probability of being Stored in Memory Discuss at your table: What does this chart mean for teachers?

Creating Meaning in New Learning Modeling Accurately & unambiguously highlight the critical points Using examples from students’ experience –Brings prior knowledge into working memory which promotes making sense and attaching meaning. –It is important that the examples are clearly relevant to the new learning – should be planned in advance.

Using Closure to Enhance Sense & Meaning It is during closure that a student often completes the rehearsal process and attaches sense and meaning to the new learning. Closure is different from Review: The student does most of the work by mentally rehearsing and summarizing the concepts and deciding whether they make sense and have meaning.

Using Closure to Enhance Sense & Meaning Closure can occur at various times: –It can start a lesson – think about two causes of WWII that we studied yesterday and be prepared to discuss them…. –It can occur during a lesson – Complete this problem on area before we move on to finding the volume… –It should also take place at the end – to tie the entire lesson together…

Personal Reflection time In your own words: 1)Describe why closure is a good example of how to create meaning and sense in a lesson. 2)Describe the type of closure you currently use. 3)How might the previous information impact your teaching practice?

Practical suggestions 1)Activate memories with rhymes, visualization, peg words, music, mnemonics, and discussion 2)Space learning with pauses for reflection and processing 3)Chunk information 4)To learn definition, create an action picture that tie words together 5)Graphic organizers 6)Place important material first and last (open and close with the 3 most important things of the day)

Practical suggestions continued 7) Have students draw out, organize, or symbolize key points on poster paper and leave it up on the wall 8) Peer teaching and sharing 9) Include cliffhangers 10) Remind students they can do the task 11) Learn different concepts in different locations so that each location is a key to the content 12)Embed emotion in learning 13) Use flashcards for automated learning

Personal Applications Review the list of practical applications. Which strategy(ies) do you already use? Which could you see yourself using next year?