Vision of the Future
Is it possible to reach every student?
Test Your Awareness
Now really concentrate……
Count the F's
Did you do what our students do?
The best students miss information, even when
they are paying attention…….
R = Reach Students’ Attention (RAS)
R = Reach Students’ Attention (RAS): Use changes in the environment,
surprise, teachable moments, and multisensory instruction to reach the
conscious brain. The RAS filters all incoming stimuli and makes the
“decision” as to what people attend or ignore. The sensory input that
focus the RAS and are selected for admission to the brain relate to novelty,
potential threat and curiosity.
Examples of novelty include:
• Music
• Costumes
• Change volume or cadence of voice
• Optical illusions
• Bizzare factoids
• Discrepant Events
• Making predications
Reach Students’ Attention
The Deep
A = Attitude (Amygdala)
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A = Attitude (Amygdala): Attitude aims information toward the thinking brain
through the amygdala. When the amygdala filters new information, it can go one
of two directions. Stress, fear and anxiety filter new information to the lower,
reactive brain where the outcome is fight, flight or freeze. Positive information
filters to the prefrontal cortex which is associated with the highest cognitive
processes, also referred to as executive functions, including planning, decisionmaking, reasoning, and analysis.
Some causes of stress in school include:
• Fear of being wrong
• Embarrased to speak in class, answer questions, present their work in class
• Test taking anxiety
• Physical and language differences
• Boredom from lack of stimulation due ot poor mastery of the material, lack of
personal relevance connections
• Frustration with material that exceeds foundational knowledge and/or about their
inability to optimize their time for the increased demands of each subsequent
school year
A = Attitude (Amygdala)
It is important, and imperative, to destress the
amygdala. How to do that?
• Personalize the learning
• Scaffold when needed; provide learners with
cues, hints and partial solutions to keep
motivation
• Offer variable player-ability based challenges
• Provide goal tracking and immediate feedback in
the classroom.
Door to Knowledge
D = Develop Memory with Dopamine
Dopamine is associated with pleasurable experiences,
decision-making and executive function. When
dopamine levels go up, the following behaviors are
more prominent:
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Pleasure
Creative imagination
Inspiration
Motivation
Curiosity
Persistance and perseverance
D = Develop Memory with Dopamine
Activities and strategies that increase dopamine levels and the dopamine
response include:
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Collaborating
Enjoying music
Being read to
Feeling self-appreciation- recognizing their progress to a personally
meaningful goal
Acting kindly
Interacting and collaborating with colleagues/classmates
Expressing gratitude
Experiencing humor
Optimism
Choice
Movement
D = Develop Memory with Dopamine
1. Stand up
2. Use your ear or elbow to spell:
D-o-p-a-m-i-n-e
GOOD JOB!! YOU JUST GAVE YOURSELF
A SHOT OF DOPAMINE!
Memory Construction
OUR GOALS:
a) Connect new information input to prior
knowledge
b) Strengthen & lengthen long-term memory
c) Develop higher-level executive function
thinking
Memory Construction
We want the information, or working memory,
to arrive at the hippocampus. The
hippocampus takes sensory inputs and
integrates them with associational patterns
that already exist, thereby binding the
separate aspects of the experience into
storable patterns of relational memories.
What does this mean??
Memory Construction
Working Memory to Relational Memory
This is when new input connects with
previously stored memory. The information
moves to the prefrontal cortex- you have
minutes to solidify that information in order
to develop executive functioning. We do this
by identifying and using patterns. New
memory is now created.
Memory Construction
The process of creating new memory can occur
because of neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity – Neurons that fire together,
wire together
Dendrite formation and dendrite and neuron
destruction allows the brain to reshape and
reorganize the networks of dendrite-neuron
connections in response to increased and
decreased use of these pathways.
And to conclude….
Using neuroscience in the classroom will
improve student engagement, memory &
potential.
Credits
Dr. Judy Willis, M.D.; M.Ed.
Malana Willis
Matt the UCSB Tech Guy