BOOST YOUR CHILD’S BRAIN POWER

HOW BRAIN RESEARCHAPPLIES TO EARLY LEARNING

Tressa Parker The Bear Creek School

How is Your Child’s Brain Like a Garden?

Provide Rich Soil

•Need a healthy foundation for learning and memory building

•Cerebral Cortex—higher cognitive processing

•Enriching environment = thicker cortex

•Plasticity is the ability to rewire the brain with nourishment

Landscape Design: Improving Executive Function

• Cognitive Flexibility• Inhibitory Control

• Self-Control• Discipline/Perseverance

• Working Memory• Problem Solving• Reasoning• Planning

EXCELLENCE IS AN ART WON BY TRAINING AND HABITUATION. WE DO NOT ACT RIGHTLY BECAUSE WE HAVE VIRTUE OR EXCELLENCE, BUT WE RATHER HAVE THOSE BECAUSE WE HAVE ACTED RIGHTLY. WE ARE WHAT WE REPEATEDLY DO. EXCELLENCE, THEN, IS NOT AN ACT BUT A HABIT.

Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, 4th century BC

Fertilize• Capture attention• Children’s brains are engaged when they are actively involved in their learning

• Three dimensional experiences• Music, rhythm, and rhyme• Learning activities• Dramatic play• Talking

Water Appropriately

• Human brains learn best from familiar humans• Humans learn from Infant Directed Speech• Type of Speech Matters

• High encouragement, low discouragement• Sophisticated words• Praise for effort

• Humans learn from eye gaze• Humans learn through imitation• Humans learn from back and forth interaction• Humans learn by understanding emotion

Prune Carefully• Neurons that are not used are pruned away and die off

• From age 4-10 the brain is very active, learning which connections to keep and which to discard

• Learning a musical instrument or foreign language is much easier during this time

Encourage Branching• The brain can sprout new dendrites—grow new connections between neurons

• Enrichment brings increased branching of dendrites

• During the first 10 years there is much dendrite growth

Use the Right Tools

• Create a nurturing and mentally stimulating environment

• Provide a variety of opportunities• Exercise• Make sure your child gets plenty of sleep

Provide a Trellis• Activate prior knowledge• Use the five senses• Create emotional memory—Release of chemicals “marks” the experience as meaningful

• Help your child look for patterns• Read, read, read!

Establish Deep Roots• Long term memories—years to create• Attention• Review

• Repetition provides fixative• Vision

• Most powerful of the senses• 10% oral information remembered• 65% remembered if add picture

• Visual sense—takes up half of brain resources

Metacognition: Thinking About Thinking

• Organizing and retrieving information

• Reflecting on learning• Understanding that learning changes the structure of brain

• Effective use of praise

Effective Praise

Fixed Mindset Students

Believe Intelligence is set

Goal To look smart

Mistakes Proof they have lost their giftedness

Challenge Fearful: To try and fail = no longer smart

Difficult Task Give up

Praised for Being intelligent

Growth Mindset Students

Believe Brain is like a muscle

Goal To learn

Mistakes Problem to be solved

Challenge Excited: See as opportunity to learn

Difficult Task Work harder

Praised for Effort, process, persistence

Plant in Full Sun

• Use specific praise –focus on qualities or achievements that your child can control

• Talk to your child about how working harder makes his/herbrain stronger

• Show empathy• Emotional Regulation

The brain is wider than the sky. Emily Dickinson

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Psalm 139:14

Resources• Brain Rules, John Medina. Seattle, WA: Pear Press, 2008.• Brain Rules for Baby, John Medina. Seattle, WA: Pear Press, 2010. • Education on the Edge of Possibility, Geoffrey and Renate Nummela Caine.

Alexandria, VA:ASCD, 1997.• Endangered Minds: Why Our Children Don’t Think, Jane M. Healy. Simon and

Schuster, New York, 1990.• Magic Trees of the Mind, Marian Diamond and Janet Hopson. New York: Dutton,

1998.• Mind, Memory, and Learning, Pat Wolfe and M. Sorgen. Napa, CA.: Author, 1990.• Teaching with the Brain in Mind in Mind, Eric Jensen; Alexandria, VA:ASCD, 1998.• The Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn,

Alison Gopnik, Ph.D., Andrew N. Meltzoff, Ph.D., and Patricia K. Kuhl, Ph. New York, William Morrow and Co., 1999

• What's Going On in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life, Lise Eliot, Ph.D. New York, Bantam Books, 1999

Websites• www.brains.org• www.brainconnection.com• www.newhorizons.org• www.talaris.org• http://www.nymag.com/news/features/27840• ilabs.washigton.edu• devcogneuro.com