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!).