While children are learning their first language is the best time to learn the second language. At the age of ten to twelve the child loses the ability to learn the foreign language without an accent. I now know that children should be introduced to the second language while they are learning their first language. On the internet I was able to find a few pictures of items with the English word on one side and the Spanish word for the item on the other. I have printed them out in color, laminated them, and begun hanging them around the room, next to the item the card represents. I have a few students who are very intrigued by the Spanish words, and love to call the item by its new name. I hope to incorporate many more foreign language words into my classroom.
Sign language is another area in which I have interest. I have tried to incorporate it into my classroom some. I have a few students who have speech and language delays. Sometimes it is very hard to understand what they are trying to tell you. I have only used sign language at a minimum. When learning ABC’s I have signed letters, I showed them the signs for numbers 1-10, and just a few basic words and colors. I would really like to learn more myself and try to incorporate it into my classroom more.
Future research should focus on evaluating the relationship between the theory of teaching a second language, foreign or sign, and perceptual processes most effective for students who have speech and language delays.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Educational Implications
When teachers understand the brain and how it works they can help their students by applying research methods in the classroom and sharing research with colleagues. Teachers who understand the memory processes and how information is influenced in the working memory may be able to help enhance working memory in students. To develop memory skills the teacher should use reflection, recoding, and rehearsal strategies. To establish retention of long-term memories, the teacher should review the important information often. Teachers must get information into long-term memory for students to be able to use the information in their future. The brain processes, stores, and retains information. Teachers can guide students in accessing this information by utilizing their individual learning styles and strengths. Educators can use practical strategies and applications for accessing information learned to carry over into the real world. Students have different needs depending on their learning styles, some students learn best with one and/or maybe all: physical or kinesthetic, social/emotional, visual, verbal, and cognitive. Teachers should incorporate activities to help students realize the best ways to recover information, such as: mind mapping, debating, role playing, mnemonics, metaphors, rhymes, rewriting activities, summarizing, songs, and repetition. They can have students verbalize information in their own words. When students create their own rhymes, songs, or mnemonics it will be more meaningful to them and they will hold it in long term memory better.
Scientists discover new information about how and what the brain learns and how it remembers all the time. You may ask yourself, “How can teachers help their students improve their memory?” The more we understand about the brain, the better we'll be able to educate it. Understanding how memory works provides an advantage for every educator. Teachers are the only professionals in the world who change brains on a daily basis. To encourage learning make things livelier, interesting, add movement to get them up and get them involved, do things to make learning more relevant. Teachers will sculpt children’s brains by teaching new information. Use hands-on activities, concrete learning, or role play to get the pattern in the brain. Illustrate the concepts in your class by concentrating on visual skills. Graphic organizers provide patterns for students, while helping them organize semantic information. Other visual techniques include story webs, charts such as K-W-L, graphs, and timelines. Students can also draw a picture of what they have learned. The brain searches for meaning, if it can’t make sense it drops it. The brain thinks, “Is this information important?” Have students make a list of everything they need in their life. Reading, Math, and Science will not be on their list. Teachers have to make them want it. The more that teachers understand their own memories the better they will be able to understand their students and help them to remember. When children forget something, they don’t beat themselves up about it, “What’s wrong with my brain?” Students don’t think that way.
The brain learns better when interacting with other brains. Students should be begging for vocabulary. Define words in your own words, draw a picture, and review with a game like password. Students could make up word games or question games about important information and play them. Even the students who don’t study or understand still want to win. They look forward to learning the information this way. Our brain is social; it grows more connections with teamwork. Let the students teach each other. The more that students work together the more they will learn.
I attended a workshop on memory taught by Marilee Sprenger. She taught a mnemonic called: You can always remember, If you N.E.V.E.R. F.O.R.G.E.T.
N- Notice, we don’t notice things, students don’t pay attention. 1. Stimulus activates the brain. 2. Disengage current focus, focus on new stimulus. Students don’t know what to focus on. Intention increases retention.
E- Emote, adding emotion, How do I feel about this? Ask students how do you feel about that? Discussion with interaction and they remember more. Retention automatically goes up when we rehearse and share information. Add emotion, music, personalization, storytelling, empathy, debate, role playing, agree/disagree statements. Emotions are contagious. The more positive you are the more control you have over your brain. Emotion is the potion. It can take 24 -28 rehearsals over a three week period to learn new information, if you add emotion they may learn it the first time.
V- Visualize, paint a picture in the mind. A picture in your mind creates a memory you can find.
E- Eat right and exercise. Food for thought: blueberries, broccoli, dark chocolate, nuts, olive oil, pumpkin – 90% of pumpkin DNA is the same as ours, salmon, spinach, tomatoes, and yogurt. Get moving, get blood and oxygen to the brain. Body and brain are yours to train.
R- Rest, The body needs 4 hours to rejuvenate and the brain needs 8 hours to encode memory to store in long term. Primary children need 10-12 hours of sleep each night. Memories go deep when you get enough sleep.
F- Free yourself of stress, emotions spread - you will make students negative if you are negative. Ask them how they feel J, L , because. Lower stress for memory success.
O- Organize, your brain will remember more if it is organized. Find information faster in brain if it is organized into categories. Use acrostics, acronyms, method of loci, chaining, and image name, music, rhyming, spelling mnemonics, and rhymes. Put information in place for a strong memory trace.
R- Rehearsal, working memory brings information into the frontal lobes.
Semantic information is textbook stuff.
Episodic memory is location, where were you when something happened?
In the classroom student looks at the blackboard and then writes the answer, even when information is not there anymore. Tell a story with emotion and they will remember it longer. Procedural memory is muscle movement memory. Rehearsals the way to make memories stay.
G- Guard you brain, students with no screen time until they are three will read better. Make sure children wear their seatbelts and helmets to protect their brains. Avoid some pain protect your brain.
E- Enrich your brain, people automatically lose 1,000 connections and neurons daily. Stretching their reading brains will increase connections and neurons. New directions create new connections.
T- Teach, the average retention rate of what we remember is 90% of what we teach. Share what you know and let your memory grow.
There are many tips inside this mnemonic that can be carried over into the classroom.
Marilee Sprenger said, it is suggested that increasing working memory will raise IQ and achievement in many content areas. Higher achievement in content areas includes the ability to take the information, make connections to prior knowledge, comprehend, and answer questions. There are techniques that increase both working and long-term memory in students. Teachers must be able to get information into short term memory, help students manipulate the information in the working memory, and make connections to place it in the long-term memory. These permanent memories must then be retrievable.
I gave an auditory perceptual test to 14 of my students. I teach a resource classroom that has students who exhibit learning disabilities, speech and language delays, developmental delays, and ADHD. For the study I recorded the principal, myself, a para- professional, a student, and a stranger saying the pledge of allegiance into a tape recorder. The principal of our school says the pledge over the intercom every morning, so all the students have heard her say it 150 times this school year. In the classroom I am the one talking along with the para-professional. The students also talk quite a bit. I thought that the students I was going to test would be very good at identifying the voices they heard. Each student listened to the tape in private. They were told before listening that they were going to hear the pledge out loud five times by the principal, a teacher, a classroom aide, one of the students in Mrs. Davis’ class, and a stranger. Then after I explained, I played one voice at a time, stopped the tape and asked whose voice they heard. 8 students correctly identified the principal, 5 students identified that it was an aide, but only 2 correctly named her, 4 students were able to identify my voice, 10 students identified the student voice as a student but not one of them could say which student it was in our class, 8 students correctly stated that they heard a strangers voice, the rest all thought they heard a teachers voice. I was shocked that the students were not able to recognize voices they heard daily. Applied research methods in the classroom can help us to re-assess and teach for successful learning.
Scientists discover new information about how and what the brain learns and how it remembers all the time. You may ask yourself, “How can teachers help their students improve their memory?” The more we understand about the brain, the better we'll be able to educate it. Understanding how memory works provides an advantage for every educator. Teachers are the only professionals in the world who change brains on a daily basis. To encourage learning make things livelier, interesting, add movement to get them up and get them involved, do things to make learning more relevant. Teachers will sculpt children’s brains by teaching new information. Use hands-on activities, concrete learning, or role play to get the pattern in the brain. Illustrate the concepts in your class by concentrating on visual skills. Graphic organizers provide patterns for students, while helping them organize semantic information. Other visual techniques include story webs, charts such as K-W-L, graphs, and timelines. Students can also draw a picture of what they have learned. The brain searches for meaning, if it can’t make sense it drops it. The brain thinks, “Is this information important?” Have students make a list of everything they need in their life. Reading, Math, and Science will not be on their list. Teachers have to make them want it. The more that teachers understand their own memories the better they will be able to understand their students and help them to remember. When children forget something, they don’t beat themselves up about it, “What’s wrong with my brain?” Students don’t think that way.
The brain learns better when interacting with other brains. Students should be begging for vocabulary. Define words in your own words, draw a picture, and review with a game like password. Students could make up word games or question games about important information and play them. Even the students who don’t study or understand still want to win. They look forward to learning the information this way. Our brain is social; it grows more connections with teamwork. Let the students teach each other. The more that students work together the more they will learn.
I attended a workshop on memory taught by Marilee Sprenger. She taught a mnemonic called: You can always remember, If you N.E.V.E.R. F.O.R.G.E.T.
N- Notice, we don’t notice things, students don’t pay attention. 1. Stimulus activates the brain. 2. Disengage current focus, focus on new stimulus. Students don’t know what to focus on. Intention increases retention.
E- Emote, adding emotion, How do I feel about this? Ask students how do you feel about that? Discussion with interaction and they remember more. Retention automatically goes up when we rehearse and share information. Add emotion, music, personalization, storytelling, empathy, debate, role playing, agree/disagree statements. Emotions are contagious. The more positive you are the more control you have over your brain. Emotion is the potion. It can take 24 -28 rehearsals over a three week period to learn new information, if you add emotion they may learn it the first time.
V- Visualize, paint a picture in the mind. A picture in your mind creates a memory you can find.
E- Eat right and exercise. Food for thought: blueberries, broccoli, dark chocolate, nuts, olive oil, pumpkin – 90% of pumpkin DNA is the same as ours, salmon, spinach, tomatoes, and yogurt. Get moving, get blood and oxygen to the brain. Body and brain are yours to train.
R- Rest, The body needs 4 hours to rejuvenate and the brain needs 8 hours to encode memory to store in long term. Primary children need 10-12 hours of sleep each night. Memories go deep when you get enough sleep.
F- Free yourself of stress, emotions spread - you will make students negative if you are negative. Ask them how they feel J, L , because. Lower stress for memory success.
O- Organize, your brain will remember more if it is organized. Find information faster in brain if it is organized into categories. Use acrostics, acronyms, method of loci, chaining, and image name, music, rhyming, spelling mnemonics, and rhymes. Put information in place for a strong memory trace.
R- Rehearsal, working memory brings information into the frontal lobes.
Semantic information is textbook stuff.
Episodic memory is location, where were you when something happened?
In the classroom student looks at the blackboard and then writes the answer, even when information is not there anymore. Tell a story with emotion and they will remember it longer. Procedural memory is muscle movement memory. Rehearsals the way to make memories stay.
G- Guard you brain, students with no screen time until they are three will read better. Make sure children wear their seatbelts and helmets to protect their brains. Avoid some pain protect your brain.
E- Enrich your brain, people automatically lose 1,000 connections and neurons daily. Stretching their reading brains will increase connections and neurons. New directions create new connections.
T- Teach, the average retention rate of what we remember is 90% of what we teach. Share what you know and let your memory grow.
There are many tips inside this mnemonic that can be carried over into the classroom.
Marilee Sprenger said, it is suggested that increasing working memory will raise IQ and achievement in many content areas. Higher achievement in content areas includes the ability to take the information, make connections to prior knowledge, comprehend, and answer questions. There are techniques that increase both working and long-term memory in students. Teachers must be able to get information into short term memory, help students manipulate the information in the working memory, and make connections to place it in the long-term memory. These permanent memories must then be retrievable.
I gave an auditory perceptual test to 14 of my students. I teach a resource classroom that has students who exhibit learning disabilities, speech and language delays, developmental delays, and ADHD. For the study I recorded the principal, myself, a para- professional, a student, and a stranger saying the pledge of allegiance into a tape recorder. The principal of our school says the pledge over the intercom every morning, so all the students have heard her say it 150 times this school year. In the classroom I am the one talking along with the para-professional. The students also talk quite a bit. I thought that the students I was going to test would be very good at identifying the voices they heard. Each student listened to the tape in private. They were told before listening that they were going to hear the pledge out loud five times by the principal, a teacher, a classroom aide, one of the students in Mrs. Davis’ class, and a stranger. Then after I explained, I played one voice at a time, stopped the tape and asked whose voice they heard. 8 students correctly identified the principal, 5 students identified that it was an aide, but only 2 correctly named her, 4 students were able to identify my voice, 10 students identified the student voice as a student but not one of them could say which student it was in our class, 8 students correctly stated that they heard a strangers voice, the rest all thought they heard a teachers voice. I was shocked that the students were not able to recognize voices they heard daily. Applied research methods in the classroom can help us to re-assess and teach for successful learning.
Reflection
Scientists have learned more about the brain and how it functions in the past two decades than in all of recorded history. The brain changes everyday. Every time a child goes to a new place he or she learns new semantic information. Children with little background knowledge are negatively affected because they are not developing a vast vocabulary. The hippocampus stores episodic memory; what you chose to do today is affecting your brain. The brain learns and remembers patterns. To learn something new our brain attaches the new information to something it already knows, prior knowledge. The brain learns through multiple memory systems: Declarative is semantic and episodic, Non Declarative is procedural, emotional, and conditioned response.
Semantic memory consists of your general knowledge about the world. It is something you know, even though you do not remember where or when you learned it. Semantic memory consists of language and conceptual knowledge. It influences most of our cognitive activities include determining locations, reading sentences, solving problems, and making decisions. Our semantic memory is what we use to define objects, meanings of words, facts, concepts, and people. Associated to semantic memory is episodic memory which is retrieval of personal experiences from the past. If a person has a deficit in semantic memory it is normally referred to as semantic dementia. When a person has a deficit in episodic memory they are referred to as having amnesia. Semantic dementia is a result of the lateral temporal lobes in the brain degenerating causing the person to slowly lose previous knowledge about the world.
Working memory is the active process of interpreting a whole sentence or phrase and beginning to relate new information to prior knowledge. New learning is usually a blend of sensory/perceptual information experienced during the learning episode and semantic information about the substance of the event. When an object is perceptually presented, different parts of the brain process the information. The right hemisphere is involved in processing specific visual form about the object, it deciphers between perceptually identical or perceptually different. The left hemisphere processes more abstract and/or semantic information about the object.
The brain region where semantic memory is located is the hippocampus which is inside the temporal lobe. The hippocampus encodes memories, or makes it possible for memories to form at all. The temporal lobe stores memories after the initial encoding process is completed. There is a passageway from the structure of the nervous system where semantic memory is located in the temporal lobes to the hippocampus. Today's brain tests allow scientists to look at the specific brain areas a person uses when recalling a noun versus a verb, or when listening to music versus composing a song.
Using a variety of learning styles increases semantic knowledge. The brain responds to challenge. H.M. showed that he could improve tasks even though he could not remember doing them. Our procedural memory does not require the hippocampus. The brain contains mirror neurons which are active in the right posterior inferior frontal gyres. Do as I do not as I say. If you stick your tongue out at a baby the baby will stick its tongue out at you. Children copy our actions.
Emotions affect learning, stress or distress affects neurons. The brain is the first to respond to any information that has strong emotional content. I have heard that people only use 10% of their brain. Actually even when we are sleeping our brains are making connections. Sleep makes memories encode, and the last two hours of sleep are the most important. Students are often sleep-deprived or malnourished which could impact their ability to learn to their full potential. Important decisions should not be made during the first 10-15 minutes after waking, as the brain is not functioning completely. Things which affect the body also affect the brain. Movement enhances learning, when oxygen and blood are flowing to the brain, more learning is taking place.
As I reflect on my research on sensory and perceptual knowledge, working memory, and semantic memory, I am more aware of how they work together to assist new learning. The research I conducted helped me understand how these theories are all connected. Our brain is constantly working, as it is deciphering auditory and verbal perceptual processes through the working memory, it is trying to make connections with our previous knowledge in our semantic memory. Our brain never stops interpreting messages from our perceptions. I realize now that the children in my classroom are living examples of these theories. When a child comes in rested and well-fed, he or she is able to learn better. Those children who have better prior knowledge, more often are able to learn to their full potential. When children process information meaningfully they remember it better.
New episodic learning relies on perceptual information and conceptual knowledge in normal brain functions. Perceptual areas in the brain help to identify items that are not familiar. The perceptual information processed goes straight to the episodic memory and the semantic system, to create new learning. Sensory and perceptual knowledge and semantic memory work together to assist new learning. This type of semantic knowledge is incorporated in my classroom daily. Children work on tasks such as picture word associations and assembling puzzles with items named. I agree that new learning is improved by using sensory/perceptual processes with semantic memory. Further research could concentrate on which sensory and perceptual materials best assist learning new information. In special education, learning is often impaired by poor attention processes or distracting behaviors. Research needs to be completed concerning educational methods and materials which best assist these challenged children to learn to their full potential.
Semantic memory consists of your general knowledge about the world. It is something you know, even though you do not remember where or when you learned it. Semantic memory consists of language and conceptual knowledge. It influences most of our cognitive activities include determining locations, reading sentences, solving problems, and making decisions. Our semantic memory is what we use to define objects, meanings of words, facts, concepts, and people. Associated to semantic memory is episodic memory which is retrieval of personal experiences from the past. If a person has a deficit in semantic memory it is normally referred to as semantic dementia. When a person has a deficit in episodic memory they are referred to as having amnesia. Semantic dementia is a result of the lateral temporal lobes in the brain degenerating causing the person to slowly lose previous knowledge about the world.
Working memory is the active process of interpreting a whole sentence or phrase and beginning to relate new information to prior knowledge. New learning is usually a blend of sensory/perceptual information experienced during the learning episode and semantic information about the substance of the event. When an object is perceptually presented, different parts of the brain process the information. The right hemisphere is involved in processing specific visual form about the object, it deciphers between perceptually identical or perceptually different. The left hemisphere processes more abstract and/or semantic information about the object.
The brain region where semantic memory is located is the hippocampus which is inside the temporal lobe. The hippocampus encodes memories, or makes it possible for memories to form at all. The temporal lobe stores memories after the initial encoding process is completed. There is a passageway from the structure of the nervous system where semantic memory is located in the temporal lobes to the hippocampus. Today's brain tests allow scientists to look at the specific brain areas a person uses when recalling a noun versus a verb, or when listening to music versus composing a song.
Using a variety of learning styles increases semantic knowledge. The brain responds to challenge. H.M. showed that he could improve tasks even though he could not remember doing them. Our procedural memory does not require the hippocampus. The brain contains mirror neurons which are active in the right posterior inferior frontal gyres. Do as I do not as I say. If you stick your tongue out at a baby the baby will stick its tongue out at you. Children copy our actions.
Emotions affect learning, stress or distress affects neurons. The brain is the first to respond to any information that has strong emotional content. I have heard that people only use 10% of their brain. Actually even when we are sleeping our brains are making connections. Sleep makes memories encode, and the last two hours of sleep are the most important. Students are often sleep-deprived or malnourished which could impact their ability to learn to their full potential. Important decisions should not be made during the first 10-15 minutes after waking, as the brain is not functioning completely. Things which affect the body also affect the brain. Movement enhances learning, when oxygen and blood are flowing to the brain, more learning is taking place.
As I reflect on my research on sensory and perceptual knowledge, working memory, and semantic memory, I am more aware of how they work together to assist new learning. The research I conducted helped me understand how these theories are all connected. Our brain is constantly working, as it is deciphering auditory and verbal perceptual processes through the working memory, it is trying to make connections with our previous knowledge in our semantic memory. Our brain never stops interpreting messages from our perceptions. I realize now that the children in my classroom are living examples of these theories. When a child comes in rested and well-fed, he or she is able to learn better. Those children who have better prior knowledge, more often are able to learn to their full potential. When children process information meaningfully they remember it better.
New episodic learning relies on perceptual information and conceptual knowledge in normal brain functions. Perceptual areas in the brain help to identify items that are not familiar. The perceptual information processed goes straight to the episodic memory and the semantic system, to create new learning. Sensory and perceptual knowledge and semantic memory work together to assist new learning. This type of semantic knowledge is incorporated in my classroom daily. Children work on tasks such as picture word associations and assembling puzzles with items named. I agree that new learning is improved by using sensory/perceptual processes with semantic memory. Further research could concentrate on which sensory and perceptual materials best assist learning new information. In special education, learning is often impaired by poor attention processes or distracting behaviors. Research needs to be completed concerning educational methods and materials which best assist these challenged children to learn to their full potential.
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