Lesson 2 Post

"After watching the videos on Vision and Hearing, describe how this information impacts you as a teacher"

As a teacher, this information informs me to be alert to any warning signs that my students may be committing regarding vision loss.  If I see a student squinting or straining consistently when reading this is an opportunity for me to ask the student if he/she is experiencing any difficulties and perhaps bring this information to the parents or the school nurse.  I was a child who began to get blurry vision around the age of 10 and this was identified in the classroom.  All of a sudden the chalkboard began to get fuzzy and I was straining to see the board.

                                                                                  www.uniteforsight.org
       
Because of this, I began the process of getting glasses because of my near-sightedness.  So, as a high school teacher I know that a student's vision can still change in his/her teen years and this is something that I need to pay attention to. Because the school screening may be insufficient for an accurate diagnosis for the student, I am now more apt to call home and share my concerns.

The information about hearing is interesting to me, especially the article about the relationship between heart health and hearing.  I recently had a student discuss what it meant to be "hard of hearing" as opposed to deaf and how this affects him in the classroom.  He provided a strong visual of a teacher who was writing something on a whiteboard and was talking with her back to the classroom. This really stood out to me that I need to be aware of talking to the class by making as much eye contact as possible and not speak to students with their backs to me or vice versa.  This video on hearing reminded me of this practical tool for the classroom.  As well, it encourages me to use more music in the classroom in an effort to stimulate their hearing as well as promote relaxation and improve information retention where applicable.

Lesson 1 Post

After watching the videos on brain architecture, plasticity, and understanding the impact of the environment on a child, how does this information impact you as a teacher?

This information is so radically interesting to me.  A few years ago I learned about the science of haptics and even share this article with my students to explain why we will handwrite a lot of work in the early stages of the classroom.  Haptics is the motor-cognitive process that Jensen (2008) mentions when he writes "The cerebellum is the key link between the age-old mind-body link.  It's actually the link to how we move and think" (p. 16). It was fascinating when I learned the science between handwriting and the learning process. I'm not very "science" smart, but it makes sense to me on a macro level.  Last semester I was introduced to the brief article "It's easier to learn on paper" and will be sharing with this with students this upcoming year.  Even so, recently I picked up the book "The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's survival guide to raising adolescents and young adults" (F. Jensen and Nutt, 2015) because I have wanted to know more about the teenage brain and how I can become a more effective teacher with a brain-based learning background.  So, these videos and these initial readings further my excitement for learning so that I can better serve my students (in this way I suppose that my brain is "ready" for learning and perhaps my neurons will fire more effectively because I am engaged!).