Edutopia Webinar - How the Brain Learns Best: Strategies to Make Learning Stick
Dr. Judy Willis is a middle school teacher, neurologist, and authority on learning-centered brain research and classroom strategies derived from this research. She discusses what information gets into students’ brains, where it goes, and what teachers can do to make sure it gets to the right places. She encourages productive responses to learning: reflective, not reactive. She also gives strategies on how to increase students’ ability to learn and retain new skills and information. She discusses how stress doesn’t allow information to get past the Reticular Activating System (for us the sensory registers) and gives strategies to decrease stress. Throughout the video she touches on several different aspects that we have learned through the readings and power points. She also discusses ways to make the classroom personal and interesting to the students. This video is pretty long but if you have the time it is a great video for teachers to watch and below are the resources she gives during the webinar.
William James said a teacher "must start with the native tendencies, and enlarge the pupil's entire passive and active experience. He must ply him with new objects and stimuli, and make him taste the fruits of his behavior, so that now that whole context of remembered experience is what shall determine his conduct when he gets the stimulus, and not the bare immediate impression" (James, 1899, pp. 31-32). I believe Dr. Judy Willis would completely agree with him.
Sites
Set Daily Puzzles
Neuroscience for Kids
Dr. Judy Willis website
The Edutopia website also has several recourse about the brain and learning that I found very interest.
Excellent resource. I love Edutopia.
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