The Brain and learning methods

What?

This week during class we learned about the human brain. It was very interesting to relearn all of the different sections of the brain and how they funtion. It was interesting to me to learn that we do use one hundren percent of our brain. Throughout all of my anatomy, physcology, and community health courses it has been expressed to me that the human brain only uses about ten percent of it's capasity. It does make sense that a human would use one hundred percent of thier brain or else the parts not used would die. It was also interesting to know that there is no such thing as left or right brained people. During our discussion in class we talked about how the brain has plasticity. Plasticity of the brain allows the brain to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. We also talked about RAD teaching, which stands for Reticular Activating system, Amygdals, Dopamine. Reticular activating system which is part of the fight or flight system. The Amygdals which is for the emotion, and Dopamine which is a geel good neurotransmitter. It was also interesting to learn that the brain develops from the back to front, which explains why teenagers are so emotional and do not think rationaly at times.
Summarize what you learned that week through your reading and/or in-class experience. This summary should be fairly detailed, about 10-15 sentences, and should help you to review the most important points of that week’s topic. You may choose to reread and summarize your class notes here.

So What?

It is important for me as a future teacher to acknowledge that some students do have brain injuries which could impair them from learning the same as other students. In the future I will better understand that some students are using their full capasity of their brain and they still do not get the information I am trying to get across to them. I will know that maybe their brain has just not fully developed and they may not be ready to cope with such complex information yet. The information we learned about was for us to better understand where higher thinking comes from, which has a direct connection to education and how humans learn. Learing about the brain will help me be a better teacher, because knowing students brains are not fully developed and there is more emotional thinking being done than critical thinking. As a teacher I may be able to help students understand why they are so emotional and that they think it is the end of the world if they do not get asked out to the friday night dance.

Now What?

In the furture I will still need to have a better understanding of how the brain works in adolescence. I will need to see how certain methods of teaching are used such as the RAD method. As a future teacher I hope to teach students that they do use one hundred percent of their brains, and if they are not grasping information there may be a reason why. Such as they may have not developed that part of their brain yet. I hope to learn how to help students and myself to develop new pathways in their brains. It would be benificial not only to my students, but for myself as well. I hope to use the information I have learned in class this week to help me have a better understanding how students with brain injuries may have a harder time learning information.