I deliberately searched for information that would help me understand the teenage mind after reading the article by Professor M.S.Rao, which I used for my first piece of literature.
He wrote about the importance of finding out what students want in order to enable a teacher to inspire and motivate in a class.
As my line of inquiry focuses on teenage students, I thought that researching on exactly how the teenage brain works would be a step in the right direction to understanding them.
Please click on the link below to read the article titled The adolescent brain - Learning strategies and teaching tips. The information in this article has been adapted from: Wolfe, Pat. Brain Matters: Translating the Research to Classroom Practice.
The first section of the article describes the anatomy of the brain and the development process. This then goes on to describing how the learning ability is affected.
The frontal lobe houses the area of the brain where we process higher cortical functions like reasoning, problem solving, short term memory, planning and executing behavior, language, motor function, social mirroring, judgment, and impulse control. Until the frontal lobe has matured, other parts of the brain (temporal lobe, parietal lobe and the amygdala) are used for language development and decision making. Because of the involvement of other parts of the brain in these functions, adolescents tend to lack impulse control, demonstrate more irrational behaviors, and often make decisions based on their feelings rather than logical thought processing. All of these characteristics affect their ability to learn.
The brain filters out 99% of information and only saves what it feels is necessary to survive. The article states:
Two factors strongly influence whether the brain pays attention to aSo in a classroom situation the two points above need to be considered in order to help with the student's learning process.
piece of information:
1. If the information has meaning.
2. If the information causes an emotional response.
Thing to Know # 2: The addition of emotion can help students remember.
• Emotion drives attention and attention drives learning.
• The young adolescent brain does not have a fully developed frontal lobe (which houses higher-level thinking) so many times the thinking gets accomplished by the amygdala (which typically stores emotional memory).
• Emotion can also work against learning – no learning occurs if a student feels threatened. Something as simple as being called on to answer a question or asked to read aloud can produce a threatening situation for some students.
• Use humor not sarcasm when teaching. Be careful with humor – you do not want to offend any student. Use yourself as the “brunt of the joke.”
Lastly, it was interesting to discover that this article also mentioned the impact visual learning can make on a student, which was highlighted to me previously when researching my first piece of literature, by Professor M.S.Rao.
Thing to Know # 5: We take in more information visually than through any other sense.
• We have a tremendous capacity to store pictures in long term memory.
• Use Brain Compatible Strategies such as Visuals & Graphics, Storytelling, and Hands-on activities.
I think this was a fantastic article with great tips on teaching and insights into the teenage mind.
The reason teenagers can be so difficult to teach is because of their emotional, irrational and unpredictable behaviour. Looking in to the anatomy and development of the brain has helped me to have a deeper understanding as to why their decision making is done emotionally.
Also, the benefits of visual learning has backed up what I previously read in Profess M.S.Rao's article which confirms it's importance in the classroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment