Bailey Hastings
MINNIE ME:
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Rock-star Ricky is a loud outspoken young man who always knows what’s going on in the classroom, although he seems to not be paying any attention at all. He seems to not care because he is often side tracked by distractions in the classroom. In reality, the material being covered is too easy for him. Often times Rock-star Ricky is cracking jokes, looking across the room trying to mouth words and laughing. Yet, even though he is distracting others and being distracted himself, he can cue in to the lecture at any time, answering questions correctly and putting in good insight. He has the ability to cue in and infer what has been talked about for the past twenty minutes, add some insight and go back to paying little attention. His fellow students accept him as goofy and funny and I don’t think they realize his intellectual abilities because of his classroom behavior. Rock-star Ricky is a lot like Midget Mac, as my nickname was in high school. I was probably one of the smartest kids in all of my classes but I never really paid much attention to anything my teacher said. I was voted class clown in the senior bests, yet I graduated number one in my class, to 99% of my peers/friends surprise. I had other things on my mind, like this is so boring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, how do these kids STILL not get it? So I turned my attention to things I found more interesting, such as trying to see just how much I could get away with, how little I could do, and how many laughs I could get, without getting sent to the office and still maintain my 4.0 high school GPA. I was the student, like Rock-star Ricky, that teachers didn’t understand. They liked me but disliked my behavior. What Rock-star Ricky and I have in common is that the teachers are teaching WAY below what we find to be remotely challenging or interesting, and having a hyperactivity/attention problem we find other things to do to entertain ourselves.
NOT ME:
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Closed-off Kat is a quiet young man who seems to be withdrawn from the world. He wears all black clothing with black hair and he is very small for his age. He is picked for group projects often because he does most of the work. Closed-off Kat is very intelligent and scores well on tests and assignments. Yet, he rejects socializing with peers and puts his head down for most of the class. He prefers to learn from lectures and working individually. After observing this student now for three weeks I have yet to see him smile. I’ve tried my best to interact and communicate with Closed-off Kat but he is not open to the idea. Some teachers wish for quiet obedient students like these, I do not. Students that display this type of anti-social behavior scare me. I am not scared of students like this but I am scared for them. Closed-off Kat is NOT ME. I don’t understand him and don’t know how to make learning real for him. Is this the student that I might leave behind? I hope the neuroscience research can help me reach this student.
OTHER INTRIGUING SOMEBODY:
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Lovable Lonny is a young man who is small in stature and often wears baggy clothes. Lovable Lonny is an 11th grade student who cannot read or spell, and has troubles with writing. This creates a huge barrier to his learning in the health classroom. Often times he is put in a group where he is expected to do no work at all except be there for moral support. Lovable Lonny has told me that he has managed to make it to 11th grade doing virtually nothing and learning virtually nothing because every teacher passes him along to the next. Lovable Lonny has an IEP and he has a disability; unfortunately, Lovable Lonny seems to be falling through the cracks of the education system. Lovable Lonny is habitually late and disruptive in class. However, he is a kind young man that has had a rough life. Teachers that I have spoke to tell me that Lovable Lonny is a regular drug user and has been using for a long time. Although it is difficult to manage Lonny’s behavior, you can’t help but like him. Lonny responds well to positive reinforcement and informal redirection for his behavior, he responds extremely negatively towards yelling or punishment. One day while Lovable Lonny was in the Library, I saw him help a woman with a disability to reach papers that had fallen to the floor and she could not reach them. Although some teachers seem to have given up on Lovable Lonny, he has great potential. My cooperating teacher also told me that Lovable Lonny is extremely hard to motivate, he has the mentality that his life sucks and nothing will make it better. School is just something to get through and he doesn’t see the point to trying. Educational Neuroscience is going to be the key for reaching students like Lovable Lonny.
SO WHAT WILL I DO AS A TEACHER TO LEAVE NONE OF MY STUDENTS BEHIND?
Don’t rely on lecture, get students involved in their learning
Neuroscience is teaching us that what teachers have done for centuries to teach their students is ineffective; in essence lecture doesn’t work! It is impossible to teach students everything you want cover using lecture alone (Don’t Lecture Me, 2011). First of all, students can only attend to so much at a time. In fact students can only stay attentive for ten minutes before you start to lose them unless you hook them back in (Medina, 2008). Furthermore, research has shown that students can only hold seven pieces of information in their working memory plus or minus two (Shiv, 2011). So lecturing alone, without processing time is an ineffective strategy. Secondly, teachers in lectures often throw out fact after fact at the student, hoping that they will see the big picture at the end of the lesson. Instead, research is finding that the big picture is not found at the end of the lecture, of ever at all. Research suggests that we ought to teach the big picture first and the facts will follow. This will lead to a greater understanding of the topic (Don’t Lecture Me, 2011).
When I teach, I plan to use little lecture I want to teach in a reciprocal learning style where my class and I learn from each other and teach other. Research is also telling us that that experiencing learning paints a much more vivid memory in our minds because we have the picture mapped out in our brain to refer back to. These memories contain senses all at once instead of just a few at once that we would experience for example reading from a textbook or watching in a movie. Therefore they are “sense luscious” (Zull, 2002).To make sure I don’t leave behind any of my students including students like Rock-star Ricky, Closed-off Kat, and Lovable Lonny, I will try to have them experience learning first hand. For example, if I were to teach a unit on nutrition, I would have my students create and cook a healthy meal and defend why it is healthy using the food guide pyramid and my plate. When I assess my students learning, they would be able to remember what made up their healthy meal and why it was healthy by playing a movie theoretically in their brain; which would consist of the smells of the foods, touch of the foods, look of how the foods laid on the plate, and the sound of the food cooking, etc. So how would this work well for each of the students mentioned above?
Rock-star Ricky: Would be engaged and could create more difficult learning experiences for himself that would challenge his intellect, which would keep him interested and not bore him. For someone who is hyperactive, experiencing learning by doing it yourself is going to work better than lecture because you are allowing the student to use their “weaknesses” (hyperactivity) in the modern view of education, as strengths.
Closed-off Kat: would be working alone like he prefers to for his learning some of the time but he would have to pick up his head and participate during class discussions and activities. This would help improve his social skills and force him to communicate better with his peers. Closed-off Kat would be forced to engage in his own learning and may find a new interest in the topic because it is relatable and more real for him.
Lovable Lonny: would be work at his own pace with the help of a friend or guidance of a teacher. Lovable Lonny wouldn’t be able to fall through the cracks with this idea of experiencing learning because he would have to do it himself. This may be a challenge at first but it would help him raise his grades because he would remember the information better.
Appeal to multiple intelligences and give students choices
From neuroscience we’re learning that there is more to intelligence than what is measured on an IQ test. Often times we associate intelligence as only logical-mathematical and linguistic intelligence. However, Howard Gardner suggests that there are eight or more intelligences including linguistic, spacial, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. As a teacher I plan to incorporate each of these intelligences into my lessons. According to Gardner, “The more of an individual’s intelligences you can appeal to when making an argument, the more likely you are to change a person’s mind, and the more minds you are likely to change” (Gardner, 2004). As a health teacher, it is important that I can change a person’s mind. For example, many students believe that everyone is drinking alcohol in high school, so I will too. However if I could create a lesson that appeals to all of my students intelligences, I would be more likely to change their inaccurate beliefs and unhealthy lifestyle choices which is one of the goals of a health educator. Also, by allowing my students to use their different intelligences, I am allowing them to use their strengths to understand health. So what would this look like? For example, students are to create a project on tobacco. I would give my students the option to do whatever type of project they sought fit, giving them a grading rubric to follow. They could chose to write a song about tobacco (musical), they could write a paper about tobacco (linguistic), they could create a video (body-kinesthetic), they could work alone or with a partner (intrapersonal and interpersonal) etc. So often we push our students to use intelligences that may be their weakest and then write them off as not being smart. For example, which is better: the student who understands the topic wonderfully but cannot effectively write it into a paper or the student who doesn’t understand the topic much but is an excellent writer? I plan to grade my students on how deeply they understand the topic/content, and not so much on their abilities to use one’s intelligence.
Be sensitive and understanding
Neuroscience and research is telling us that there is a hierarchy of human needs, and as a teacher we must be sensitive to these needs. See illustration below:
Hierarchy of Human Needs (Maslow, 1943)
The way this pyramid works is, as humans, we all have physiological needs, and until these needs are met, we can’t begin to worry about the next step in the pyramid. So if a student hasn’t ate all weekend because their family can’t afford food, and you have that student first hour before lunch, that student is not going to be able to focus on anything you’re saying because they have a physiological need that needs to be met first. Often times students who don’t pay attention are thought to not care, but it is important to try to understand why they don’t seem to care. This also goes for inside the classroom; if a student has to use the bathroom, why make them wait? If they really have to go, they’re not going to focus on a thing you’re saying. Another thing that I plan to do as a teacher is to have granola bars available on my desk. If a student is hungry, they can come grab a bar off my desk and that may give them enough energy to get through a 50 minute lesson Going on to the next step in the pyramid is safety; students who have a home life in which they’re abused or are afraid, aren’t going to be coming to your class ready to learn, so it is important that I make my classroom a safe zone (Maslow, 1943). I will encourage diversity, discourage negative comments, and have a zero tolerance policy for bullying. Secondly, I plan to get to know my students really well. Building rapport is essential in a child feeling motivated and safe in your classroom. Both physiological and safety needs must be met before students will be able to learn. It is important that as a teacher I can help my students meet these needs. Doing all of these things is going to improve the classroom environment and improve everyone’s learning, even unique learners such as Rock-star Ricky, Closed-off Kat, and Lovable Lonny.
Be intentional
Student’s minds are still malleable when we get them in our classes, if we are still shaping their brains to what is important, make sure the work that we are giving and the information that we provide is intentional and purposeful (Doidge, 2007). This means that giving students busy work is not going to help them or improve their cognitive abilities. Instead it may tire them out, wear them down, and essentially hurt their well being. As a teacher I plan to work with teachers of other subjects to find out when their big assignments and tests are due, so that they are not having too many things due at once. I also plan to only assign homework that is meaningful, purposeful, and correlates to the goals and objectives of my lesson. This will be beneficial to all students including Rock-star Ricky, Closed-off Kat, and Lovable Lonny, because they will feel that school is purposeful, it has meaning, and isn’t just a bunch of work that relates back to nothing.