Understanding the
Science of Learning
2010
2011
Grinnell Middle School
Day 3
This year at a glance…
Oct. 6
Dec. 1
Feb. 2
Apr. 6
Apr. 20
Motivation (CLICCCK)
CEI (Iowa Core)
The Adolescent Brain (snow day)
The Adolescent Brain (postponed)
The Adolescent Brain
Learning Goals for today’s workshop:
• To learn about basic differences between the
adolescent brain and the brains of young children
and/or adults
• To identify the skills, abilities and processes that often
prove challenging for adolescents, due to their stilldeveloping brains.
• To understand the implications this
information might have for
classroom practice.
Microsoft Office Images, 2011
“As it turns out,
teenagers may,
indeed, be a bit
crazy. But they are
crazy according to
a primal blueprint.
They are crazy by
design.”
Barbara Strauch, The Primal Teen
What we KNOW…
• PET • fMRI
• MRI • DTI
Image source: Google images
What might we DO…
because of what we know?
So… what do you rememberor know- about the
adolescent brain?
What are you still
curious about?
The Adolescent Brain
Possible Topics for Today:
How do we
know what we
know?
Adolescent
Sleep Patterns
Effects of Drugs/
Alcohol
Fundamental
Differences
Frontal Lobe
Development
Adolescents and
Risk Taking
Emotional
Development
Multitasking
(working memory)
www.positscience.com
2010 Posit Science
How do we know what
we know about the
adolescent brain?
How do we know what we know
about the adolescent brain?
These two
men have
played key
roles…
http://www.interscoop.com/media/phine.jpg
Phineas Gage
http://www.nih.gov/nihrecord/08_12_2005/images/teenbrain.jpg
Dr. Jay Giedd
Phineas
Gage
Image source: Smithsonian magazine, January 2010
Google image source: http://www.sruweb.com/~walsh/gage1.jpg
Phineas Gage:
September 1848
Age 26
Google image source: http://www.brown.edu/Research/Memlab/py47/diagrams/phineas.jpg
Died: 1861
Before the accident…
Hard-working
Efficient
Respected
Effective
Personable
Responsible
After the accident…
Unreliable
Disagreeable
Irrational
Impulsive
Difficult to get along with
Overly emotional
Foul-mouthed
Anti-social
Indecisive
Irresponsible
•Reason
•Plan for the future
•Make decisions
•Control emotions
•Control impulses
•Plan & organize
•Set goals & priorities multiple tasks
•Make sound judgments •Assess Risk
Dr. Jay Giedd
Brain Imaging
Technologies
•PET Scan
•CT Scan
•MRI
•fMRI
Google image source: http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/OZARKS2001/37_schizo_pmaps_loss.jpg
Clarify with your tablemates… How
have we come to learn about the
adolescent brain?
How might educators use the new
information that is emerging?
Topics Menu
www.positscience.com
2010 Posit Science
What do we know
about the sleep
patterns of
adolescents?
What do we know about adolescent sleep patterns?
Many adolescents…
• struggle to get up in the morning
• claim they are not tired at bedtime
• Sleep late on weekends
Image Source: iCLIPART for Schools
What do we know about adolescent sleep patterns?
Many adolescents…
• go to school each day in a “fog”
• struggle to concentrate in early morning
classes
• have difficulty remembering the content
in early morning classes
• feel drowsy and irritable by
mid-afternoon
Image Source: iCLIPART for Schools
What do we know about adolescent sleep patterns?
• They are regulated by “circadian rhythms”
(the brain’s natural “body clock”)
• They differ from those of younger children &
those of adults
• The circadian rhythms of adolescents “program”
them to stay awake longer into the
night, & to wake-up later in the
morning
Image Source: Microsoft Office Clip Art
So… Just how much sleep do adolescents need?
Permission granted: American Academy of Sleep Medicine, www.sleepeducation.com
Why does this matter?
Without adequate sleep, adolescents…
• Have a more difficult time holding a focus on the task
at hand (class activities & lessons)
• Have more difficulty in thinking creatively and solving
problems
• Are more prone to errors
• Are more irritable; less patient
• May be more impulsive
• Miss out on the consolidation of
learning that takes place during sleep
Image Source: iCLIPART for Schools
What can educators do?
•
•
•
•
•
Inform parents re: adolescents & sleep
Stick to a schedule
Discourage long daytime naps on weekends
Discourage caffeine use during evening hours
Establish a “turn-off time” for TV, computer,
cell phone, iPod
• Encourage calming activities just before bedtime
• Inform students re: adolescents & sleep
• Incorporate movement, engagement
: iCLIPART for Schools
Clarify with your tablemates what
you’ve just learned about the sleep
patterns of adolescents.
What might educators DO because of
what we now know…?
Topics Menu
www.positscience.com
2010 Posit Science
What do we know about
adolescents & risk-taking?
The Adolescent Brain:
Risk-Taking
Scientific American Mind: Dec. 06-Jan. 07 254 9th-12th grade students were asked to estimate
the likelihood that a sexually active teenage girl would contract an STD
Image source: Google images, 2011
The Adolescent Brain:
Infection Risk (% probability)
Perceived
Risk-Taking
Published Data
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Chlamydia
Gonorrhea
Sexually Transmitted Disease
HIV/AIDS
Human Pap. Virus
Syphilis
Scientific American Mind: Dec. 06-Jan. 07 254 9th-12th grade students were asked to estimate
the likelihood that a sexually active teenage girl would contract an STD
Risk-Taking: Adults vs. Adolescents
For what amount of
money would you be
willing to participate
in a game of Russian
Roulette?
Risk-Taking: Adults vs. Adolescents
The Fuzzy-Trace Theory…
Gist vs. Verbatim
Valerie F. Reyna, Cornell University; Frank Farley, Temple University;
Charles Brainerd, Cornell University, Scientific American Mind, Dec. 06-Jan. 07
Clarify with your tablemates what
you’ve just learned about adolescents
and risk-taking.
How might you use this information as
you work with middle level learners?
Topics Menu
www.positscience.com
2010 Posit Science
What do we know about
drugs, alcohol, addiction
and the adolescent brain?
The Adolescent Brain:
Alcohol, Drugs
and Addiction
Research suggests that adolescents…
• become addicted more strongly…
• have a more difficult time quitting…
• are more susceptible to “drug-cue
associations”…
• are more susceptible to
relapse, once they have
quit…
Clarify with your tablemates what you
know about adolescents and drugs,
alcohol and addiction.
What are you currently doing to
address this issue… and what more
might you do?
Topics Menu
The Adolescent Brain
www.positscience.com
2010 Posit Science
What is actually going on
(developmentally) inside
the adolescent brain?
Exuberance…
Pruning…
A thickening of
the brain’s gray
A systematic
matter… caused
pruning
away
by an
of unused
overproduction
connections…
of connections
between
between
neurons
neurons
Google image source: http://www.brainexplorer.org/brain-images/graymatter.jpg
Myelination…
Myelin sheath
…the developmental process in which neurons
are coated with a fatty, waxy substance… that
insulates and speeds signals as they pass
through one brain cell and on to another…
The Frontal Lobes
•Reason
•Plan for the future
•Make decisions
•Control emotions
•Control impulses
•Plan & organize
•Set goals & priorities multiple tasks
•Make sound judgments •Assess Risk
Clarify with your tablemates what
you’ve just learned about myelination
and pruning in the adolescent brain.
What implications does this
information have for middle level
educators?
Topics Menu
www.positscience.com
2010 Posit Science
What do we know about
multitasking and the
adolescent brain?
What do we know about multitasking?
First… a bit about working memory
• Right behind the forehead
• Also called the prefrontal cortex
• Processes conscious thoughts
• Limited in its capacity
• Develops with age… to a point
www.positscience.com
2010 Posit Science
Task #1:
6 3 8 2 5 9 4
Task #2:
74031592836
Working memory…
177618651945
1776 1865 1945
Memory Space (M – Space)
15
13
*Mental
11
Age
9
7
5
*Plus or
Minus 2
Working memory…
1-8-0-0-3-7-5-2-8-7-2
18 - 00 - 37 - 52 - 87 - 2
1-800-375-2872
1-800 DR LAURA
Working memory…
XCN
NPH
DFB
ICI
ANC
AAX
X
CNN
PHD
FBI
CIA
NCAA
X
Factual and Conceptual Knowledge
(organized for retrieval & application)
BSCS 5E Instructional Model
Engage
Explore
Explain
Elaborate
Evaluate
Bloom’s
Taxonomy
Rigor & Relevance
Framework
The limitations of working memory…
The Cocktail Party Effect:
The brain is usually
able to block out
competing stimuli, in
order to focus on the
task at hand.
(but not always)
In performing an experiment like this one on
man attention car it house is boy critically hat
important shoe that candy the man material
car that house is boy being hat read shoe by
candy the man subject car for house the boy
relevant hat task shoe be candy cohesive man
and car grammatically house correct boy but
hat without shoe either candy being man so
car easy house that boy full hat attention shoe
is candy not man required car in house order
boy to hat read shoe nor too difficult.
“Read” the colors…
YELLOW BLUE ORANGE
BLACK RED GREEN
PURPLE YELLOW RED
ORANGE GREEN BLACK
BLUE RED PURPLE
GREEN BLUE ORANGE
The limitations of working memory…
The Cocktail Party Effect:
The brain can pay
conscious attention
to only one train of
thought at a time.
What about multitasking?
• Toggling (task-switching)
• Paying “continuous partial
attention”
• Quality decreases on both
(or all) tasks attempted
• Time to complete tasks increases when
attempting to multitask
Clarify with your tablemates what
you’ve just learned about
multitasking… and working memory in
the adolescent brain.
How might this information influence
your work with students?
Topics Menu
www.positscience.com
2010 Posit Science
What do we know about
emotional development
in the adolescent brain?
The Limbic System…
Google image source: http://symptomresearch.nih.gov/chapter_23/images/fig81v2.gif
The brain’s emotional center… more primitive…
more powerful… develops throughout
childhood… is shaped by nature and by nurture
Neocortex
Thalamus
Amygdala
Thalamus
Incoming Signal
Amygdala
Adolescent
Brain
SURPRISE
SHOCK
ANGER
Adult
Brain
FEAR
Clarify with your tablemates what
you’ve just learned about emotional
development in the adolescent brain.
How might this information help you
in developing relationships with your
adolescent learners?
Topics Menu
www.positscience.com
2010 Posit Science
What do we know about
fundamental differences…
due to society’s influence?
The Adolescent Brain
•Effects of TV &
video games
•Exposure to
violence through
media and video
games
Fundamental
Differences
•Immediacyfast-paced world
Neural Plasticity: The brain’s ability to change its
structure… based on environment & experience.
• Dendritic
branching
• New connections
Clarify with your tablemates what
you’ve just learned about society’s
influence on brain development.
What implications does this
information have for the teaching
profession?
Topics Menu
LEARNING…
is the act of making
and strengthening
connections
between neurons…
…and adolescence
is a critical window
of opportunity for
this “sculpting”
of brains!
Julie Crotty
jcrotty@aea267.k12.ia.us
Six Kinds of Sensory Input
BEING THERE
IMMERSION
HANDS-ON
(The Real Thing)
HANDS-ON
(Representational Items)
2ND HAND
SYMBOLIC
E=MC2
+
!
#
$
“=”
Characteristics of Effective Instruction
Student-Centered Classrooms
Teaching for Understanding
Assessment FOR Learning
Rigorous and Relevant Curriculum
Teaching for Learner Differences
Additional Resources on Adolescents and Sleep
 Teen sleep: Why is Your Teen so Tired?
(Mayo Clinic Tween and Teen Health)
 Sleep and Teens: Biology and Behavior
(National Sleep Foundation)
 Adolescents and Sleep
(PBS Frontline)
Image Source: iCLIPART for Schools