2. What do I know about my brain?
Answer True or False
The brain learns best by reciting and repeating information.
2. The brain is largely a finished product by age 12.
3. During adolescence, the brain is becoming more efficient, but it is also losing some of its potential for learning.
4. The teen brain responds to stimuli differently than the adult brain.
5. Hormonal changes are responsible for teens’ emotional outbursts.

3. 6. We notice depression and mental illnesses more during the teen years because teens have more feelings.
7. The teen brain reacts in the same way to emotional threat as it does to physical threat.
The average teen needs more than 9 hours of sleep every night.
The reason teens struggle to get up in the morning is because they don’t go to bed until late at night.
10. The teen brain should stop every 15 minutes to process new information.

4. Learning Is
Connecting

5. How are teen brains different?

6. Neural Pruning Use it or lose it!
Starts in the womb when neurons over populate
Neural pruning ends around age 3
Like pruning a tree; the strong survive
Scientists see this happening again around 11
More neural pruning…over half by age 15
Use it or lose it!

8. What fires together wires together.
Stop!
List what you do in a day.
Create a pie chart.
Divide up sleeping, reading, writing, studying, playing an instrument, playing a sport, listening to music, working, TV, movies and video games.
How are you wired?
What fires together wires together.

9. What’s happening with my emotions?
Information is processed differently
Rely on amygdala rather than frontal lobes
React, don’t process
Fewer executive functions-motivation, planning
Rapid changes in dopamine levels
Face studies
From driving to drugs…
… risky business

12. What emotion is this woman expressing?

13. The teen brain responds differently to the outside world.
100 % of adults identified fear.
Fewer than 50% teens saw fear
Teens saw sadness, confusion, anger and shock
Teens read visual cues differently
Boys were more impulsive
The teen brain responds differently to the outside world.

14. Too much emotion… Produces adrenaline Produces cortisol-stress hormone
Energy is re-directed—fight or flight
Difficult to think and remember
Brain can not differentiate between emotional and physical danger
If rejected, takes 32x before you feel safe

15. Stop! Think about…. a time when you or someone you know over-reacted in a situation. How could you hav Share with your neighbor

16. During adolescence mental illness can surface…
In the 10th grade, 64% of boys and 89% of girls report being concerned about a friend who is depressed.
Higher percentage of depressed teens used drugs and alcohol
Schizophrenia is thought to be
triggered during neural pruning

17. Research has shown that…
Writing about a problem helps rid our minds of upsetting thoughts and thus improves our ability to maintain and process information—
memory and learning

18. We need our sleep... Our brains review and sort material
while sleeping
Information is stored and discarded
Rats reconstructed their days in their dreams
Studies have shown sleepers perform better
Teens need 9.25 hours of sleep; most get 7.5
Melatonin levels differ

19. How does the teen brain learn best?
Scientists saw more activity in the Cerebellum—physical coordination
Use movement
Use emotion
Take brain breaks
20 minute maximum attention span
Review 10, 24 and 7
Pause, reflect, discuss, connect…
Know your memory

23. Puzzles Prime the Brain for Problem Solving When encountering a mental block, take a brain break and focus on a puzzle or word game. Puzzles, word games and brain teasers stimulate activity in the frontal lobe and right hemisphere, making neural connections more flexible for future problem solving.

24. Mind Mapping Mimics how our brains work
Uses BOTH left and right hemispheres
Visual
Spacial
Kinesthetic
Shows
Connections
Relationships
Associations

26. Ideas that “struck” you
Ticket Out the Door
Ideas that “struck” you
Questions you still have
Thoughts, connections or suggestions