Feeding the Zombies

The following teaching ideas come from the "Applying Brain Research: Ten Things the Brain Hates About School" chapter by Dr. Anne Decker and Ms. Lana Kirk. Special thanks to Mrs Stefanik, our elementary principal for passing this along. 

Viewpoints: Understanding the Issues that Shape Education Today (Saunders & Freemyer, 2010)

10. Unpleasant Physical Setting

• Unpleasant Smells
• Poor lighting
• Use peppermint and or lemon for building long term memory and recall.  This is while they are learning as well as when they test.  Lemons make great stress balls.
• Use ferns and palms in the classroom to clean the air and produce oxygen.

9. Lack of Music

• Music build and strengthens auditory, sensory, and visual neural connections.  So a silent classroom is not ideal.
• Play marches when you need to engage your students’ brains and music from the Baroque period that uses 60 beats a minute for calming students’ brains.

8. Lack of Movement

• Remember sitting still decreases the blood flow to the brain and it hinders learning. Move every seven minutes. 

7. Insufficient Food and Water

• Drinking caffeinated beverages is one contributor to some students being chronically dehydrated.
• The brain make up is only 2% of the total body weight, yet it uses 20% of the calories.
• A dehydrated brain will not function properly.
• The brain needs water and snacks (protein-rich) to work at its maximum capacity.

6. Lack of Creativity

• Brains need the freedom to set goals, express thoughts and ideas, and connect learning to the world around them.
• Brains require students to create and defend hypotheses.
• Teachers will build this into their lessons and not just feed information.

5. Reliance on Only One Memory Category

• Use of graphic organizers, chucking and strategies that allow students to restate or rephrase information allow for the most efficient use of memory.
• The brain processes the shape, color, size, pattern, texture, sound, taste, and odor all at the same time.

4. Lack of Emotional Content

• If students are anxious, depressed, or even angry, they do not receive information in an efficient way.
• Students need time set aside in the classroom to personally reflect on the information, relate it to personal experiences, and apply it to solve a problem, use it to evaluate a scenario, or create something new with it.
• Cooperative learning activities, models, metaphors, music, games, drama, storytelling, celebrations, and debates all increase the potential of emotional content in learning.

3. Lack of Relevancy

• Brain friendly teachers use relationships between disciplines, facilitate connections, and assist in building meaning to personal use of the material.

2. Lack of Active Learning

• Students are intrinsically, not extrinsically motivated.
• Students need problem-solving and cooperative learning activities to increase student intrinsic motivation.  Students need ownership.

1.Threat

• The brains first priority is to keep the body alive.  Any danger will keep all other information out.
• Provide a safe environment.  Do not use sarcasm, pop-quizzes, or threats.
• Provide routine.  Students need 15-20 rituals to feel secure.