Reflection #2- Fundamentals of Cognitive Development

I am thankful that we have had time to work on our literature review and I feel prepared to write about the effects of hydration on learning and cognitive performance. The only thing that is new to me is creating headings for subsections of my writing. It is not difficult, but I have never used this feature of organization before.

This course has taught me to seek out scientific reasoning for the teaching practices we use with our students. Understanding the “why” of teaching and the “how” of learning has given me a deeper understanding of education as a whole. Specifically, I plan to implement the strategies shared by the Amygdalas in regards to dichotic listening as they relate to BTT-2. There are a lot of auditory distractors at my school and careful planning could minimize their negative effects on my students and help them concentrate on listening with their left ear. I have also become very comfortable navigating the Sheridan Library and know that I have the skills to find scientific knowledge about my teaching practices. I also now feel solid about my knowledge of educational philosophers and their various theories of cognition.

I have also learned from this experience to question and think critically about every aspect of my teaching. There are so many opportunities to support student learning and development and science is helping to make teaching more exact and informed. I am thankful to be privy to this knowledge and am looking forward to learning more.

Reflection #1- Fundamentals of Cognitive Development

I am finding it difficult to complete the weekly assigned readings without losing interest. The texts are theory laden, extremely technical, and lack explicit connection to a group of students with whom I can identify. However, I am able to make connections to my personal experiences and am excited about understanding the theories of cognitive development.

Teaching is a social experience. I enjoy observing and interacting with students and teachers daily. Often the scientific theories behind what we do in the classroom are not part of my daily thinking, but they will be. When we learned about the Simon’s Informational Processing Theory this week I was able make numerous connections to the learning of students and reaffirmed in my own mind the importance of schema. 

Students need to have opportunities to build a strong foundation in educational concepts before progressing to learning that extends the basic concepts. I think that school systems are pushing teachers to move their students to the next level of thinking without ensuring that learners have mastered the basics in all subject areas. The push for progress for the sake of progress is not honoring students’ learning and development.

I am going to need help remembering which theorist believed what ideas. The author referring to the theorist that inspired them often confuses me. Are they are attempting to build upon current educational beliefs or disprove long held theories. Repeated expose to the texts will help solidify this information.  

Reflection #3- Explorations in MBT

The most important concepts I learned from this class are the six brain teaching targets. Although the human brain is complex, we have only begun to understand its relationship to learning. The Brain Targeted Teaching Model incorporates brain based learning and teaching simply. Brain targets one and two are the foundation for learning and positive development for students. Brain target three clarifies the big picture for everyone involved in the learning process. Brain targets four and five are the areas of learning where creativity can run wild. I particularly enjoyed developing brain target activities for my unit that were engaging and required extension of understanding.

My goal is to become stronger at implementing brain target six. As a teacher I find that I feel pressure to cover material and do not spend enough time providing immediate feedback to my students or afford them opportunities for self-reflection. I knew that it was important to review your work and tests, but I had no idea that it was essential to committing the information learned to long-term memory. This information has made me rethink what testing preparation and review look like in my classroom.

I hope to be able to master and apply the brain anatomy terminology from this course in my conversations with peer teachers and in my writing. I find myself relying on texts when I need to reference brain terms and hope that soon I can commit this information to my long-term memory and use these vocabulary words with confidence. 

Reflection #2- Explorations in MBT

I am thrilled about the Mind, Brain, and Teaching cohort! Our readings and discussions have added new life and purpose to my craft. I have benefited from focusing on one Brain Target each week as the pacing affords me the opportunity to thoughtfully and purposefully model my instructional practices to reflect what I’ve learned.

When I committed to creating a positive emotional climate and reduced stressful aspects of our learning environment my students’ learning improved and they were noticeably calmer (Hardiman, 2003, p. 25). Making use of natural lighting and changing to full-spectrum bulbs helped reduce glare on the glass doors of our bookshelves and eliminated a form of visual distraction, drawing the eye to the engaging books behind, and appealing to the attention system (Hardiman, 2003, p. 42). My students immediately noticed the books and began requesting reading time more frequently.

It is my responsibility to help my learners experience all of life’s wonders. I took a hint from a sweet potato that began to sprout in our culinary learning space and thought about what my students could learn from growing a plant. I sketched out a concept map to help organize my ideas for a botany unit. Taking advantage of a novel and authentic learning experience captured my students’ attention and sparked their curiosity for further learning. Also, by helping my students form an emotional attachment to their sweet potato vine I hopefully increased their retention for what we learned during our botany unit (Hardiman, 2003, p. 56). 

Reflection #1- Explorations in MBT

Three weeks have passed and I am enjoying working nightly reading about current brain research and dreaming of ideas for implementation with my team. I have put brain research to practice with my children by positively nurturing the plasticity of their brains and providing them with a learning environment that is enriching and engaging (Hardiman, 2003, p. 13). I frequently alter their environment to maintain interest, use natural lighting, and light an apple cinnamon scented candle to increase mental alertness (Hardiman, 2003,p. 43). 

I have crafted Montessori tradition (Posner & Rothbart, 2007, p. 118) lessons that follow the Brain-Targeted Teaching Model (Hardiman, 2003) and match my children’s temperaments and interests as enabling them to decide what they want to learn gives them feelings of control (Posner & Rothbart, 2007, p. 23). In contrast to the theory of localization, I attempt to stimulate the entire brain of my children as building memory is based on the functionality of the entire brain, not one particular area (Posner & Rothbart, 2007, p. 26). 

A child’s white matter increases during the early years of development and it is theorized that MRI’s may help us learn about specific areas of the brain and when specific skills can be most efficiently taught to children (Posner & Rothbard, 2007, p. 42). This knowledge would make it possible for me to develop age-skill-specific curricula for my children and understand which skills should be taught and when they should be taught. This is an exciting and encouraging thought!

Reflecting and Looking Ahead: Post 1

What an experience! The world has given us a wonderful opportunity to learn together about the connection between the mind, brain, and teaching. I have made many connections with my team and fellow cohort members from around the globe. I expect that our combined experiences and the information we gather from our coursework will provide us with new thinking about how to work with learners in our classroom. I hope to become a skilled and understanding educator as well as a resource for others in my field that may be interested in the current research on the connection between the brain and learning. I would also like to gain insight into the mental development of my own children and learn from their experiences.

Enrolling in the online Mind, Brain, and Teaching cohort afforded me my first online learning experience. I have found the individual and whole group activities easiest for my schedule, and am looking forward to becoming a stronger small team group member. I was surprised that each member of my team lives in a different state or country. Coordinating chat sessions and team time that works for everyone’s schedule will require flexibility and strong communication between group members.

I still need support making sure that I am writing in APA style. Prior to submitting assignments I will need to refer to the APA resources posted for our reading tasks during week one of the online training experience. Writing in APA format does not come naturally at the moment and I hope to become a stronger writer by the end of our courses.