Friday, February 27, 2009
Marcia Tate: Brain Based Learning
The session with Marcia was wonderful, I truly enjoyed the hands on activities that Marcia shared with us. I wish I had the time to sit down and totally rebuild my whole class and utilize all of the cool techniques that we saw. I guess for now that I will just have to settle for revamping a lesson at a time. I have taken several graduate level courses that were based on how the brain works and they are always so interesting. The funny thing is that I see myself in half of the examples that they give when they talk about the classes that are all written and boring. I was the student who had a difficult time focusing in class and keeping on task. I learned the hard way how to do different things to help myself focus. I wish that more of my teachers had practiced this when I was in school. If they had there is no telling what else I could have been successful at. I definitely plan on utilizing these skills in my classroom.
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3 comments:
This is the best class I have attended since becoming a teacher. I was so excited about it that I went to school the next day and told the new teachers I am mentoring about the day. Mrs. Tate is very knowledgeable about brain-based research and education, in general. There are some great sample activities in the book to use when planning lessons. I especially like the activities pertaining to vocabulary. It was nice to see that I already use some of the strategies she talked about. I will try to use some things that I haven't used much in my classroom, such as music. After the class, I paired students up to teach each other what they have learned from different lessons. They seem to enjoy this. Also, I talked to my students about the brain. Now, every time they learn something new, a student will say that they have grown a new dendrite. How wonderful that they learned a new vocabulary word and actually use it correctly!
I really enjoyed the sesson with Ms. Tate. I have already implemented and shared several of her strategies. This workshop reminded me of why I became a teacher.
I have read books by Eric Jenson on brain based learning and even had the experience of going to a teaching hospital and actually seeing a brain and having the experts explain the parts of the brain and the type of learning centered in each. Marcia reminded me of these experiences and reinforced my prior knowledge. The activities in the book are ones I will share with my new teachers. Using music and movement and hands-on activities are strategies I use in my classroom now and they motivate students to want to learn and remember what they are learning.
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