Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Chapter 5 Classroom-Level Success Factors
The focus for this chapter is simple: it's not how much you do; it's what you do, and for how long.
The earlier chapters were looking at schools. This chapter focuses on the classsroom. It talked about the classroom-level SHARE factors.
*S tandards-Based Curriculum and Instruction.
*H ope Building.
*A trts, Athletics, and Advanced Placement.
*R etooling of the Operating System.
*E ngaging Instruction.
Standards-Based Curriulum and Instruction:
Alot of this information is what we already know as teachers. It talked about aligning curriculum and instruction with state standards. The action steps that they mentioned sounded alot like project based activities. It talked about creating plans which differentiate instruction,supplemennted by other forms of support that help students perform to the level of standards. It suggested breaking down standards to daily objectives. Using pre -assessments and adjusting your lesson plans as needed.
Hope Building:
Bottom line kids that are hopeful try harder, persist longer, and ultimately get better grades. Kids in poverty have a hard time feeling hopeful. We need to help them set goas and take self inventories. Biggest point " Hope changes brain chemistry, which influences the decisions we make and the actions we take. Hopefulness must be pervasive, and every single student should be able to feel it, see it, and hear it daily."
Arts, Athletics, and Advanced Placement:
"The arts and a challenging curriculum enhance essential learning skills and cognition, whearas sports, recess, and physical activity increases neurogenesis and reduce kid's chance for depression" That statement sums up the chapter. We need to challenge students and encourage them to get involved in extra curricular activities. There are a lot of studies that show that kids involved in these activities achiever higher.
Retooling of the Operating System:
The retooling mean giving students "upgrades" in memory, attention, processing speed, and sequencing skills (Shaywitz et al., 1998) as well as in perceptual-motor skills, suditory processing, voilition, and problem-solving skills.
Engaging Instruction:
Again this is someting I hope we all do. It reminded us how important it is to develop lesson plans that include our students interests. We need to take think about our audience not just the material when we are developing lessons.
The earlier chapters were looking at schools. This chapter focuses on the classsroom. It talked about the classroom-level SHARE factors.
*S tandards-Based Curriculum and Instruction.
*H ope Building.
*A trts, Athletics, and Advanced Placement.
*R etooling of the Operating System.
*E ngaging Instruction.
Standards-Based Curriulum and Instruction:
Alot of this information is what we already know as teachers. It talked about aligning curriculum and instruction with state standards. The action steps that they mentioned sounded alot like project based activities. It talked about creating plans which differentiate instruction,supplemennted by other forms of support that help students perform to the level of standards. It suggested breaking down standards to daily objectives. Using pre -assessments and adjusting your lesson plans as needed.
Hope Building:
Bottom line kids that are hopeful try harder, persist longer, and ultimately get better grades. Kids in poverty have a hard time feeling hopeful. We need to help them set goas and take self inventories. Biggest point " Hope changes brain chemistry, which influences the decisions we make and the actions we take. Hopefulness must be pervasive, and every single student should be able to feel it, see it, and hear it daily."
Arts, Athletics, and Advanced Placement:
"The arts and a challenging curriculum enhance essential learning skills and cognition, whearas sports, recess, and physical activity increases neurogenesis and reduce kid's chance for depression" That statement sums up the chapter. We need to challenge students and encourage them to get involved in extra curricular activities. There are a lot of studies that show that kids involved in these activities achiever higher.
Retooling of the Operating System:
The retooling mean giving students "upgrades" in memory, attention, processing speed, and sequencing skills (Shaywitz et al., 1998) as well as in perceptual-motor skills, suditory processing, voilition, and problem-solving skills.
Engaging Instruction:
Again this is someting I hope we all do. It reminded us how important it is to develop lesson plans that include our students interests. We need to take think about our audience not just the material when we are developing lessons.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Teaching with Poverty in Mind, Chapter 3
Chapter 3: Embracing the Mind-Set of Change
It's often heard that students born poor are destined for a certain kind of life. That is simply not true anymore. With new research into the brain and its functionality, new discoveries are being made about the possibilities of impoverished students.
Neuroplasticity and Gene Expression
"The most crucial concept to keep in mind when working with any population of underachieving school-age kids is this: brains can and do change." says Eric Jensen at the opening of this section. Different studies have collected evidence to support that brains can change, that new genes can be expressed based on our actions, and that the brain can even change size! All these studies have shown positive growth effects on the brain with such activities as playing music, language training, and video games. There are also studies that show negative effects on the brain and the loss of gray matter, like in a chronic pain situation. So we, as teachers, must find a way to limit the losing activities and heighten the gaining activities.
Changing IQ
IQ, one of the main pieces of evidence in determining a student's potential success, is actually a fluid measure, it can and does change with environment and care. Most of those environmental factors happen in early childhood, but some, like amount of schooling, are ongoing in life. Though we cannot effect how our students live at home, we can effect how they feel about school and whether they will stay in long enough to recieve the IQ benefits of schooling.
Fluid Intelligence
Sometimes, we tend to think that what happens in math class stays in math class, and that language arts is on the other end of the educational spectrum. But in fact, there are some skill sets that are beneficial to both, indeed, all curricula. Instead of creating a host of contextual and nontransferable skills in our own classes, we should be encouraging and engaging the fluid intelligence, the skills that are non-contextual and easily transferable to any field. Building this fluid intelligence is one of the keys to successfully changing the brain and setting the student up for success. Some websites to help with that are www. soakyourhead.com and http://www.lumosity.com/.
The Brain's Operating System
This section refers to the set of rules and regulations set up in the student's brain that governs their behavior, motivation, and ability at school. These things are a must in the system:
It's often heard that students born poor are destined for a certain kind of life. That is simply not true anymore. With new research into the brain and its functionality, new discoveries are being made about the possibilities of impoverished students.
Neuroplasticity and Gene Expression
"The most crucial concept to keep in mind when working with any population of underachieving school-age kids is this: brains can and do change." says Eric Jensen at the opening of this section. Different studies have collected evidence to support that brains can change, that new genes can be expressed based on our actions, and that the brain can even change size! All these studies have shown positive growth effects on the brain with such activities as playing music, language training, and video games. There are also studies that show negative effects on the brain and the loss of gray matter, like in a chronic pain situation. So we, as teachers, must find a way to limit the losing activities and heighten the gaining activities.
Changing IQ
IQ, one of the main pieces of evidence in determining a student's potential success, is actually a fluid measure, it can and does change with environment and care. Most of those environmental factors happen in early childhood, but some, like amount of schooling, are ongoing in life. Though we cannot effect how our students live at home, we can effect how they feel about school and whether they will stay in long enough to recieve the IQ benefits of schooling.
Fluid Intelligence
Sometimes, we tend to think that what happens in math class stays in math class, and that language arts is on the other end of the educational spectrum. But in fact, there are some skill sets that are beneficial to both, indeed, all curricula. Instead of creating a host of contextual and nontransferable skills in our own classes, we should be encouraging and engaging the fluid intelligence, the skills that are non-contextual and easily transferable to any field. Building this fluid intelligence is one of the keys to successfully changing the brain and setting the student up for success. Some websites to help with that are www. soakyourhead.com and http://www.lumosity.com/.
The Brain's Operating System
This section refers to the set of rules and regulations set up in the student's brain that governs their behavior, motivation, and ability at school. These things are a must in the system:
- The ability and motivation to defer gratification and make a sustained effort to meet long-term goals.
- Auditory, visual, and tactile processing skills.
- Attentional skills that enable the student to engage, focus, and disengage as needed.
- Short-term and working memory capacity.
- Sequencing skills (knowing the order of a process).
- A champion's mind-set and confidence.
These skills are necessary for studying, paying attention, succeeding in the classroom, and generalizing to the outside world. But our low-SES students' brains are not here yet. "Most low-SES kids' brains have adapted to survive their circumstances, not to get As in school. ... It's up to us to upgrade their operating systems - or see a downgrade in their performance." (pg. 57, TWPIM)
Educational Intervention and Long-Term Enrichment
The book supports early childhood education as a way to improve the brain's functioning, the earlier the better. Pre-K programs and afterschool programs for K-5 are usually the most effective way of changing the brain for the better. However, one study that the book mentions, Williams et al., 2002, was a study done on middle school students. "Teachers were trained to deliver a program emphasizing five sources of metacognitive awareness: knowing why, knowing self, knowing differences, knowing process, and revisiting." After this program was implemented, the students showed increased outcomes in reading, writing, homework, and test taking.
Action Steps
They way to approach these ideas is with a plan for action. All the research in the world won't give you a plan, it'll just support an effective plan if it's designed. So here's how schools can get started:
- Change staff members' mind-sets so they are more positive and open to change
- Invest in the staff so that they feel included, supported, challenged and nurtured
- Support on-going collaboration between staff and team members
- Encourage staff dialogue of success stories
- Gather quality data of processing and sequencing as well as memory and attention
What NOT to do:
- Focus only on the basics (drill and kill)
- Maintain order through show of force
- Eliminate or reduce time for arts, sports, and physical education
- Increase classroom discipline
- decrease interaction among students
- Install metal detectors
- Deliver more heavy lectures
This chapter ends with the line, "The first prerequisite for change is your belief in it - and your willingness to change yourself first."
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
A Whole New Mind - Chapter 1
What is the human brain but "the [single] most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe," declared James Watson, a former Nobel Prize recipient, and it is in this mindset that the reader begins to explore Daniel H. Pink's A Whole New Mind as if they were a cosmonaut on a V-2 rocket being launched blindly into outer space. In chapter one, "Right Brain Rising," the reader is introduced to a very rudimentary understanding of the cerebral hemispheres. Additionally, the author provides some preliminary evidence as to the differences between the two hemispheres that he then uses to hypothesize a current changing trend in human thinking.
According to the book, the cerebral hemispheres are divided into two haves that we call the "left hemisphere" and the "right hemisphere." These two haves look very much the same, but their purpose and differences have been baffling scientist for decades. Pink goes on to discuss how these views have changed over time from the 1800s, when scientists believed that the left hemisphere is what made us truly human, to the 1900s, when scientists began to decipher that the left hemisphere seemed to play a large role in reasoning, analysis, and the handling of language. On the other hand, scientists of the more recent decades no longer believed that the right hemisphere was worthless, like their more barbaric forefathers; instead, they discovered that the right hemisphere reasoned more holistically and assisted in pattern recognition.
It is in this later research that Pink is continuing to push the boundaries of what we know about the human brain. He is working with the National Institute of Mental Health to further the understanding of how the brain works using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This new method using MRIs to capture the brain in action as participants perform different levels of mental tasks. Because of this and other research, Mr. Pink believes that we know the following about the brain's hemispheres:
According to the book, the cerebral hemispheres are divided into two haves that we call the "left hemisphere" and the "right hemisphere." These two haves look very much the same, but their purpose and differences have been baffling scientist for decades. Pink goes on to discuss how these views have changed over time from the 1800s, when scientists believed that the left hemisphere is what made us truly human, to the 1900s, when scientists began to decipher that the left hemisphere seemed to play a large role in reasoning, analysis, and the handling of language. On the other hand, scientists of the more recent decades no longer believed that the right hemisphere was worthless, like their more barbaric forefathers; instead, they discovered that the right hemisphere reasoned more holistically and assisted in pattern recognition.
It is in this later research that Pink is continuing to push the boundaries of what we know about the human brain. He is working with the National Institute of Mental Health to further the understanding of how the brain works using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This new method using MRIs to capture the brain in action as participants perform different levels of mental tasks. Because of this and other research, Mr. Pink believes that we know the following about the brain's hemispheres:
- The left hemisphere controls the right side of the body; the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body.
- The left hemisphere is sequential; the right hemisphere is simultaneous.
- The left hemisphere specializes in text; the right hemisphere specializes in context.
- The left hemisphere analyzes the details; the right hemisphere synthesizes the big picture.
While these assertions seem fairly conservative, Pink begins to make a more liberal hypothesis towards the end of the chapter in a section titled "A Whole New Mind." In this section, he proposes that current trends in our more globalized, techno, rapid-evolving society will tend to reward those that have more right hemisphere directed thinking. He says that this is in direct opposition to the past that has traditionally favored those individuals who thought with a more analytical left hemisphere approach.
As of the end of the chapter, the reader is left unsure of this rather boastful understanding of societal needs in specific left- or right- brained individuals. It seems all a bit sci-fi and one is left with a fear that by the end of the book there may be a lack of proof to pin down this seemingly straightforward statement. The reader can only hope that they won't end up like poor Albert II on this space mission and end up with a parachute failure on landing.
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