Education Innovation

Presenting Sticky Ideas

Presenting Sticky Ideas

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Brain Rules: The Ultimate Guide To Brain Rules Ideas in Education

If John Medina, author of Brain Rules, ran your school it might look something like this.

Brain Rules for Presenters

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Teaching School
The school would be a combination of regular school, teacher preparation school, and a research school that combines educational theory with brain theory. Think of a teaching hospital. Teachers who are currently teaching, aspiring teachers learning and interacting daily with students and teachers, and educational researchers working with brain researchers to develop new teaching theory.

Great relationships between student and teachers
Great relationships enhance learning and reduce stress which decreases learning.

Students are taught to love learning
Students learn that learning is about intrinsic curiosity and desire. Students love to learn because they see the intrinsic value of it, and not to earn a grade.

Parallel schedules
Because some brains are more effective during different parts of the day, there would be two schedules to match the needs of teachers and students who work better early or late.

Exercise
Recess would be held twice a day. In the morning, 20-30 minutes of aerobic activity, followed later in the day with 20-30 of strength training and stretching. Students would wear gym clothes all day. Tread mills would be installed in classrooms to further increase opportunities for students to exercise while learning.

Small Class Sizes
Small class sizes allow teacher to better understand the inner motivation of their students, easily seeing if a student is engaged or confused and if the teaching is being transformed into learning. Teachers would think of themselves as managers of minds, and the fewer minds to manage the better.

Technology
Adaptive software that adjusts to the needs of each student would be used to better individualize and differentiate for student needs.

Lecture and Lesson Design (1)
The introduction is key. How the teacher introduces the material has a huge impact on learning. Lesson would be broken into 10-minute blocks, each of which focuses on a single subject or objective, the gist of which can be explained in 1 minute. In between each 10-minute block an Emotionally Competent Stimuli (ECS) will be place to grab the student’s attention by triggering emotion and make the subject matter relevant. During the lesson blocks, the teacher will provide a mental map of the lesson and will check with the students to ensure that they know where they have been and where they are going in the lesson.

Lecture and Lesson Design (2)
Lesson or lectures will be highly visual. Many photos and computer animations will be made use of. Lesson will be multi-sensory to the extent possible. Heavy use of real world examples will be used to help make meaningful connections.

Lesson Review
After lessons, students will be given time to talk and think about the learning. Reviews of material would be scheduled every 3-4 days. These reviews would be multi-sensory as well.

Teacher Evaluation
Teachers would be screened for their ability to manage minds, understand their students, and create brain focused lesson plans.

So there you have it. The ultimate guide to the Brain Rules school design.

For more info I suggest:

No Such Thing As Learning Styles

Tips and Techniques for Memory Enhancement

Working Memory Capacity, Encoding, and Retrieval from Long-Term Memory

Learning About Swimming Takes Place Best At A Pool: Brain Rules Part 8

The Golden Moment of Learning: Brain Rules Part 7

Great Teaching and Presentation with the Brain Rules Lesson Plan: Brain Rules Part 6

Are You Paying Attention? -- Brain Rules Part 5

Theory of Mind-- Brain Rules Part 4

Billions of Intelligences? --Brain Rules Part 3

Student and Teacher Relationships: Brain Rules Part 2

 Increase Test Scores with Exercise:Brain Rules Part 1

The Brain Rules Guide to School Design

If John Medina, author of Brain Rules, ran your school it might look something like this.

Teaching School
The school would be a combination of regular school, teacher preparation school, and a research school that combines educational theory with brain theory. Think of a teaching hospital. Teachers who are currently teaching, aspiring teachers learning and interacting daily with students and teachers, and educational researchers working with brain researchers to develop new teaching theory.

Great relationships between student and teachers
Great relationships enhance learning and reduce stress which decreases learning.

Students are taught to love learning
Students learn that learning is about intrinsic curiosity and desire. Students love to learn because they see the intrinsic value of it, and not to earn a grade.

Parallel schedules
Because some brains are more effective during different parts of the day, there would be two schedules to match the needs of teachers and students who work better early or late.

Exercise
Recess would be held twice a day. In the morning, 20-30 minutes of aerobic activity, followed later in the day with 20-30 of strength training and stretching. Students would wear gym clothes all day. Tread mills would be installed in classrooms to further increase opportunities for students to exercise while learning.

Small Class Sizes
Small class sizes allow teacher to better understand the inner motivation of their students, easily seeing if a student is engaged or confused and if the teaching is being transformed into learning. Teachers would think of themselves as managers of minds, and the fewer minds to manage the better.

Technology
Adaptive software that adjusts to the needs of each student would be used to better individualize and differentiate for student needs.

Lecture and Lesson Design (1)
The introduction is key. How the teacher introduces the material has a huge impact on learning. Lesson would be broken into 10-minute blocks, each of which focuses on a single subject or objective, the gist of which can be explained in 1 minute. In between each 10-minute block an Emotionally Competent Stimuli (ECS) will be place to grab the student’s attention by triggering emotion and make the subject matter relevant. During the lesson blocks, the teacher will provide a mental map of the lesson and will check with the students to ensure that they know where they have been and where they are going in the lesson.

Lecture and Lesson Design (2)
Lesson or lectures will be highly visual. Many photos and computer animations will be made use of. Lesson will be multi-sensory to the extent possible. Heavy use of real world examples will be used to help make meaningful connections.

Lesson Review
After lessons, students will be given time to talk and think about the learning. Reviews of material would be scheduled every 3-4 days. These reviews would be multi-sensory as well.

Teacher Evaluation
Teachers would be screened for their ability to manage minds, understand their students, and create brain focused lesson plans.

So there you have it. The ultimate guide to the Brain Rules school design.

For more info I suggest:

No Such Thing As Learning Styles

Tips and Techniques for Memory Enhancement

Working Memory Capacity, Encoding, and Retrieval from Long-Term Memory

Learning About Swimming Takes Place Best At A Pool: Brain Rules Part 8

The Golden Moment of Learning: Brain Rules Part 7

Great Teaching and Presentation with the Brain Rules Lesson Plan: Brain Rules Part 6

Are You Paying Attention? -- Brain Rules Part 5

Theory of Mind-- Brain Rules Part 4

Billions of Intelligences? --Brain Rules Part 3

Student and Teacher Relationships: Brain Rules Part 2

 Increase Test Scores with Exercise:Brain Rules Part 1

No Such Thing As Learning Styles

I an previous post (Billions of Intelligences? --Brain Rules Chapter 3)
I discussed developmental molecular biologist and research consultant John Medina's theory that types of intelligences are not limited to the 7 made famous by Howard Garndner. Further, intelligences are not limited to many others that have recently been described in the popular literature of education and business, i.e, Emotional, Social, etc.

According to Medina, there are in fact billions of intelligences. Each person having their own unique intelligence. As I previously wrote...

Okay, so we know Howard Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligences. Gardner believes that there are at least 7 categories of intelligence: intrapersonal, interpersonal, musical/rhythmic, bodily/kinesthetic, verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, and spatial. If you are good at one there is no way to tell if you will be good or bad at any of the others. So this is the view of the theorist.

The neurosurgeon has a theory too. Instead of 7 intelligences, the neurosurgeon believes in there may be billions. In other words, one intelligence for each person on the planet.

Several intelligences vs. Billions?  How does that impact education? Your lesson plans have to account for not just 7 intelligences or learning styles, but one for each of your students.

“…because on two brains are wired identically. Not in terms of structure. Not in terms of function. For example, from nouns to verbs to aspects of grammar, we each store language in different areas, recruiting different regions for different components. Bilingual people don’t even store their Spanish and their English in the similar places.”

In another previous post (Intelligences, Intelligences, and More Intelligences)
I wrote...

Intelligence is a buzzword these days. I came across this quote from Karl Albrecht in his new book Practical Intelligence.

“These ‘intelligences’ are now becoming increasingly familiar in the conversation of the popular culture. There is talk of ‘spiritual intelligence, ‘moral intelligence,’ and ‘emotional intelligence.’ In the business world it’s ‘executive intelligence’ and ‘organizational intelligence.’ In pop literature, there is ‘sexual intelligence.’ I suppose we’ll eventually hear about ‘financial intelligence,’ ‘real estate intelligence,’ and ‘gardening intelligence.’"  

Doug Belshaw posted this great video which explains that the theory or certain learning styles is most likely wrong, at least viewed from the cognitive psychology or neuroscience perspective. It is loaded with some very interesting examples. Please take a moment to watch. It is well worth it.
As Doug points out, "good  teaching is good teaching."

The Brain Rules School For Long Term Memory: Brain Rules Part 9

What do you get when you combine the brain, long-term memory, MTV, the Magna Carta, homework, school schedules, and grade level standards? Let's put them in the Education Innovation blender and find out.

More from Brain Rules by John Medina: Chapter 6 Long-Term Memory

We want our students to remember everything we teach them right. Of course, we do, but John explains that the process of transforming a memory into a one that can be remembered for years to come can take years to complete. This process is called System Consolidation, and it can take years to complete. So, maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself next time you ask your students a question and they can’t remember. It’s not you or them; it’s their brains’ fault.

John also explains that forgetting may actually be a good thing. Forgetting allows us to prioritize events that are essential to our survival. If it is not important, we make it less of a priority. We forget them. So, maybe you can’t blame a kid for forgetting the date the Magna Carta was signed. His or her brain may not consider that information important for survival. Knowing the names of every band on MTV’s TRL show maybe important to his or her survival. (His or her social peer group survival)

John puts forth some ideas for the school of the future that would help increase long-term memory.

The Brain Rules Schedule:
“In the school of the future, lessons are divided into 25-minute modules, cyclically repeated throughout the day. Subject A is taught for 25-minutes, constituting the first exposure. Ninety minutes later, the 25-minute content of subject A is repeated, and then a third time.”

All classes would follow such a schedule and classes would be extended into the summer to account for the necessary time required to follow such a schedule.

The Brain Rules Content Review Schedule:
“In the future school, every third or fourth day would be reserved for reviewing the facts delivered in the previous 72 to 96 hours. During these ‘review holidays,’ previous information would be presented in compressed fashion. Students would have the chance to inspect the notes they took during the initial exposures, comparing them with what the teacher was saying in the review.” 

The Brain Rules Homework Policy:
“It is quite possible that such models would eradicate the need for homework.” Why? Because homework, which serves to repeat exposure to content would not be necessary if the student is being re-exposed to the content in the school day.

The Brain Rules Grade Level Standards Changes:
“Today, students are expected to know certain things by certain grades. Curiously absent from this model is how durable that learning remains after the student completes the grade. Given that system consolidation can take years, might the ideas of grade-level expectations need amending? Perhaps learning in the long view should be thought of the same way one thinks of immune booster shots, with critical pieces of information being repeated on a yearly or semi-yearly basis.”

This is one are that John seems to me, to be off the mark in his assessment of education. In my experiences, critical ideas are re-visited through the grade levels in elementary school. Possibly junior and high schools need more re-visiting of important concepts.

Catalytic Questions:

Could you rearrange your school’s schedule to accommodate the Brain Rules school schedule idea?

Who would resist it? Who could assist you with it? Who would support it?

Do the Brain Rules ideas remind you of anything that you could draw on to adapt these ideas? Could you adapt part of these ideas?

In what ways could you modify these ideas to work for your classroom or school?

If you looked at the end result of these ideas, could you work backwards to develop a plan that would enable these goals to be reached in a manner suitable for your school?

In what ways are you already doing things that could be modified or adapted to the Brain Rules ideas?

What further information do you need to make these ideas a reality?

Based on the Brain Rules ideas, what activities are you currently doing that you should stop doing?

Are you mentally criticizing these ideas without giving them a chance to be thought through or explored?

Could one of these ideas serve as inspiration for something you are dissatisfied with?

Is there a role for technology in these ideas? If so, how might that look at your school?

Recommended Reading: 

Tips and Techniques for Memory Enhancement

Working Memory Capacity, Encoding, and Retrieval from Long-Term Memory

Learning About Swimming Takes Place Best At A Pool: Brain Rules Part 8

The Golden Moment of Learning: Brain Rules Part 7

Great Teaching and Presentation with the Brain Rules Lesson Plan: Brain Rules Part 6

Are You Paying Attention? -- Brain Rules Part 5

Theory of Mind-- Brain Rules Part 4

Billions of Inetelligences? --Brain Rules Part 3

Student and Teacher Relationships: Brain Rules Part 2

 Increase Test Scores with Exercise:Brain Rules Part 1

Learning About Swimming Takes Place Best At A Pool: Brain Rules Part 8

It’s all about encoding, elaborate, meaningful, and contextual encoding.

More from Chapter 5 of Brain Rules by John Medina.

“We know that information is remembered best when it is elaborate, meaningful, and contextual. The quality of the encoding stage—those earliest moments of learning—is one of the single greatest predictors of later learning success.”

The better quality of encoding, the more likely the student will be able to retrieve the information when he or she needs it. Think of the encoding as giving the information “tags.” The tags relate to content, timing, and environment. The better the tags, the more able to the student is to find the tagged information.

Make sure your students understand the information you are trying to drive into their heads, common sense of course. If your students don’t understand the information, rote memorization isn’t going to help. It is up to you to explain it clearly. Remember, elaborate, meaningful, and contextual.

Use lots of real world examples in your lessons. Real world examples make the learning meaningful. The more meaningful examples you can put in the lesson, the better the information will be remembered. Also, the more familiar or relevant the examples are to your students, the more meaningful it will be.

“Providing examples makes the information more elaborative, more complex, better encoded, and therefore better learned.”

First Impressions matter. In other words, how you introduce the information matters. Medina explains something he calls the timing principle.

“If you are a student, whether in business or education, the events that happen the first time you are exposed to a given information stream play a disproportionately greater role in your ability to accurately retrieve it at a latter date.”

So, how you set up your lesson and get into your lesson is very important. Starting with, “Class open your books to page…” is not exactly a great first start.

“If you are trying to get information across to someone, your ability to create a compelling introduction may be the most important single factor in the later success of your mission.”

Remember, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, or begin your lesson. Oh, you only have 3 minutes to sink the hook into your students.

Movie directors and public speakers all know the same fact, you lose or win your audience in the first 3 minutes of the movie or presentation. Teachers, you have 3 minutes to make the perfect first impression if you want to increase the learning.

Another interesting fact about the brain is the importance of retrieval taking place under the same conditions. Medina explains that a Spanish-speaking student trying to learn English would actually do better, based on language acquisition rates, at speaking on language in one room of their home, and the other language in another room of the house. I have often heard parents explain that they allow their children to speak Spanish at home and only speak English in public. The research seems to back up this practice.

Finally, teaching and learning about the subject in the place closest in context to the subject is another powerful tool. So, if a student were to learn about engine repair, it would be best to teach and test the student in the actual shop where the engine repair will occur. Want to teach about weather, go outside. I have always found this to be true when it comes to learning swimming. LOL

Great Teaching and Presentation with the Brain Rules Lesson Plan: Brain Rules Part 6

Guaranteed Good Teaching: The Brain Rules Lesson Plan

More from John Medina’s book, Brain Rules.

John describes his model for giving a lecture. This model would serve anyone who needs to teach information to learners.

Modules: Modules should be 10 minute long segments that cover a single core concept. The core concept is, “always large, always general, always filled with ‘gist,’ and always explainable in one minute.”

Thus, in a 50 minute lecture there would be 5 large concept modules covered.

The remaining 9 minutes in each module are used to, “provide a detailed description of that single general concept. The trick was to ensure that each detail could be easily traced back to the general concept with minimal intellectual effort.”

One should make sure to regularly take time out from the content being taught, “to explain the relationship between the detail and core concept in clear and explicit terms.”

After 10 minutes, you should be done with the core concept and ready for the next.

John explains that there is 3 reasons that he structured his lesson plan this way.

1. Knowing that the audience checks out 20% of the way through a presentation or lecture, you have about 600 seconds to get their attention and keep it. After 600 seconds, or 10 minutes, you need to do something to buy another 10 minutes.

2. Our brains process meaning before they process detail. Brains also like hierarchy, so staring with general concepts and then moving to, “explaining information in a hierarchical fashion.” John says, “You have to do the general idea first.”

3. The teacher or lecturer needs to front load the lecture plan at the beginning of the class or presentation and continue to point out to the students or audience where they are in the lesson. “This prevents the audience from trying to multitask. If the instructor presents concepts without telling the audience where the concept fits into the rest of the presentation, the audience is forces to simultaneously listen to instructor and attempt to divine where it fits into the rest of what the instructor is saying.”

In other words, you might force their brain into multitasking without intending to do so. And, as we have learned, the brain does not multitask attention.

So, you finish 9 minutes and 59 seconds in your general concept module. You filled it with great explanations of the relationship between the detail and the core concept in very explicit terms, and did so in a hierarchical fashion, with frequent “where are we” moments; now what?

You are about to lose your audience or class. You must quickly regain their attention. You shouldn’t give them more information. That would be overload. Don’t do something random that is not connected to the lesson that would just be confusing.

“The need something so compelling that they would blast through the 10 minute barrier and move on to new ground—something that triggers an orienting response toward the speaker and capture executive functions allowing efficient learning.”

You need an…

ECS—Emotionally Competent Stimuli—a.k.a- “The Hook”

And you need one every 10 minutes!

So what makes a great Emotionally Competent Stimuli (ECS)?  Three things.

1. Trigger and emotion: Fear, laughter, nostalgia, etc. A great story that is short and right to the point can be very powerful.

2. Make it relevant: “It couldn’t be just any story or anecdote.”  If it doesn’t’ relate to the lesson, people are going to be scratching their heads trying to figure out where you are going with it. Make it relate.

3. The hook or ECS goes between each module, at the beginning looking forward anticipating the lesson or material. Or place the hook at the end of a module looking backwards summarizing the information or material.

John found 2 interesting changes to his audiences when he started placing hooks in his lessons. “First they were still interested at the end of the first 10 minutes. Second, they seemed able to maintain their attention for another 10 minutes or so, as long as another hook was supplied at the end.”

The Brain Rules Lesson Plan—try it today!

Catalytic Questions:

How would ordering your lesson plan around the Brain Rules model change your content delivery? 

In what ways could you develop hooks (ECSs) that would be relevant to your content and purpose? Is there a resource that you could use?

How does the Brain Rules lesson plan fit with what you have seen in your own teaching and presenting?

How might this knowledge change your approach to your delivery?

Suggested Reading:
Brain Rules blog

Weblogg-ed blog

The Common Room blog

The Great Debate on the Multi-tasking Virus

My previous post Are You Paying Attention? -- Brain Rules Part
discussed the issue of the brain and it's ability to pay attention and how we can better hold our learners' attention.

I came across this post from one of my favorite blogs...

The multi-tasking virus

Nick quotes from an essay written for Tim Ferriss's blog, by Josh Waitzkin, the former chess champion who was the subject of the book and subsequent film Waiting for Bobby Fisher. He writes of his recent experience in returning to his alma mater, Columbia, and sitting in on a class taught by Dennis Dalton.

"Over the course of a riveting 75-minute discussion of the birth of Gandhian non-violent activism, I found myself becoming increasingly distressed as I watched students cruising Facebook, checking out the NY Times, editing photo collections, texting, reading People Magazine, shopping for jeans, dresses, sweaters, and shoes on Ebay, Urban Outfitters and J. Crew, reorganizing their social calendars, emailing on Gmail and AOL, playing solitaire, doing homework for other classes, chatting on AIM, and buying tickets on Expedia (I made a list because of my disbelief). From my perspective in the back of the room, while Dalton vividly described desperate Indian mothers throwing their children into a deep well to escape the barrage of bullets, I noticed that a girl in front of me was putting her credit card information into Urban Outfitters.com. She had finally found her shoes!

"When the class was over I rode the train home heartbroken, composing a letter to the students, which Dalton distributed the next day. Then I started investigating. Unfortunately, what I observed was not an isolated incident. Classrooms across America have been overrun by the multi-tasking virus. Teachers are bereft. This is the year that Facebook has taken residence in the national classroom. Students defend this trend by citing their generation’s enhanced ability to multi-task. Unfortunately, the human mind cannot, in fact, multi-task without drastically reducing the quality of our processing."

I found this very timely considering my previous post. However, the most interesting part of Nick's post is happening in the comments section. There is some great ideas being shared and a  wonderful debate about the quote. I do hope you will take a look

Are You Paying Attention? -- Brain Rules Part 5

The Brain Rules Lesson Plan—More from the book Brain Rules by John Medina.

Teachers have always know that the more attention a students pays to a given lesson the better the student will retain the information. The more attention a student pays to the information being learned in a given subject area, the better the learning. Attention = learning.

But, as teachers know, students’ attentions are fleeting. In a typical 50 minute lesson or lecture, after 10 to 15 minutes they have stopped listening. The same is true for the teachers during meetings. After 10 to 15 minutes, teachers have stopped listening to the presenter.

So the key, as well all know, it to find that hook or key that enables we educators to hold somebody’s attention for a given time, be it a lesson or staff development presentation. So where to find the hook or key?

“The messages that do grab your attention are connected to memory, interest, and awareness.”

Memory:
“What we pay attention to is often profoundly influenced by memory.”

John explains that the things a person living in the New Guinea jungle is going to be very different from the things that a person living in New York City is going to pay attention too. Each grew up being trained to pay attention to very different things, and if either person was to switch places with the other, they would have a very difficult time and perform very poorly on those things that need paying attention to.

Interest:
“Does interest create attention? We know that the brain continuously scans the sensory horizon, with events constantly assessed for their potential interest or importance. The more important the events are then given extra attention. Can the reverse occur, with attention creating interest?”

The answer is quite obviously yes. There is a reason companies spend millions developing commercials for the Super Bowl. Are you doing anything in your classroom your students don’t expect? Is there anything in your lesson that your students didn’t see coming?  Humor, unusual stories, strange connections, etc. all create high interest. The reason M. Night Shyamalan movies are so interesting is because you know there is a twist and you are watching and waiting for it. You are very interested in every detail of the plot. When it happens you remember and internalize. You learn!

Awareness:
The brain pays attention to visual stimuli. But, the brain is also capable of paying attention to bad smells or a loud noise. In addition, we pay quite a deal of attention to our inner feelings and emotions.

Idea: Emotions. Sweet emotion!

“Emotionally arousing events tend to be better remembered than neutral events.”

Emotions have a powerful effect on learning.

“An emotionally charged event (usually called and ECS, short for emotionally competent stimulus) is the best processed kind of external stimulus ever measured.”

Chip and Dan Heath in their great book Made to Stick, describe this breaking schema. When you break the schema of what people expect, they remember it. Think of the Volkswagen commercial where the guys are talking and then are suddenly hit by another car. You weren’t expecting that, so consequently, you pay attention and remember it. If it’s unusual, unpredictable, or distinctive in some way, you will pay attention.

When the brain detects and ECS, it produces dopamine into the system. The effect of this to create a Post-It note that reads “Wow, remember this!!” This is what every teacher hope for.

Idea: Teach meaning before detail

“Studies show that emotional arousal focuses attention on the ‘gist’ of an experience at the expense of peripheral details.”

“With the passage of time, our retrieval of gist always trumps our recall of details. This means our heads tend to be filled with generalized pictures of concepts or events, not with lowly fading minutiae.”

Let’s face it, much of our standardized testing focuses on knowing facts and minutiae. It’s much easier to test facts and minutiae than the gist of things. But is this what we should be focused on in the classroom?  It seems clear that we should want students to understand, master, and remember the concept. The facts and minutiae, if remembered, are a bonus but, great for Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy.

“Memory is enhanced by creating associations between concepts.”  “Words presented in a logically organized hierarchical structure are much better remembered than words placed randomly—typically 40 percent better.”

“If we can derive the meaning of words to one another, we can much more easily recall the details. Meaning before details.”

When I reflect back on some of my teaching, I know I was guilty of starting to quickly with the details before taking the time to develop the gist of the concept and making meaning out of the vocabulary before diving into the details. But a properly structured lesson will provide meaning first then follow with the details.

Idea: The brain cannot multi-task

“Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth. The brain naturally focuses on concepts sequentially, one at a time.”

You cannot multitask your attention. Students cannot multitask their attention. I know that “digital natives” are comfortable with multitasking, but according to John Medina, they are able to pay attention to all that is going on. Something is going to suffer. Each activity has it’s own needs and mental processes. Multiple mental processes cannot occur simultaneously and remain effective. Our students may want to do it, but it may not be what they should be doing. Let the debate rage!

Idea: The brain needs a break

“The most common communication mistakes? Relating too much information, with not enough time devoted to connecting the dots. This does nothing for the nourishment of the listeners, whose learning is often sacrificed in the name of expediency.”

Think time or wait time. We know we need to do it our classrooms, but the pressure to meet all the standards often prevents many teachers from taking the time to allow students to fully “connect the dots.”  Information that is brand new to our students or to us as individuals needs time to be mentally digested. To do this requires frequent breaks from the lecture.

Coming up: Brain Rule’s version of a lesson plan.

Catalytic Questions:

In what ways might you structure your lesson to hook emotions?

How might you gain your students’ attention by using emotion?

What shape would your lessons plans take if you provided meaning before details?

What impact would the knowledge that brains cannot multitask attention have on your classroom and lessons?

In what ways might you structure your current teaching to include frequent opportunities for students to take time to digest the information?

What impact would frequent breaks have on student learning and the pacing of your curriculum?

Suggested Reading:

Brain Rules Blog

Future Lab

Deric Bownds' MindBlog

Sharp Brains

Billions of Intelligences? --Brain Rules Chapter 3

More from Brain Rules by John Medina…Chapter 3 Wiring

Two theories from this chapter caught my attention. The first is called Brain Rule

The Brain Rule states, “Learning results in physical changes in the brain, and these changes are unique to each individual. Not even identical twins having identical experiences posses brains that wire themselves exactly the same way. And you can trace the whole thing to experience.”

Basically we have what I call Big Brain and Little Brain. The big brain is to use John’s analogy, sort of like our interstate highway system, freeways, and state highways.

“These big trunks are the same from one person to the next, functioning in yours about the same way they function in mine.”

The Little Brain is, to use another of John’s analogies, sort of like our residential streets, one-lane roads, and dirt roads. This is where Big Brain and Little Brain diverge. Little Brain is very individualistic.

“Every brain has a lot of these smaller paths, and in no two people are they identical. The individuality is seen at the level of the very small, but because we have so much of it, the very small amounts to a big deal.”

So already I am thinking about what this means for our students. But it gets more interesting.

“It is one thing to demonstrate that every brain is wired differently from every other brain. It is another to say that this affects intelligences.”

Okay, so we know Howard Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligences. Gardner believes that there are at least 7 categories of intelligence: intrapersonal, interpersonal, musical/rhythmic, bodily/kinesthetic, verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, and spatial. If you are good at one there is no way to tell if you will be good or bad at any of the others. So this is the view of the theorist.

The neurosurgeon has a theory too. Instead of 7 intelligences, the neurosurgeon believes in there may be billions. In other words, one intelligence for each person on the planet.

Several intelligences vs. Billions?  How does that impact education? Your lesson plans have to account for not just 7 intelligences or learning styles, but one for each of your students.

“…because on two brains are wired identically. Not in terms of structure. Not in terms of function. For example, from nouns to verbs to aspects of grammar, we each store language in different areas, recruiting different regions for different components. Bilingual people don’t even store their Spanish and their English in the similar places.”

Okay, so my brain is crunching the implications of this for education, and then comes this kicker.

“Not only are people’s brains individually wired, but those neurological differences can, at least in the case of language, predict performance.”

Let that sink in for a minute. Performance in language is already determined by the individual student’s brain?

Then John asks…

“Given these data, does it make any sense to have school systems that expect every brain to learn like every other?”

“The data offer powerful implications for how we should teach kids…”

1)    The current system if founded on a series of expectations that certain learning goals should be achieved by a certain age. Yet there is no reason to suspect that the brain pays attention to those expectations. Students of the same age show a great deal of intellectual variability.

2)    These differences can profoundly influence classroom performance. This has been tested. For example, about 10 percent of students do not have brains sufficiently wired to read at the age at which we expect them to read. Lockstep models based simply on age are guaranteed to create counterproductive mismatch to brain biology.

So, lots of problems, but does he offer any solutions. Actually he does. I will share John Medina’s ideas in my next post. (Or you can go out and get the book)

Also I will discuss the second theory John writes about in Chapter 3, the Theory of Mind.

Catalytic Questions:
What are the implications for education in moving from the Howard Gardner multiple intelligences theory to John Medina’s billions of individual intelligences?

What shape might this take in a classroom?

How would instructional materials need to change to meet the needs of each individual?

How could technology by used as tool to or lever to bring the instruction each individual needs?

If individuality of our brain requires individuality of instruction, how does this explain the results researched based strategies, Marzano’s strategies, thinking maps, etc.?

Suggested Reading:

Intelligences, Intelligences, and More Intelligences